Jac

So I've just bought my system a long overdue upgrade - a gtx 460. I also got another copy of Crysis to put it through it's paces.

Installed the card, installed drivers package 260.99, installed the game, patched the game to 1.2 and started playing.

It's laggy as hell! I played through this game on my old 9600GT and got a better feeling of fluidity. Now the game is reporting an FPS of around +/- 30fps at 1440x900 so I'm confused as to why this is happening.

I had the Crysis demo installed to check my old 9600GT before I sell it and unistalled that just before I put the full version on - that seemed to run much better. I have noticed a few 'flash errors' in the console, cannot find grenadefx.gfx etc.

Any ideas before I start tinkering with eveything?

blibbax

Have you tried 3d mark or similar to see if your system is in the right ballbark? Errors in Crysis suggest a problem with the installation, so perhaps your system is slightly unstable? Prime 95 to check...

Also, I am thinking that that PC as it is now is likely to be somewhat CPU bottleknecked, especially at 1440x900. Mine very much is, with only slightly less CPU processing power and about half the GPU. Don't expect to be able to fling all the settings on maximum just because you have a flashy new GPU :P

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Jac

I'm thinking installation too.

Like I said the demo version ran much better on my 9600GT but otherwise the same system. The game seems weird, like the AI is missing and every now and then things will just disappear. I'm doing a re-install but this time not doing a custom installation.

BlueMak

Did you uninstall the demo before installing the game?
Did you install the graphics drivers after installing the new card?
Did you reboot after doing so?

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

MIG-31

I have recently went from a GTX260 (896mb) to a GTX460 (768mb) myself.. And crysis (Once fully loaded) plays fine....

But i did fully remove the drivers before inserting the new card.. It may not work but a fresh install of the drivers might work... Just worth a try.

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Jac

So far I have defragged the install drive. Re-installed the game. Updated DirectX. Re-installed the graphics driver with a fresh install. Updated the game. Tried in both x64 & x32. Tried with vsync on and off. Tried different power schemes. Still it's laggy. I've even gone to a native 16:9 resolution (1600x900).

There's something odd happening here. I don't believe a new GFX card would make performance worse and like I said, the FPS indicator looks pretty good.

I'm gonna try a fresh Win7 install when I have some time.

Sihastru

I think you were using the DX9/DX10 rendering paths before and now you've stepped up to DX11, which is so much more taxing on the system that the new card cannot compensate.

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Jac

Crysis doesn't use DX11.

MIG-31

Crysis needs 9.0c & Warhead is DX 10..

Besides Direct X is backward compatible.. So i dont see that being the issue.

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iPlayer

Have you tried any benchmark programs like 3dmarks yet?

Jac

I tried 3dmark Vantage and got a score of P13608

Result

Although I have no idea if this is good or bad.

Dyre Straits

Can you describe what you mean by "laggy"? I played through Crysis originally on an E6700 with 4 GB RAM and x86 Vista using a HD 3870. The E6700 was OC'd to 3.2 GHz.

The game does demand a powerful system to play smoothly. But, I do recall being able to play it comfortably except when there was a LOT of AI activity on the screen. The final boss battle was the worst of the worst of it for me.

With your setup, if you're pushing the eye candy to HIGH settings, you're likely overdoing it.

That said, I got P15429 in Vantage on my current system using the HD 6870 I just got about a month ago. But, I can't post results due to using beta drivers.

With my current setup, using a 3x1 Eyefinity, the original Crysis plays nicely enough and I'm using HIGH settings. It does get "choppy" at times with lots and lots of AI on the screen.

I'm interested to see the outcome after you've done a full new Windows installation.

Good luck!

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blibbax

This seems pretty reasonable for your system.

The very best e6*** based GTX460 builds on the ORB are only 3k or so ahead of you're score.

This suggests a problem specific to Crysis.

Have you looked at any reviews of your card to see what kind of settings they're going for?

