Upgraded Pc Downgraded Performance

[Evra 3]

First off I will explain that I understand the game is not optimized and still in development, however this isn't directly related to my problem. I have also searched other threads and googled but could find nothing that seemed to help.

 

A couple weeks ago I upgraded my graphics card from a gt 630 to a gtx 550 ti. The improvement was quite noticeable on a lot of games, including arma 3, and even dayz (somewhat).

 

My specs are: AMD Phenom II X3 B73 @ 2.80 GHz, 4gb ram, and the gtx 550 ti.

 

The part I can't figure out is why my game runs worse in towns than it did before the upgrade, on the same version of the game. When I go into a town the fps drops like normal to about 20-25, except after a few minutes of playing or traveling between multiple towns the fps remains the same except the game starts to freeze for 3-4 seconds every 3-4 seconds of moving any direction. I did not have this problem with the gt 630, the fps dropped but it did not freeze constantly.

 

Things I have tried: 

 

 -Setting launch options to include nosplash, noPause, winxp, maxMem=#, malloc=system, and more.

 -Changing GPU_MaxFramesAhead to 1, and GPU_DetectedFramesAhead to 1.

 -Changing scene complexity, viewdistance, and prefered object view distance to various values (between 150,000 and 300,000).

 -Manually installing the most recent Battleye version.

 -Deleting DayZ config.

 -Verifying Integrity of game cache.

 -Changing ingame settings to both high and low and inbetween.

 -Changed power management options through control panel and nvidia.

 

I installed the most recent driver for my graphics card, and did not change anything else besides the graphics card, yet it seems to have made the game almost unplayable. The only thing I can possibly think of at this point is that the gpu and cpu aren't balancing the load very well so entering towns puts too much stress on one or the other, hence why I tried changing various settings.

 

If another upgrade to my computer is the only way to fix this, that is fine, I just want to know what is causing it and if there is a way to fix it in the meantime. I apologize for the long post but any help would be appreciated greatly.

Edited February 25, 2015 by Evra

[Rags! 1966]

My advice concerning computer performance in DayZ is basically:

 

 

It'll get better. Game isn't optimized at all. Improvements are incoming. Wait and see how things play out before spending money to upgrade a computer based on performance in DayZ. 

[Death By Crowbar 1213]

Weird. Here they are compared, along with my GTX 650 TI (which is still kinda middle/low end of the road): 

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=16&cmp[]=1431&cmp[]=2177

 

The only thing I see is they're both around 3 years old, and your beefier card looks like it uses the older PCIe 2.0 were the lesser card looked to be PCIe 3.0. That's interesting. My 650 Ti is middle/low end and would blow your new card away. It seems to me as if you went from a lower end to a mid-low end card and didn't make a significant jump.

[sneakydudes 278]

My advice concerning computer performance in DayZ is basically:

 

 

It'll get better. Game isn't optimized at all. Improvements are incoming. Wait and see how things play out before spending money to upgrade a computer based on performance in DayZ. 

I hope soon my 4 grand rig runs like crap.

[Death By Crowbar 1213]

Another observation - do you have 2 monitors or have you tried running DayZ in windowed mode and watched your CPU consumption? Because DayZ is not optimized yet, I notice it using a LOT of CPU and my GPU doesn't seem to get as much of the load. It's interesting really, I've read some on it but if you search the forums you can find what the devs have said about it (and it's all going to change as the new renderer come out and various parts of the engine get finished and tuned up). However, I know I suffer a little with frame rates in cities and my i5 3570 performs well over your AMD Phenom and on my system DayZ keeps all 4 of my cores humming upwards of 50% constantly. I don't know how much of that processing translates into frame rate, but some of it does:

http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i5-3570-vs-AMD-Phenom-II-X3-B73

 

From the Steam page for DayZ for processors the "recommended" shows up as Phenom II X4 940 or better  so you're really at 3 cores vs 4 cores. Hard to say how much difference that makes.

 

Your system is very middle, maybe middle/low end imo for DayZ. It's enough to run DayZ for sure, but I don't think it's enough to expect wonders from for performance unless you really start scaling back options, and even then in cities you'll probably be like most everyone where your frame rate will really suffer, for a lot of reasons, the biggest being the game's still a work in progress and not optimized yet.

[Evra 3]

Your system is very middle, maybe middle/low end imo for DayZ. It's enough to run DayZ for sure, but I don't think it's enough to expect wonders from for performance unless you really start scaling back options, and even then in cities you'll probably be like most everyone where your frame rate will really suffer.

 

The weird part is the 630 ran dayz with only a few small freezes a few times per play session (2-3 hours), but ran every game quite a bit slower (barely 30-35 fps in forests in dayz). The 550 ti helps maintain a smoother fps overall in dayz (40-50 in forests/fields now), and a lot of other games, but the towns are unplayable compared to the 630. Just confused how the card providing a clear boost is making the towns even worse. I do expect to only get 20-25 fps average in towns because its poorly optimized, just don't expect the constant freezing thats happening now. The most obvious solution would probably be a better processor as you pointed out, I don't meet the recommended. 

 

Also I do not use two monitors, and haven't actually monitored the cpu usage as I played, but I recall checking once before for a moment and it was roughly 60-70% if I remember right. Its starting to seem the overall lower fps of the 630 was much more enjoyable than this constant freezing, but at least I'm enjoying a nice boost in other games. Anyway thanks for the info.

Edited February 25, 2015 by Evra

[Jesus Christ The Goblin 71]

Maybe installing the new driver enabled some annoying power saving features.


Assuming you use win 7
1.)
Go into control panel Or click on the task menu and write Power Options into the search.
Open Power options
Click change plan settings
Click change advanced power settings
Scroll down to PCI Express
Click the + then
Click the + to also expand Link State Power Management
Set Link State Power Management setting: Off

You should also probably change Processor Power Management if you haven't already.
Change Maximum Processor State to 100%
Change System cooling policy to active

2.)
Open Nvidia control panel by right clicking your desktop or search for it.
Then click on manage 3d settings it is within 3d settings you may have to click the + to see it.
Make sure Power Management Mode is set to Prefer Maximum Performance.
 

[Evra 3]

Click the + to also expand Link State Power Management

Set Link State Power Management setting: Off

You should also probably change Processor Power Management if you haven't already.

Change Maximum Processor State to 100%

Change System cooling policy to active

2.)

Make sure Power Management Mode is set to Prefer Maximum Performance.

 

 

Thanks for the reply, checked both of the first 2 settings in power management settings and they were set to off, 100% and active cooling policy. Forgot to mention I set the nvidia power management mode was set to maximum performance too in the op.

[franzuu 211]

If it happens only in dayz then you really ought to report this to http://feedback.dayzgame.com/view_all_bug_page.php