i7 4770K + 16 RAM + GTX 770 SLI bad performance

[ShredatorFIN]

Does the game even support SLI yet? I get slightly better frames if I turn it off. 

 

My complete setup: 

 

Win 8.1

Intel i7 4770K (no OC)  @ 3.5 GHz

2 x 8 Kingston HyperX DDR3 RAM 1600MHz

2 x ASUS GTX 770 DirectCU II OC 2 GB DDR5 SLI

ASUS Z87 Pro mobo

2 x Kingston HyperX SSD 120 Gt in RAID 0

2 Tt HDD

750 W power supply

Single IPS screen 

 

I can get solid 60 only with 1 vs 1 planes or similar. Turning off SLI makes my frames BETTER.

 

Enter a bigger battle, and I can dip as low as 15-20. What can I do about this? I read that some people can't reach solid 60 fps even on ridiculously expensive rigs? I just want solid 60 in all situations, even if I have to lower graphics. But currently I can't. It doesn't stay solid 60 even with lowest settings, AA off. 

 

I have tried with SLI disabled/enabled, vSync disabled/enabled, frame limit 60 disabled/enabled, with all settings and all combinations. Solid 50-60 is not happening.

Edited January 23, 2015 by ShredatorFIN

[Zettman]

Does the game even support SLI yet? I get slightly better frames if I turn it off. 

 

My complete setup: 

 

Win 8.1

Intel i7 4770K (no OC)  @ 3.5 GHz

2 x 8 Kingston HyperX DDR3 RAM 1600MHz

2 x ASUS GTX 770 DirectCU II OC 2 GB DDR5 SLI

ASUS Z87 Pro mobo

2 x Kingston HyperX SSD 120 Gt in RAID 0

2 Tt HDD

750 W power supply

Single IPS screen 

 

I can get solid 60 only with 1 vs 1 planes or similar. Turning off SLI makes my frames BETTER.

 

Enter a bigger battle, and I can dip as low as 15-20. What can I do about this? I read that some people can't reach solid 60 fps even on ridiculously expensive rigs? I just want solid 60 in all situations, even if I have to lower graphics. But currently I can't. It doesn't stay solid 60 even with lowest settings, AA off. 

 

I have tried with SLI disabled/enabled, vSync disabled/enabled, frame limit 60 disabled/enabled, with all settings and all combinations. Solid 50-60 is not happening.

 

S!

 

It does. Problem is the CPU, which is most likely your bottleneck. If you check the GPU usage with a tool like MSI Afterburner, you will see that your GPUs are not running on 100%. CPU can run below 100% but still be the bottleneck through, can't explain why but that is how it is.

 

It was the same for me as I switched from two GTX 670 to three GTX 780. I had no performance increase (at low altitudes, many things to render for the CPU). Later I found out that even my two GTX 670 were already bottlenecked by the CPU. Overclocking the CPU to 4.5 or higher gave me a noticeable FPS increase, but my GPUs are still far from 100% usage.

 

It currently is a problem for many of us who have multi GPU setups. The game is either very CPU demanding or not well optimized for it. It uses about 2-3 cores, so anything higher than a quad core CPU won't help either.

 

If it makes you feel better, even I can't reach constant 60 FPS when I overclock to 4.3 or 4.4 GHz.

 

Zettman

[ShredatorFIN]

How is the game with your i7 4820K @ 4.6 GHz? Can you run solid 60 fps with 1920x1080 resolution?

 

I have to say I'm kind of disappointed I don't think my comp is that bad, and it easily surpasses the recommended specs for this game. I ordered my first HOTAS flight stick (X55 Rhino) and got this game because I was certain that it will run well. Maybe I'm spoiled nowadays, when most games run easily solid 60. Battlefield 4 came out an year ago, and at the time was considered to be demanding game. I can run mostly above 100 fps maxed out. Suddenly in IL-2 I drop to 20 frames, even on lowest settings. Of course the level of physics is very different, BF4 is not a simulation and physics heavy games like IL-2 are more hard on CPU. But this is kinda depressing, maybe I will cancel my flight stick order (they are out of stock for now). I'm not used to playing games without 60 fps... I rather drop the detail to minimum and get 60 fps, than play on maximum and get 50 fps, but in BoS dropping the detail doesn't help.