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Jac

@Dyre Straits

It's hard to describe but although the fps seems fine in places the game freezes for a micro-second over and over making it feel choppy. I have played through Crysis before using my 9600GT and got a better experience than I am currently experiencing with this 460.

I did a total re-install of the OS today and it made no difference.

@blibbax

I viewed some YouTube videos before purchasing and most people were getting circa 30fps at very high settings. Now I know that my CPU is not gonna shine with this game but when I played through before the CPU only held me back at times when there was a lot of destruction and AI around.



After spending a day fekkin around with this PC I typed 'GTX460 stutters in Crysis' and it seems I am not alone in having these issues, not just in Crysis either.

blibbax

An average of 30fps will be stuttery, as you'll likely get pits in the 10-20 range.

If others are getting 30fps at very high with i7s, then it seems like "high" without AA and with CPU heavy effects turned down would be a sensible setting for you to expect smooth gameplay.

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Jac

I don't know how many times I have to say this but I have played through the game on the same system with a 9600GT and got better performance.

I think I'm gonna take this card back to the shop.

MIG-31

I figure my Mobo (System Built) and not by my choice were poor..

My score
P2753 3DMarks

Crysis ran quite poor for me when i were on a Core Duo 2 E6300 @ 3.0GHz (im not precise on the cpu Sec)

But is much better on my Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 Yorkfeild @ 2.66GHZ.

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blibbax

You didn't play Crysis at 1440x900 very high on a 9600.

This review shows Crysis unplayable on 9600GT SLI with 1GB per GPU at 1280x1024, no AA, no AF. That's with a beastly cache laden CPU, too.

Your card may well be faulty, but don't just assume so on the basis of Crysis... if you're not having severe problems elsewhere that is.

It is a stupidly demanding game. If you're not having issues elsewhere, don't worry about it.

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Jac

I'll say it a last time. I have played through the game using my 9600GT at 720p with most settings at high and a few at very high. I averaged 20fps which is not silky smooth but it was playable. Only the very end boss became very jerky.

My CPU is showing it's age and is not enough to play Crysis without issue but this is nothing to do with my CPU. I know that Crysis is probably the most CPU demanding game there is as it does physics on the CPU. However that only really comes into play when there is a lot of AI and environment destruction happening. Playing at a different resolution or with higher graphics settings isn't going to put a noticeable extra burden on the CPU.

I'm sorry if I sound a little short but I have spent two days pissing around with this PC to try and get to the bottom of this. My CPU cooler has died in the process, as has my xfi - reminds me of the early days when any PC upgrade would condemn you to hours and hours of fekkin around trying to get the sytem back working.

This seems to be a known issue. I don't know if it's drivers related, wether there are faulty gf104 chips or wether there is a hardware conflict with my system. This guy has made a video showing the exact problem I am having.

YouTube - GTX460 Framerate stutter

Dyre Straits

All I can say at this time is that, on my system, I can play with High settings @1920x1080 and it's very, very fluid.

AND, I was just able over the last two nights to finally get past that bug where we rescue the hostage at the school house. I went back a few saves to before I reached that area and was finally able to trigger the Destroy Tanks objective. (Before, I actually DID destroy them but one of them wasn't triggering the result.)

Anyway, I FINALLY got the word from Psycho to meet up with him up in the hills and that's where I'm at now.

Jac, it sounds like that nV GTX460 forgot how it's meant to be played.

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blibbax

Fair enough, though Crysis at 20fps sounds nasty :P

Keep in mind with youtube videos that someone out there will have an issue that they perceive to be caused by any given piece of hardware

Also worth noting that Crysis isn't hugely CPU bound compared to a lot of current games, and almost all games do physics on the CPU D: - my system is running a pentium dual core, and boy do I notice this :P

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Jac

Actually it wasn't that bad, +/-20fps sounds bad but in Crysis it seems OK. Even Crysis Tweak says that Crysis feels alright at around this level. This was when the game was first released though and nobody could run it at absolute max.

