# Intel EIST disabled/enabled



## Tibor Hazafi (Feb 14, 2017)

Hi all,
My simple question is that would I reach smoother fps in games, if I turn off intel EIST technology in BIOS?
I have a haswell i5 CPU with GTX 980 and the fps drops make me really upset.


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## R-T-B (Feb 14, 2017)

Generally?  No.  It used to be true that disabling it helped in OCing, but that isn't even really the case anymore.


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## Tibor Hazafi (Feb 14, 2017)

R-T-B said:


> Generally?  No.  It used to be true that disabling it helped in OCing, but that isn't even really the case anymore.


Then I don't know what should I do. I have fps drops (from 60 to 50) in almost every game.

-Power management in Control Panel set to High Performance
-All the temperatures are fine (~60 °C)
-Every CPU/GPU settings are default
-Only MSI Afterburner + Rivatuner run at the background (+ Eset Smart Security with Game mode)


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## R-T-B (Feb 14, 2017)

What games and what resolution/settings?  It may be normal for your specifications depending on the title and res/settings.


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## Toothless (Feb 14, 2017)

Are you sure your i5 is bottlenecking? Quite a few people use i5s with even 1080s with no issues.


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## Tibor Hazafi (Feb 14, 2017)

R-T-B said:


> What games and what resolution/settings?  It may be normal for your specifications depending on the title and res/settings.



Generally I play at 1920*1080@60Hz and High settings (with AA and V-Sync ON). At the moment I play Battlefield 1 with High preset, but there are fps drops with Normal preset as well. But the interesting thing is that only on specific maps. Some mission is smooth as butter. The former game I played was Watch Dogs (fullHD - Normal/High) in which I got constant fps drops especially while I was driving.



Toothless said:


> Are you sure your i5 is bottlenecking? Quite a few people use i5s with even 1080s with no issues.



I don't know. I wish I knew what's the problem.


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## basco (Feb 14, 2017)

Vsync=off


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## wurschti (Feb 14, 2017)

basco said:


> Vsync=off



That would be my suggestion as well


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## Tibor Hazafi (Feb 14, 2017)

basco said:


> Vsync=off





3rold said:


> That would be my suggestion as well



But what if I hate screen tearing? :/
And sadly there are noticeable fps drops even with disabled V-Sync (for example from 120 to 70).
I think it's a simple software setting (but what?) or maybe some kind of hardware failure.


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## basco (Feb 14, 2017)

if your videocard cannot hold 60fps then it goes to 30 .......
i understand that you dont want tearing but in multiplayer shooter you really should disable vsync-it could lead to mouselags too.
there is a setting called resolution scale in %- did you play with that

maybe get 8gb ram more-cannot find the test where they said its better with 16gb

and do you have something running in background or only the game


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## Tibor Hazafi (Feb 14, 2017)

basco said:


> if your videocard cannot hold 60fps then it goes to 30 .......
> i understand that you dont want tearing but in multiplayer shooter you really should disable vsync-it could lead to mouselags too.
> there is a setting called resolution scale in %- did you play with that
> 
> maybe get 8gb ram more



I hope the newest games have hidden/inbuilt triple buffering algorithm for this problem. I really hope..
Maybe I should try adaptive V-Sync via Nvidia Control Panel. But it doesn't work in every games either.

What can resolution scale help?


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## basco (Feb 14, 2017)

i just asked if you changed that setting because its like playing on higher resolution
and there is a setting gpu memory restriction-you could set that to on

and yes try adaptiv
which windows version are you on?


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## EarthDog (Feb 14, 2017)

EIST, etc..have nothing to do with it your frame drops.

Run adaptive, absolutely.

That said, I don't see what the problem is... the card simply can't hold 60 fps and drops down.. completely normal for your settings and the game you mention.


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## wurschti (Feb 14, 2017)

Tibor Hazafi said:


> I hope the newest games have hidden/inbuilt triple buffering algorithm for this problem. I really hope..
> Maybe I should try adaptive V-Sync via Nvidia Control Panel. But it doesn't work in every games either.
> 
> What can resolution scale help?