 

Maybe I will overclock my CPU and get the extra cooling for that. But will it help that much? I mean, currently 15-20 frames, when enemies pass me. And detail on low, no anti-alias... Overclocking won't do any miracles, I presume.

Edited January 24, 2015 by ShredatorFIN

[SYN_Mike77]

wow, there is something wrong somewhere.  I never get down to 15-20 frames running on high or ultra and I don't have near the rig you have!

[Zettman]

How is the game with your i7 4820K @ 4.6 GHz? Can you run solid 60 fps with 1920x1080 resolution?

 

I have to say I'm kind of disappointed I don't think my comp is that bad, and it easily surpasses the recommended specs for this game. I ordered my first HOTAS flight stick (X55 Rhino) and got this game because I was certain that it will run well. Maybe I'm spoiled nowadays, when most games run easily solid 60. Battlefield 4 came out an year ago, and at the time was considered to be demanding game. I can run mostly above 100 fps maxed out. Suddenly in IL-2 I drop to 20 frames, even on lowest settings. Of course the level of physics is very different, BF4 is not a simulation and physics heavy games like IL-2 are more hard on CPU. But this is kinda depressing, maybe I will cancel my flight stick order (they are out of stock for now). I'm not used to playing games without 60 fps... I rather drop the detail to minimum and get 60 fps, than play on maximum and get 50 fps, but in BoS dropping the detail doesn't help.

 

Maybe I will overclock my CPU and get the extra cooling for that. But will it help that much? I mean, currently 15-20 frames, when enemies pass me. And detail on low, no anti-alias... Overclocking won't do any miracles, I presume.

 

Here are my tests of the i7 4820K @ 4.6 GHz on diffrent graphic settings: http://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/14201-some-fps-tests-second-try/?p=225046

Same tests with the i7 4960X on stock (so 4.0 GHz Trubo): http://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/14201-some-fps-tests-second-try/?p=224095

 

Keep in mind that both test were run with an 3440x1440 (21:9) resolution. FPS are also a bit better if I do not zoom out.

 

I can understand your disappointment, it was the same for me when I changed from my two GTX 670 to three GTX 780 and got no performance increase.

 

But Mike is right, 15-20 FPS is a bit two low for a i7 4770K which should still run on 3.9 GHz in Turbomode (stock settings) if you did not deactivate it in the BIOS. 

 

 

Zettman

Edited January 24, 2015 by Zettman

[ShredatorFIN]

Here are my tests of the i7 4820K @ 4.6 GHz on diffrent graphic settings: http://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/14201-some-fps-tests-second-try/?p=225046

Same tests with the i7 4960X on stock (so 4.0 GHz Trubo): http://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/14201-some-fps-tests-second-try/?p=224095

 

Keep in mind that both test were run with an 3440x1440 (21:9) resolution. FPS are also a bit better if I do not zoom out.

 

I can understand your disappointment, it was the same for me when I changed from my two GTX 670 to three GTX 780 and got no performance increase.

 

But Mike is right, 15-20 FPS is a bit two low for a i7 4770K which should still run on 3.9 GHz in Turbomode (stock settings) if you did not deactivate it in the BIOS. 

 

 

Zettman

 

What is weird to me is that SLI doesn't seem to respond or bring me FPS boost, even when I'm flying alone in Quick Mission. Frames are over 60 constatly (topping near 100), but disabling SLI from Nvidia Control Panel doesn't cost me any frames. It's feels like the game doesn't recognize SLI at all. But it does support SLI, right? CPU is bottlenecking frames that severely even without AI planes, that single 770 reaches the max fps?

 

Do you guys have default application settings in NVidia Control panel? 

Edited January 25, 2015 by ShredatorFIN

[Zettman]

CPU is bottlenecking frames that severely even without AI planes, that single 770 reaches the max fps?

 

Do you guys have default application settings in NVidia Control panel? 

 

S!