Took the card back to the store today and explained the situation. The guy seemed to know what I was talking about at first and said that a lot of these GTX460 cards had problems with memory chips/controllers. He took it into the back room to plug it into a machine and came back and said seems fine. I explained the problem again. The card works fine but stutters in games. He said there was nothing he could do. I said but it doesn't work properly. He explained that all he could do was run an intensive test and that it would take 5 days. What am I gonna do in the meantime? Dunno!. Can't you just swap it for another? That's not our policy sir!

You know you're fucked when they start calling you 'sir'. Like I'm not gonna help in anyway so I'm gonna call you sir - did I just get fekkin Knighted when I walked in here?

Can't you just run some tests now? There's no test bench available sir. WTF did you just plug it into? It would take too long to test sir.

Takaharu

Can you specify your graphics settings?

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Jac

Well I seem to have got working fairly well. As well as possible anyways - I must admit I'm a little disappointed in this card. The performance improvement over the 9600 is quite small.

I don't think there was one problem but a combination of things.

First, I do believe the driver set is not fully optimised for the gf104 because there does seem to be some issue - maybe an issue with older games!

Second, I think I must have knacked my CPU cooler when I installed the new card. It started making a immense rattle noise so I took it off and cleaned it. Upon replacement the noise would occur for about a minute and then go but last night I noticed my CPU idle temps were 72°. So I bought a new cooler today and now everything is quiet and cool again.

Third, I installed Windows 7 again - what the hell!

Fourth, I disabled texture streaming in Crysis and this seems to have helped quite a bit.

I still get stutters and pauses but the game is playable now at 1360x768 at mostly very high.

Thanks for your inputs.

BlueMak

There must be something wrong.

I have a AMD 6850 and can run the game at 1680x1050 at ALL details at maximum DX10 and I don't think the framerate drops below 40 at any time.
Perhaps there is something more going on.

Yes, I know we don't have the same card, but everyone seems to tell me (I don't have a 460 so I can't know first hand) that they are about equal in speed.

__________________

The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

blibbax

Yes, the 460 is pretty similar at stock speeds. However, you also have a quad core CPU. That's a big thing when we're talking about getting the most out of a modern high end card. Of course it can't deliver the full goods on a low end dual core.

I went from a 9600 to a 9800GTX+ on this PC, which in theory is a doubling of everything except memory bandwith, which only went up by 20% or so.

Of course I didn't see a performance increase of even 20% in many situations, and 100% in almost none - save looking at a wall with max graphics settings.

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BlueMak

Crysis is not usually THAT dependent on the CPU. Usually as long as it sees a Nvidia GPU, it runs at least ok. I still think something is wrong. If not software, perhaps the PSU can't handle it.

Of course it would be nice to test it with several other games too.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

blibbax

Key word: "usually".

In a balanced system (such as your own) this is true, but as soon as you get a system which is very light or heavy on one component this changes. Again, from my personal experience with the rig in my sig at the thread starter's resolution, almost all games are highly CPU dependent.

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BlueMak

Perhaps, but you do not get worse performance than you would get from a lower gpu, unless there is a reason like software conflict or not enough love juice. (power)

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

Jac

blibbax you really have to get rid of this daft notion that resolution makes a difference to CPU load. Resolution will only affect the video card.

Anyhow, I have been doing some tests. I plugged my 9600 back in and the stutters went away. Same settings, system - the only difference being which Nvidia card was plugged in. The 9600 averaged 20fps whilst the 460 got anywhere between 24 - 50fps. The game was still 'smoother' on the 9600.

Another question, when at the shop with Mr Unhelpful he told me that they would run 'burn in' tests on the card. I have done a search and I cannot find a 'burn in' application for video cards - does anyone know of such software?

I have recorded some videos that demonstrate what I am talking about which I will link to later so you can have a look for yourselves.