I advise then too to try adaptive sync. AMD has a better option which controls fps output, but I don't know about Nvidia. Try also playing with your settings a bit. Also keep in mind that drops and shitty responsiveness is more apparent with V-sync on.
other than that I don't know what to say, that is your use case and you could try some mixed settings in the graphics menu of the game, like disabling AA and increasing the resolution scaling. Tinker with them till you find the settings that work for you


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## droopyRO (Feb 14, 2017)

Subscribe to what has been said about 8GB of RAM and adaptive vsync, you could try a 144Hz monitor if you hate tearing.


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## Tibor Hazafi (Feb 14, 2017)

basco said:


> i just asked if you changed that setting because its like playing on higher resolution
> and there is a setting gpu memory restriction-you could set that to on
> 
> and yes try adaptiv
> which windows version are you on?



No, I haven't changed the default advanced settings (except the preset), so resolution scale is set to 100%, and memory restriction is ON.
I use Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 64-bit.



EarthDog said:


> EIST, etc..have nothing to do with it your frame drops.
> 
> Run adaptive, absolutely.
> 
> That said, I don't see what the problem is... the card simply can't hold 60 fps and drops down.. completely normal for your settings and the game you mention.



Seriously? I think a GTX 980 could handle this game smoothly at fullHD @ Normal preset. Maybe I'm wrong. And then what about Watch Dogs? It's almost a 3 years old game, and it drops as well even on Normal settings.



3rold said:


> I advise then too to try adaptive sync. AMD has a better option which controls fps output, but I don't know about Nvidia. Try also playing with your settings a bit. Also keep in mind that drops and shitty responsiveness is more apparent with V-sync on.
> other than that I don't know what to say, that is your use case and you could try some mixed settings in the graphics menu of the game, like disabling AA and increasing the resolution scaling. Tinker with them till you find the settings that work for you



Thanks, I will try.



droopyRO said:


> Subscribe to what has been said about 8GB of RAM and adaptive vsync, you could try a 144Hz monitor if you hate tearing.



I wish I had one


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## basco (Feb 14, 2017)

for example:
try to play with antialising post + ambient occlusion

and there is a big diff between multiplayer and single

and watch dogs is a case of its own:
http://hothardware.com/news/optimization-tips-and-tricks-for-watch-dogs


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## EarthDog (Feb 14, 2017)

Slightly under 60 fps isn't smooth?? It depends on the title..you mentioned all games I play. Many games with a 980 won't hold 60 fps minimum at 1080p.


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## newtekie1 (Feb 14, 2017)

Are you games running off your HDD?  I know in Watch Dogs, during the driving, the HDD can be the limiting factor because it can't keep up with streaming the textures as fast as they are needed.  I wouldn't be surprised if the same issue is true with some of the maps of BF1.


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## Toothless (Feb 14, 2017)

Some games just run like ass because they're made by assholes.


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## brandonwh64 (Feb 14, 2017)

I played BF1 on a GTX 970 and a i7 2600K on ultra without frame drops so I do not see why his 980 cannot


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## EarthDog (Feb 14, 2017)

Where was your 2600K overclocked to? I would guess well above his locked 3.2GHz? I'd imagine 4.5GHz+ being a 2600K. That 1.3Ghz difference MORE than makes up for the 10-15% IPC differences between SB and Haswell.


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## Tibor Hazafi (Feb 14, 2017)

basco said:


> for example:
> try to play with antialising post + ambient occlusion
> 
> and there is a big diff between multiplayer and single
> ...



I play the campaign.



EarthDog said:


> Slightly under 60 fps isn't smooth?? It depends on the title..you mentioned all games I play. Many games with a 980 won't hold 60 fps minimum at 1080p.



Constant 50 fps wouldn't be a problem. But the drops from 60 to 50 are very noticeable and annoying (for me).



newtekie1 said:


> Are you games running off your HDD?  I know in Watch Dogs, during the driving, the HDD can be the limiting factor because it can't keep up with streaming the textures as fast as they are needed.  I wouldn't be surprised if the same issue is true with some of the maps of BF1.