 

CPU is severely bottlenecking the FPS on the ground, you should be able to see difference at higher altitudes (3000+). At least that is what I think, haven't test it yet.

 

You can check if one GTX 770 is already bottleneck by the CPU by using a tool like MSI Afterburner. If the GPU usage is not at 95-100% than the CPU is the bottleneck.

 

All test done with Nvidia CP default settings.

 

Zettman

Edited January 25, 2015 by Zettman

[9./JG27golani79]

Are you sure the 4770k is a bottleneck?

 

I only have a 3770 and a single GTX 780 but I´m running the game just fine and I never get as low as 15-20 fps

 

Depending on the situation on the screen my GPU only goes up to 100% if there is a lot of smoke etc. - otherwise it´s running at ~50-60%

My CPU is running at ~40-50% and I get  between 50 and 60fps

[SYN_Mike77]

There might be some serious crap running in the background of your computer for you to get numbers like that. Try running a little ap called "End it All". I was doing some work for a little indy game company (MadMinute Games- American Civil War combat command simulator) and the programmer wanted us all to run with as clean a rig as we could for testing purposes. I was stunned at the results and download it onto ever computer I have owned since.

[Zettman]

Are you sure the 4770k is a bottleneck?

 

I only have a 3770 and a single GTX 780 but I´m running the game just fine and I never get as low as 15-20 fps

 

Depending on the situation on the screen my GPU only goes up to 100% if there is a lot of smoke etc. - otherwise it´s running at ~50-60%

My CPU is running at ~40-50% and I get  between 50 and 60fps

 

 

The time the GPU does not run at 100%, it is bottlenecked by the CPU. It doesn't work the other way round, a CPU that is not running at 100% doesn't mean it is bottlenecked by GPU or any another component. So a CPU running at 40% can still be bottlenecking other components, most likely your GPU. This can happen because the application does not use all your cores, so the CPU still has capacities that can not be used by the game.

 

The few times your GPU was running at 100% meant here the GPU was the bottleneck through.

 

To put it short:

 

GPU at 100%             -> GPU bottleneck

GPU below 95-100% -> CPU bottleneck

CPU at 100%             -> definitely a CPU bottleneck

CPU below 100%       -> can not tell, maybe still CPU bottleneck

 

Zettman

[ShredatorFIN]

I haven't made any further tests after my last post, I guess I gave up on it. I canceled my X55 Rhino order and uninstalled the game. I was planning to get into sim flying big time, and learn everything to be able to fly without assists. My not-so distant relative was an actual WW2 fighter pilot (who got shot down, after some aerial victories) so the idea of getting into IL-2 has always fascinated me.

 

I haven't overclocked my CPU but I'm not sure if it's worth the fuzz (I have no experience of overclocking), since this is the first game that I have problem running. Hard to believe that overclocking would bring me the extra 40 FPS I need to run at 60. For me, running games at 60 FPS is far more important than good graphics. I always drop detail option after option, until I get to 60, and stop there. Especially in games that involve fast movement like driving or flying. But if I drop momentarily below 30 on *lowest* settings and no AA, I don't think overclocking will do me any miracles. 

 

I recently reinstalled Win 8.1. My hard drives are almost empty, I never install useless crap on my comp, I'm very strict about it. So shouldn't be lot of processes. But I can try EndItAll and run the game, to see if that has any effect. 

 

What is weird to me, that in every other game I get similar performance with my friends, who have similar rigs. Even in physics heavy games, like Project Cars and Assetto Corsa I'm doing fine and can reach solid 60 with almost max settings, with 15-20 cars on track. Even on triple screen setup Assetto Corsa runs solid 60, almost maxed out. I presume flight physics are more complicated thing than car physics, but still seems odd to me.

 

But I will re-install IL-2 and try one more time.

Edited January 30, 2015 by ShredatorFIN

[9./JG27golani79]

Have you tried running the game on a single GPU?

 

Maybe there´s something wrong with SLI.

[ShredatorFIN]

Hey again!

