Performance Issues, AMD, tried everything, help?

[Chainmailler]

So, I have seen multiple fps "fixes" on the forums and I've tried all of them, and my computer is not a bad computer, its a decent computer capable of playing games like BF3 on ultra, yet in PS2 at tech plant and amp station battles I'm at 15 fps tops.

I've tried everything in Ailos's thread, unparking my cores, udateing sound drives, only using 2 of my 6 cores etc, and sometimes my high end framerate when I'm just messing around but my big battle fps is always 15-20 and never above that.


So here are my specs

Windows 7 64 bit
Amd X6 1100T oc'd to 3.9 (steady no crashes)
2 Radeon 6870's crossfire (oc'd about 10%)
8gb of ram


So here's my question, is it something on my end? or is it just general optimization problems for AMD users. I've read other places that people are getting good-decent fps on amd rigs comparable to mine. Which makes me wonder if something weird is going on in my computer. I'm as a rule a rather tech savvy person but I can not figure what is wrong with my rig.

And I know there are threads similar to this but was hoping for some fixes I haven't run into yet.

all the best

Joey

[Ailos]

Per recent updates in my other thread: mess around with your RAM, and see if you can overclock that some (and bump it up to 1600 or better, if you can).

Also, have you tried running with Crossfire disabled? A single 6870 is powerful enough to run on its own. My experience with the catalyst drivers has been less than stellar, and in this game, crossfire doesn't necessarily scale well.

What does it tell you as far as your limiting factor (CPU- or GPU-bound)?

[Chainmailler]

Havent tried turning crossfire off, though I know I cant OC my ram much, I've got a mobo am3 socket that only takes DDR2 and for some reason refuses to allow my ram to oc more than 1066. Even though the ram I have is built for Oc'ing.

[Ailos]

Havent tried turning crossfire off, though I know I cant OC my ram much, I've got a mobo am3 socket that only takes DDR2 and for some reason refuses to allow my ram to oc more than 1066. Even though the ram I have is built for Oc'ing.

It's not just a matter of your RAM being able to OC, it's also your mobo's chipset. The DDR2 is probably your issue. How old is the mobo? Everything else you've got looks quite decent.

[Impaler]

Havent tried turning crossfire off, though I know I cant OC my ram much, I've got a mobo am3 socket that only takes DDR2 and for some reason refuses to allow my ram to oc more than 1066. Even though the ram I have is built for Oc'ing.

It's not just a matter of your RAM being able to OC, it's also your mobo's chipset. The DDR2 is probably your issue. How old is the mobo? Everything else you've got looks quite decent.

That's going to be one of the original AM3 motherboards, probably early 2009. Very, very few of them were made with only DDR2 support. Any DDR2 speeds over 800 were also inconsistent - my brother had a terrible time getting a 1066 set to work for him once.

The 1100T chip is a good one, and although a couple years old has aged very well. If you buy a new AM3+ motherboard and some DDR3, you should be able to drop in a new processor when AMD puts out the third gen FX next year - from what I understand it'll still use the same socket.

[Chainmailler]

You think its worth it to buy the FX-8350 Vishera? its barely over 200 for a solid 8 core stock at 4.0, are the third gen ones going to be much better?

and this is my mobo
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128387

and this is my ram
http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-ddr2-pc2-8500-reaper-hpc-edition-eol.html

[Impaler]

You think its worth it to buy the FX-8350 Vishera? its barely over 200 for a solid 8 core stock at 4.0, are the third gen ones going to be much better?

and this is my mobo
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128387

and this is my ram
http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-ddr2-pc2-8500-reaper-hpc-edition-eol.html

It's been a while since I've seen a 700 series AMD chipset. I didn't realize they had those with AM3 support.

I would actually wait for the next generation in your case, since you have one of the last Phenoms, if you can hold off until next September. The Vishera would be maybe 10-15% better than what you have already since PS2 only uses a maximum of four threads.

[Rbstr]

Will the FX actually work in that motherboard? It seems like a stretch.

At $200 CPU + mobo and DDR3 you should be looking to an i5, rather than AMD ("OMG parallelism!" only gets you so far, "8" cores doesn't mean twice as good as 4 cores but it makes one heck of a power-hungry chip).
Or the plan is new mobo and ram and keep the older CPU?
The 3rd gen, Steamroller, is out in 2014...The APU based on it has been canceled and AMD is struggling big time. I wouldn't necessarily count on it.

[Impaler]

Will the FX actually work in that motherboard? It seems like a stretch.