I have an SSD with the OS, and an HDD with the games.


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## FYFI13 (Feb 14, 2017)

droopyRO said:


> Subscribe to what has been said about 8GB of RAM and adaptive vsync, you could try a 144Hz monitor if you hate tearing.


I'm playing BF1 with 8 gigs of RAM without any issues. Fast sync on, 75Hz and constant 75fps. My cousin playing this game with i5 + GTX970 and also struggling with FPS drops. Perhaps CPU is holding back in both cases?


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## EarthDog (Feb 14, 2017)

Tibor Hazafi said:


> Constant 50 fps wouldn't be a problem. But the drops from 60 to 50 are very noticeable and annoying (for me).


turn off the frame counter...


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## Kanan (Feb 14, 2017)

On some maps the game (bf1) has a beefier cpu requirement, I guess that's why he has some fps drops. Solution is, switch to a i7 4770k or 4790k. Or live with it, much less costly.


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## alucasa (Feb 14, 2017)

EarthDog said:


> turn off the frame counter...



Seconded.


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## eidairaman1 (Feb 14, 2017)

Tibor Hazafi said:


> Then I don't know what should I do. I have fps drops (from 60 to 50) in almost every game.
> 
> -Power management in Control Panel set to High Performance
> -All the temperatures are fine (~60 °C)
> ...



It's just you...


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## MrGenius (Feb 14, 2017)

EarthDog said:


> turn off the frame counter...





alucasa said:


> Seconded.


x3


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## FYFI13 (Feb 14, 2017)

Oh, since you're happy with 50fps - use MSI Afterburner to cap fps for BF1 at 50. Gameplay will become much smoother.


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## cdawall (Feb 14, 2017)

So you are calling a dip to 50FPS bad? LOL


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## mobiuus (Feb 14, 2017)

go to nvidia control panel and  then  manage 3d settings, then program settings and choose battlefield 1 profile....
then under the optios pick power managment mode and switch to prefer maximum performance
try that vith v sync off in nvidia control panel and ingame just try it


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## phanbuey (Feb 14, 2017)

60 to 50 is bad if you have vsync on... since then its really 60 to 30; which sucks.

Nothing you can do except lower settings until you don't get the drops.


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## EarthDog (Feb 14, 2017)

Not if he uses adaptive.


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## phanbuey (Feb 14, 2017)

EarthDog said:


> Not if he uses adaptive.


but then you lose the silky smoothness

in all honesty though... FPS games and vsync bad... very bad.  Might as well play on a controller.


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## therealmeep (Feb 15, 2017)

MrGenius said:


> x3


 x4
From everything I've seen BF1 benefits more from having 8< gigs of RAM, sorta like how Doom was running on sub 8 gigs


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## Tibor Hazafi (Feb 15, 2017)

For everyone who advise me to turn off the FPS counter: The drops are very *visible* (and rather annoying with an expensive PC) without it as well. The point *isn't* on a number in the corner.


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## wurschti (Feb 15, 2017)

Tibor Hazafi said:


> I have an SSD with the OS, and an HDD with the games.



You could try reinstalling the game on the SSD just for testing. I believe you would experience faster loading times and less hiccups here and there. Maybe it would help you get rid of the problem. I tried this on ARK because that game is a piece of shit and the frames were much more constant.


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## droopyRO (Feb 15, 2017)

FYFI13 said:


> I'm playing BF1 with 8 gigs of RAM without any issues. Fast sync on, 75Hz and constant 75fps. My cousin playing this game with i5 + GTX970 and also struggling with FPS drops. Perhaps CPU is holding back in both cases?


Are you both running the game off SSD's ? also try monitoring the RAM and vRAM usage while playing with a tool like MSI Afterbuner OSD.
I quit playing Battlefield at BF4, but played beta of BF1 with no problems on my rig.