 

I finally did some new testing, and had monitoring software open in 2nd screen for GPU and CPU. What is weird, that no matter what settings I use, GPU usage is never even close to 100%. Here is some test results. I did every test with the same Quick Mission, with 16 planes (2 x 4 on both sides). Default height and distance, nose to nose start. I wobbled my head around a lot and looked at other planes when they passed me by. I killed unnecessary processes with EndItAll application, before game.

 

- Single 1920 x 1080 screen 

- Ultra settings

- Vsync disabled

- No fps cap

- AA x4

- SLI enabled

 

Max GPU usage on neither of the GTX 770's doesn't even reach 40% at any point. It's 35-38% on both cards. Frames drop to 30 or little less momentarily, but go 60+ at some points. FPS jumps up and down all the time. Win 8 task manager says that:

 

- CPU is running between 3.68 - 3.86 GHz in game

- CPU usage between 28% and 34%

- 69 processes 

- Threads 908 

 

I don't know if some of this info is useful?

 

Anyway, I tried with similar settings but on LOW graphics and AA disabled. Similar results but GPU does even less work. I also did a test with single GPU, and disabled SLI from Nvdia Control Panel. Again GPU doesn't even go above 50% usage. (Low settings) CPU never exceeds 34% usage. Framerate is the same, dips to 20-30 at worst, half of the time goes higher than 60.

 

So it seems, that IL-2 BoS doesn't even use half of my GPU and about third of my CPU power? I did try with triple screen setup earlier, performance doesn't really change, I get similar FPS (mostly 60+ but dips to 30 and less) with triple screen. Haven't checked the GPU / CPU usage on that, though.

 

I kind of suspected that GPU isn't the problem, since I can run Project Cars with ultra settings and 4x downsampling, with no problem reaching solid 60+ fps. Project Cars has quite complicated physics and the graphics are very realistic.

Edited February 14, 2015 by ShredatorFIN

[Zettman]

S!

 

It is normal that the CPU won't reach 100% during games, cause they won't create enough threads to keep all cores busy. BoS uses about 2-3 cores. To allow the game to use more cores, the developers would have to split the threads into smaller ones (parallelism), but that is difficult.

 

GPUs on the other hand will run on 100% if they are not limited by the CPU. So I would say this is a CPU limit. Still the FPS are very low, so it could be something else that is not working correctly.

 

Zettman

[Urra]

For what it's worth. I've been ticked off enough at the low gpu usage to try a ramdrive. It gets the gpu to 100%. But the frame rates still jump around , even down to 23fps, when there are too many ground units loaded And you have the little red blue dots or nametags on The screen.

[Urra]

Good thing about the above approach is it made the amount of cloud cover and black smoke irrelevent for me, bad part is it the calculations needed to track other units are not sped up. That's my over simplified impression after testing.

[Zettman]

Good thing about the above approach is it made the amount of cloud cover and black smoke irrelevent for me, bad part is it the calculations needed to track other units are not sped up. That's my over simplified impression after testing.

 

Ram drive you say? Guess I will try that too (nothing else to do with my RAM). What program are you using?

 

Zettman

[Urra]

I believe it was this version.

 

page is : http://www.ltr-data.se/opencode.html/

 

or direct download: http://www.ltr-data.se/files/imdiskinst.exe 

 

for version 1.9.2.

 

Once installed click on RamDisk Configuration icon on desktop.  Select program location in Advanced tab, "Load Content from image or file folder...".  I made an extra copy of the game from which I load in my documents folder first, for the ramdrive automatically.

 

At the moment game is only 5.1GB, so drive of 6GB size will do.

 

My simple GPU test was to belly land in open field between train and airfield in Stalingrad in QMB while enabling all available ground units.  Sit in cockpit and look around while check GPU usage. Mine went to 99% at times, depending on where I was looking at. I can't get this result without the drive, so it seems like an improvement.

[ShredatorFIN]

What kind of CPU / GPU would I need to run the game with rock-solid 60 frames (regardless of situation)? Is my GTX 770 2GB DDR5 SLI sufficient? I have 16 GB of RAM so I might use a RAM disk too, but it won't solve the main problem.

