GTA V: 10-25 FPS with 4171/8192 video memory used?

Right away, my computer specs:
GPU: GeForce GTX 980M 8192MB (8GB) GDDR5
CPU: i7-4790K | Quad Core | 8 Threads | 4,0 GHz
RAM: 16GB (2x8192) SO-DIMM DDR3 RAM 1600MHz Crucial
SSD: 512GB SSD Samsung m.2 XP941
OS: Windows 8.1 64 Bit
DRIVERS: 350.12 (drivers specifically released for GTA V)

Graphic settings in GTA V: everything to max (resolution at 1920x1080), with the video memory bar filled only half way, at 4171/8192.
Here's a photo for those who requested it:


Getting in between 10 and 25 FPS.

Question: With these specs, shouldn't I be able to run the game with everything at max like a boss?
Is 10-25 FPS with 4171/8192 video memory used normal?
What are your specs, game settings, and video memory used?

(Additional bla bla you don't have to read unless you want to know more:
I think my computer (which is just about 2 months old) has been under-performing for whatever reason.
I don't know for sure since I haven't had the time to try that many games.

The first game I had tried was Dead Rising 3. In the first days of gaming I was getting a solid 60 FPS with all settings to the max, but then after a few days of playing it it went down to a varying FPS count, like sometimes 30, sometimes around 45, sometimes 20 or less. Some times it would go back to the solid 60 FPS though. Dead Rising 3 is infamous for not being well optimized and for being over-taxing so I thought the weird FPS changes were because of the game, not the system.

Other games I have tried are: Resident Evil HD Remaster, Resident Evil Revelations 2, Robocraft and No More Room in Hell. All give me 60 FPS with all settings to the max, however from time to time there would be strange dips in the FPS rate that would bring it down to 5 or so, and after a second back to 60.
All of these titles, however, are not particularly taxing games, so even getting 60 FPS 99% of the times on them, wouldn't really say much.

Outside games, the system appears to be unexpectedly sluggish sometimes when it should be super fast.
Examples:
- the browser (I use Firefox with the latest updates) sometimes seems sluggish when quickly changing to different tabs (there aren't THAT many open, and honestly on my previous computer I used to have like 30-40 tabs open sometimes and it always felt fast at switching in between them).
- the Flash plug-in has crashed a bit too many times for it to be normal
- sometimes upon booting, I see the icons of the pinned programs in the menu bar (the bar at the bottom of the desktop, not sure if it has a more specific name or it's just menu bar) slowly loading up and filling up the bar as they appear. This takes like 1-2 seconds and of course it's not a big deal, but it's just something that shouldn't happen with such system, also given that the Samsung m.2 XP941 SSD is like one of the fastest or the fastest commercially available SSD right now.
- even in Windows Media Player, which I use for songs, and Media Player Classic, which I use for movies, recently I started to notice a proper slow down for a second or two, in which the audio and/or video slow down like if they go to half speed, or the songs sometimes have a second in which the audio actually loops itself before continuing normally.

So I don't know. I feel like my system is not doing that well, for how fast and powerful it should be.
Any thoughts from the more experienced users?)

 

DR3 was a crap port. I wouldn't worry about it - play Shadows of Mordor, if you're still getting serious frames issues then something is wrong with your machine because that game was an incredible port. As for GTA V - turn down the "Advanced Graphics" settings, even with dual 980's it causes serious frame hits. As for your odd dips - idk know, maybe a VGA memory leak?

 

That doesn't sound right no.

I'm running it on a 880m (overclocked though), and at 1080p with everything maxed out I was getting a pretty steady 45-50 fps. Turned off a few bells and whistles and the game looks just as good and is running at 60fps+ all the time now.

I always make sure not to download the new drivers though.
Using Mr. Fox' modded drivers and svl7's unlocked vbios, not throttling at all sitting at a surprisingly low 70ish degrees celcius.

My 4710mq is working hard though, but you're processor is way faster than mine so that deffinitely isn't your issue.

 

The sluggishness in everyday use doesn't sound right. Don't know what could cause it except maybe temp issues. Aren't those the m.2s that can overheat?