3rold said:


> You could try reinstalling the game on the SSD just for testing. I believe you would experience faster loading times and less hiccups here and there. Maybe it would help you get rid of the problem. I tried this on ARK because that game is a piece of shit and the frames were much more constant.


HDD are for storage or low budgets, i run all my games/programs from SSD for years. Last time i tried TW: Warhammer from a HDD(for benchmarking) and the load times were long, moved it to a SSD, much better.


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## FYFI13 (Feb 15, 2017)

droopyRO said:


> Are you both running the game off SSD's ? also try monitoring the RAM and vRAM usage while playing with a tool like MSI Afterbuner OSD.


Not sure about OP but mine is installed on SSD. My cousin has it on HDD. VRAM usage is fairly low, around 3 gigs. RAM usage does climb up to 7.8GB but no frame drops whatsoever.


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## brandonwh64 (Feb 15, 2017)

EarthDog said:


> Where was your 2600K overclocked to? I would guess well above his locked 3.2GHz? I'd imagine 4.5GHz+ being a 2600K. That 1.3Ghz difference MORE than makes up for the 10-15% IPC differences between SB and Haswell.



I had it set at 4.3Ghz


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## EarthDog (Feb 15, 2017)

MORE than makes up for the IPC difference.


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## eidairaman1 (Feb 15, 2017)

Tibor Hazafi said:


> For everyone who advise me to turn off the FPS counter: The drops are very visible (and rather annoying with an expensive PC) without it as well. The point isn't on a number in the corner.


It's just you


FYFI13 said:


> Not sure about OP but mine is installed on SSD. My cousin has it on HDD. VRAM usage is fairly low, around 3 gigs. RAM usage does climb up to 7.8GB but no frame drops whatsoever.



I'm unaware of what win10 occupies on ram, but i know 7 64bit occupies 2.6-3GB alone.


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## FYFI13 (Feb 15, 2017)

eidairaman1 said:


> I'm unaware of what win10 occupies on ram, but i know 7 64bit occupies 2.6-3GB alone.


After cold boot it takes ~1.2GB, after some use it settles at ~1.5GB. I might get another 8 gigs of RAM when 64-bit Arma client comes out. I'll see then if it makes any difference in BF1, although it runs super smooth for me already.


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## EarthDog (Feb 15, 2017)

Tibor Hazafi said:


> For everyone who advise me to turn off the FPS counter: The drops are very *visible* (and rather annoying with an expensive PC) without it as well. The point *isn't* on a number in the corner.


Well, if you insist on running with vsync, then it is what it is unless you get a better card, or lower some settings so it stays above 60 fps. Or use adaptive vsync as there isn't a dramatic drop as there is with regular vsync. 

This is the bed you made with your requirements/needs and will sleep in it until something changes.


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## eidairaman1 (Feb 15, 2017)

FYFI13 said:


> After cold boot it takes ~1.2GB, after some use it settles at ~1.5GB. I might get another 8 gigs of RAM when 64-bit Arma client comes out. I'll see then if it makes any difference in BF1, although it runs super smooth for me already.



Im on 16Gib, states like 14Gib is available for me under 7


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## alucasa (Feb 15, 2017)

This is what happens when a guy gets obsessed with numbers instead of a game he is kind of trying to play.

This is also why PC gamers are sometimes referred as frame rate readers instead of just being called gamers. What's even sadder is that he has the solution, yet chooses not to evoke it.


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## eidairaman1 (Feb 15, 2017)

alucasa said:


> This is what happens when a guy gets obsessed with numbers instead of a game he is kind of trying to play.
> 
> 
> This is also why PC gamers are sometimes referred as frame rate readers instead of just being called gamers. What's even sadder is that he has the solution, yet chooses not to evoke it.



This is typical, he creates his own problems. Reminds me of 2 others too.