 

Resolution I would be using is 1920 x 1080 (or 5760 x 1080 if possible)

Edited February 15, 2015 by ShredatorFIN

[Urra]

I just did some tweaking and auto-tuned the processor for max performance via Intel Software that shipped with my board.  I previously manually set the overclocking and left some memory voltages too low for the frequency I wanted.  After the automatic tuning it appears to run better, but no cigar on the constant 60fps.

Although with two 760 cards in SLI / 2560x1440 I cant get below 50 frames in QMB or the Syndicate server anymore even 5 meters off the ground, but still hover around 30fps on the OperationsTest server.  You should be perfrectly fine with 770 card and 1920x1080 and ramdisk.  The trick seems to be to get boost processor speed up as high as possible for me - I'm at 4.27Ghz, -after that everything overheats.   Given my results over the past two days, it seems 4.8Ghz and a four core processor might be good enough to get there 99% of the time, but it won't be with my current board and processor for sure. Zettman is certainly a lot closer to achieving this with his 4.6Ghz rig! ~...time to borrow some money...

[ShredatorFIN]

Actually I get to pretty nice FPS, if I don't choose Stalingrad, but some other rural battleground with no buildings. In fact I did all my prior testing in above Stalingrad, funny that it didn't occur to me earlier.

 

I still can't maintain solid 60 with 16 planes, but it's a lot better in rural maps. 4 vs 4 and 6 vs 6 runs fine. Got a X55 Rhino HOTAS and also Cliffs of Dover + TF patches. Weirdly CLOD doesn't have any problem with big battles with lot of planes. Too bad it doesn't support SLI and triple screen isn't running very smoothly. BoS runs very well with 5760 x 1080, but amount of planes is stressing CPU while in CLOD adding more planes is not nearly as expensive.

 

So now I'm set, now just need to learn to fly. Already spent hours reading tutorials and flight manuals, very interesting stuff.

[Zmaj76]

The problem lays in locked video options. No possiblity to fine tune the performance/looks. SSAO is the option which is locked and hits rigs heavily.

[401Whi5tler]

This happens alot where people think about hardware as a culprit.  your hardware is fine.

 

you say that you installed Win8.1,  but know that Windows installs its compatibility drivers for your chipset when installing first time. lots of people just leave those, since they work fine.  but theyre not designed for power-use like a sim-gamer might need.

 

find, and download, the motherboard's chipset drivers,  the CPU drivers from intel, the sound-card's drivers, and the latest DirectX drivers available.  these are hardware-accelerated.

[Zettman]

This happens alot where people think about hardware as a culprit.  your hardware is fine.

 

you say that you installed Win8.1,  but know that Windows installs its compatibility drivers for your chipset when installing first time. lots of people just leave those, since they work fine.  but theyre not designed for power-use like a sim-gamer might need.

 

find, and download, the motherboard's chipset drivers,  the CPU drivers from intel, the sound-card's drivers, and the latest DirectX drivers available.  these are hardware-accelerated.

 

 

S!

 

The only Intel Drivers I can find for Win 8 are for the inegrated HD Grahpicchip. Couldn't find any for a CPU. And aren't DirectX drivers (version 9 for BoS) installed with the game itself?

 

Zettman

[FuriousMeow]

You need to make sure you install the motherboard drivers from your motherboard manufacturer. There aren't CPU drivers. DX is installed, but occasionally re-running setup will resolve some issues.

 

But.. "Win8" is probably the real problem.

[Zettman]

You need to make sure you install the motherboard drivers from your motherboard manufacturer. There aren't CPU drivers. DX is installed, but occasionally re-running setup will resolve some issues.

 

But.. "Win8" is probably the real problem.

 

S!

 

That is king of mandatory. All motherboard drivers are up to date. I don't think Win 8 is a problem anymore, it may was as it was new and most drivers were only 'beta' drivers.

 

Zettman

[damhan]

This game runs everything through one ancient rusted pipe line called Dx9. It has an 'enable sli' option that does nothing and an old school 'preset' gfx menu. Massive 'face palm' purchase at full price, it feels like an alpha.

Edited March 26, 2015 by damhan