His processor is pretty good, but the RAM and mobo might be choking it. If he wants to use the same CPU but upgrade to a new AM3+ mobo, he could put in a Steamroller chip in the same socket a year from now.

At $200 CPU + mobo and DDR3 you should be looking to an i5, rather than AMD ("OMG parallelism!" only gets you so far, "8" cores doesn't mean twice as good as 4 cores but it makes one heck of a power-hungry chip).

If he wanted to replace the CPU too, I would definitely go with an i5 setup, unless there are other workloads he uses besides games.

The 3rd gen, Steamroller, is out in 2014...The APU based on it has been canceled and AMD is struggling big time. I wouldn't necessarily count on it.

I think, personally, that AMD has a brighter future than Intel does. Right now they're not in great shape financially, but if their unified CPU-GPU SOC continues to progress, they'll be around for a long, long time.

[Rbstr]

Yeah the CPU is fairly decent. Mobo + Ram is likely a decent option at about $120-130?

[Chainmailler]

Wow this is great, did not expect this kind of help, seriously thank you.

Also the reason I've always gone amd over intel is that the performance increase wasn't ever worth the price increase on intel.

Prolly going to get one of these mobo's,

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128508

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128519

and stick my X6 in it, and buy 8-12 gb of ddr3 1600-1800.

the only advantage the more expensive one has from what I can tell is the FSB is a little higher, which is nice but not worth the price difference. That and the more expensive one can quad crossfire but I have no intention of ever doing that so again not worth it.

[MrSmegz]

8GB Gskill DDR3 2133 for $35 off w/ promo code EMCJJHA38, ends 12/5 @ newegg.com
(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231519&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL112912&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL112912-_-EMC-112912-Index-_-DesktopMemory-_-20231519-L06B)

[Goku]

Chain I wouldn't expect any major gains going to a new mobo just for DDR3. I've done testing myself and it shows improvement yes having higher bandwidth, but its not going to double your FPS.

Are you using the stock HS to overclock? If so you need to get a after market cooler and overclock that X6 of yours. I wouldn't be shocked if you can hit 4GHz stable on all six cores. I have a X6 myself and while playing PS2 on it about 3 of my cores are being used. Disabling it down to 2 maybe choking you a bit. You can also look into trying to overclock your hypertransport to improve your bandwidth as that may help with your performance if you really need more. Doing this can be tedious, so I recommend finding a proper guide. I don't know of any unfortunately.

If you have any intention of moving up to DDR3 and a new mobo just go for a Ivy Bridge upgrade. That will net you a healthy increase in FPS in PS2.

[Chainmailler]

yeah I have an aftermarket, I can prolly get it to 4.0 but the thing is that I see 0 performance increase going from stock 3.3 to 4.0, I've even run it on 4.2 and seen nothing. Same with my gpu over clock. I'll try disabling some cores so just 3 are active. But honestly I cant figure out why my fps is so low.

[Goku]

I find that to be extremely odd. This is only is PS2 and not other games? Not talking performance issues, but better FPS when overclocking.

I wouldn't even bother disabling the cores TBH. Not sure what that would help with.

Have you disabled crossfire at all? I don't know the current state of how well that is running. Running the most current AMD drivers w/ caps too?

I have a PII X6 1035T that runs the game with a 4770 (secondary computer). I can get it semi playable everything low and it gets maybe 15 FPS in a big fight. 40ish in sanc. Almost sounds like your performance is no better compared to mine.

[Chainmailler]

I disabled it and nothing, so not sure what thats about and yeah its just with this game, everything else i play including BF3 I can run on Ultra or near it. And I'm using 12.8 drivers gonna update them later tonight to see if it helps

[Chainmailler]

*edit* double post

[Ailos]

I disabled it and nothing, so not sure what thats about and yeah its just with this game, everything else i play including BF3 I can run on Ultra or near it. And I'm using 12.8 drivers gonna update them later tonight to see if it helps

Which card are your monitors connected (specifically, are they connected to the PCI-e 2.0 x16 or x4)?

Also, when you say BF3 on ultra, is that during campaign or during 64-player matches?

You can also try and download the free Sandra benchmark: here (http://www.sisoftware.co.uk//?d=dload&f=sware_dl_3264&l=en&a=).

Then run the following benchmarks:
GP (GPU/CPU/APU) Bandwidth (and look at the Interface transfer bandwidth)
GP (GPU/CPU/APU) Memory Latency
Memory Bandwidth
Cache and Memory Latency

And tell us what kind of numbers you get. It will also conveniently tell you what kind of numbers other folks with similar hardware get, and it might help us figure out what's the bottleneck.