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## RejZoR (Feb 15, 2017)

Turning off EIST will do exactly nothing for your performance. It just scales CPU clock and voltage depending on load. Which in games basically means 100% available clock at all times anyway. What will affect your performance even full utilization are C states. You see, CPU, even when under full load can independently shut off parts of the processor to save power. It can push unused or underutilized cores into sleep to save power even during utilization. Sometimes, it behaves funny and causes CPU to prefer power saving over performance, especially when waking up cores and other parts of CPU cause delays which in games quickly result in frame time issues. In most cases people don't even notice it, but in certain games, it can cause problems. Forcing CPU to go only to max C1 state should help, but you can also turn it off entirely. EIST is what gives you the most power saving, C states are just extra on top.


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## eidairaman1 (Feb 15, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> Turning off EIST will do exactly nothing for your performance. It just scales CPU clock and voltage depending on load. Which in games basically means 100% available clock at all times anyway. What will affect your performance even full utilization are C states. You see, CPU, even when under full load can independently shut off parts of the processor to save power. It can push unused or underutilized cores into sleep to save power even during utilization. Sometimes, it behaves funny and causes CPU to prefer power saving over performance, especially when waking up cores and other parts of CPU cause delays which in games quickly result in frame time issues. In most cases people don't even notice it, but in certain games, it can cause problems. Forcing CPU to go only to max C1 state should help, but you can also turn it off entirely. EIST is what gives you the most power saving, C states are just extra on top.



I wonder if a core unparking utility needs to be ran.


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## phanbuey (Feb 15, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> Turning off EIST will do exactly nothing for your performance. It just scales CPU clock and voltage depending on load. Which in games basically means 100% available clock at all times anyway. What will affect your performance even full utilization are C states. You see, CPU, even when under full load can independently shut off parts of the processor to save power. It can push unused or underutilized cores into sleep to save power even during utilization. Sometimes, it behaves funny and causes CPU to prefer power saving over performance, especially when waking up cores and other parts of CPU cause delays which in games quickly result in frame time issues. In most cases people don't even notice it, but in certain games, it can cause problems. Forcing CPU to go only to max C1 state should help, but you can also turn it off entirely. EIST is what gives you the most power saving, C states are just extra on top.



I have found this to be true - mostly with the older setups ivy bridge but I think it may also apply to the newer chips.  Disabling C states used to give me a boost in FPS and also dropped my memory latency on my 1150 setup.


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## eidairaman1 (Feb 15, 2017)

phanbuey said:


> I have found this to be true - mostly with the older setups ivy bridge but I think it may also apply to the newer chips.  Disabling C states used to give me a boost in FPS and also dropped my memory latency on my 1150 setup.



Sounds to me there is always a tradeoff, performance or green. I guess that is why I turned off all power saving functions in my desktop when I overclocked the Cpu and ram...


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## Kanan (Feb 17, 2017)

Tibor Hazafi said:


> For everyone who advise me to turn off the FPS counter: The drops are very *visible* (and rather annoying with an expensive PC) without it as well. The point *isn't* on a number in the corner.


A friend of mine had FPS drops with a i5 4670K at 4.1 GHz using a 980 Ti as well, changing the CPU with a i7 4790K solved his problems and also increased maximum FPS for him. Simply do it, it's not a buy you can regret at all. i5's, especially the low clocked one's, aren't the best gaming CPUs now, I'd say a high clocked i5 is the absolute minimum for a highend gaming PC and is still worse compared to an i7 of the same gen because Hyper Threading (or having more than just 4 threads) now pays off. The best gaming CPUs are 6 to 10 cores now anyway. That all said, BF1 uses all the 12 threads my i7 3960X has at 4.5 GHz on one particular map at almost 100% util and it has still high usage on all the other maps, like 60-80%.


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## kn00tcn (Feb 17, 2017)

this thread is insane, i dont want to bother quoting everyone

vsync being double buffered on an AAA game like battlefield? the same battlefield that has always had triple buffering since bc2? come on... how many modern games DONT have triple buffering? 50 is obviously not 30 either, so what kind of useless 'turn off vsync' reply is that

bf1 uses more than 4 threads, this is confirmed by some sites & i have witnessed it in person on a stock 2500k + gtx970... the gpu was only 60% usage & full of stutters in multiplayer! (all four cpu cores 90-100% each)

why didnt OP monitor cpu+gpu+vram+ram usage? you do not think about very specific tweaks until actually knowing where to tweak in the first place (but of course, the easiest & most performant answer is to overclock if you dont want to turn down in game settings)

now since it's a simple bios setting, could have tried it to see if there's an effect before asking

edit: actually, suggesting max perf in nvcp or in bios is also wrong, you dont do that until you proved the clockspeeds have been dipping


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## MrGenius (Feb 17, 2017)

A dip from 60 to 50 fps is NOT visible. I don't care who you are. You would never know it was happening without a frame counter telling you it was.


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## basco (Feb 17, 2017)

@kn00tcn 
i thought tripple buffer is openGL only or are you suggesting d3dovverrider.

or what is your conclusion- if i told bullshites i am open for suggestions but from your post all i see is you have to overclock?


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## FYFI13 (Feb 17, 2017)

MrGenius said:


> A dip from 60 to 50 fps is NOT visible. I don't care who you are. You would never know it was happening without a frame counter telling you it was.


I couldn't tell a difference between 60 and 50 fps just by looking at the monitor, but i could easily feel it, in some games at least. In Arma 3 such a drop makes gameplay quite choppy, mouse movements becomes less smooth. Though, i got over 2000 hours in this game and i know it better than my own bedroom


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## Tibor Hazafi (Feb 17, 2017)

MrGenius said:


> A dip from 60 to 50 fps is NOT visible. I don't care who you are. You would never know it was happening without a frame counter telling you it was.



OK.


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## Artas1984 (Feb 19, 2017)

Tibor Hazafi, if you truly want to find out the cause of FPS stuttering, run sequential tests in no less than 5 different games. In each of them do a benchmark of a fixed time and repeat it five times no less. 

Report does that stuttering repeat in every game or just in single game or just in a few games? Report if the stuttering disappears after the second same sequence test.

Enable virtual memory, set manual SSD cashing with no less than 8 GB space, run those tests again.


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## Tibor Hazafi (Feb 20, 2017)

I have set RenderDevice.RenderAheadLimit to 2 in the console, and everything is smooth like butter now.


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## kn00tcn (Feb 22, 2017)

MrGenius said:


> A dip from 60 to 50 fps is NOT visible. I don't care who you are. You would never know it was happening without a frame counter telling you it was.


you are... making up bs, seriously, no personal offense, but offense to this concept (did you forget all the multi gpu stuttering issues of the past? the framecounters did not actually show any problem, the human brain/eye does, therefore you know it's happening & any counter you add is merely confirmation)

ANYTHING inconsistent is noticable, which means... on a 60hz monitor, not having 60fps will stutter or tear, this includes 59 or 61fps, any direction up or down not aligned to the refresh

on a freesync or gsync monitor, such stutters are eliminated & now a variable framerate will be less noticable, but still technically there

if you're always dipping between 50 to 60, then you framecap to 50, especially on freesync or gsync, now everything is good & consistent

obviously what's visually happening in the game will have a different effect, so the smoothly side scrolling backgrounds in sine mora will be painfully obvious when any minor stutter appears, while crysis will be less obvious since mouse aim is jerky by nature along with all the foliage moving around on screen



basco said:


> @kn00tcn
> i thought tripple buffer is openGL only or are you suggesting d3dovverrider.
> 
> or what is your conclusion- if i told bullshites i am open for suggestions but from your post all i see is you have to overclock?


triple buffering is a concept that developers can choose to enable, a standard part of most engines & graphics APIs

as you know, the user can also force it on ogl in the driver control panels or with d3doverrider as an additional option as needed, but many games support TB already (there was a string of unreal3 ones that didnt a few years ago in particular, i've also noticed it happen more often on nvidia, so eventually some people assumed vsync sucks)

double buffering is the problem concept, which results in that mathematically divisible drop to 30, but nobody should accept this, not game devs, not the user, unless input latency is a great concern & the hardware is capable of outputting fps well over refresh (at which point, just do adaptive vsync so that you tear below refresh instead of totally dropping to 30)


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