Regarding gaming you can't judge by vram alone. Doesn't matter if you'd have 32 GB, heavy AA and super sampling will bring anything to it's knees.

 

i7 4720MQ 2.6Ghz
GTX 980M 4GB (stock BIOS, stock clocks)
8GB DDR3 @ 1600Mhz
480GB Crucial M500 SSD
3k (2880x1620) Samsung IPS

Maxed out at 1080p and all eye candy turned on, getting around 40-45fps with random drops every now and then. Turn it up to 3k and I get an abysmal slideshow (17fps average). Drop back to 1080p and turn down some of that eye candy and getting 60fps+ all the time with highest available textures and AAx2.

My i7 is also howling along, but can keep up. I don't like her that warm though (75C steady)

 

This is not desktop, 75C on the CPU under load is good, if not even cool.

 

If you are using 4,000 mb of ram on GTA V you really really have the settings cranked up. That would be bringing a 98om to it's knees I think. I'm using 3,100 on my Titan X and get a constant 60 but say I turn up MSAA to 8x it will bring the FPS down to 40. There is a setting that is turned on ultra in there that is killing your FPS

 

Yep. Week two with my brand new Eurocom M5 Pro. So used to desktop temps that I start getting nervous when things climb past 70C. Lets just say this laptop beats out my old desktop rig in almost every way.

I guess under 80C is all good?

Edit: Got model # wrong, D'oh!

 

So there definitely must be something wrong going on with my system... I had that suspicion from the beginning. It just didn't feel like things were going smooth enough, too many tiny hiccups here and there when there shouldn't be any, especially for the silly things.

And I also posted the same problem on the Steam forums, some people have reported being able to max out the game with the same card as me.

Anyways, tomorrow when I have some time I'm gonna reset the setting to those suggested by the GeForce Experience game optimizer thingy, and see how it goes. If FPS are good I'll start turning things up little by little.

But I really need to find out what's affecting my system though.

What should I be looking at?

As far as temperatures go, I have no idea how to monitor them.
What software do you guys recommend to keep track of them?

 

HWMonitor is what I use.

 

Monitor CPU temps, speeds and % utilization, same for the GPU. We will find who is causing what

 

Good program to keep track of temps.

First things first, check your Power Options, and make sure you're set up in High Performance mode, or use a custom setting where PCI Express Power Settings are set to Maximum Performance. Are other games and programs running as they should (is BF4 working properly while GTA V struggles), go into your Nvidia Control Panel and go to 3D Program Settings, Add Program or search, GTA V, and select "use Discrete Graphics" or "use Nvidia GPU" to ensure the proper GPU is being used.

If the issue still persists, attempt re-installing Nvidia drivers and GeForce Experience (as in a clean wipe, remove via Control Panel and clean install). The latest drivers (350.12) are GTA V ready.

 

Can you be more specific than just saying 'Max settings'? Are you using 8xMSAA? Are the Advanced settings all turned up? If so, then I'm not surprised you're getting poor performance. There is a lot more that matters beyond VRAM use. The game is highly scalable, but there are some options that are extremely demanding. For some reference, I also have a 980M. I have the sliders in the Advanced options all turned down to minimum, and I'm using 2xMSAA. The rest of my graphics options are set at very high, with Shadows turned down to high and Ambient Occlusion turned down to normal. I get around 65-80 fps on-foot, with occasional drops into the mid-50s while driving. Try those settings (or at least turning down the Advanced options and MSAA) and see if things improve.

Edit: Also, take a look at GPU usage using a program like HWMonitor or GPU-Z. Make sure that GPU usage is at 95-99% while you're playing.

 

Thanks for the replies, guys. I'm looking into the problem.

I checked this now. In the Power Options, under PCI Express, I have "Link State Power Management", which I am not sure what it is, but I set it to Off when Plugged In. The other two options available are Moderate power settings (which was previously set to) an Maximum power savings.

About other games, my experience with them is the one described in my first post. For the setting in the Nvidia Control Panel, I went to GTA V but I can't find neither "use Discrete Graphics" or "use Nvidia GPU", there is a list of graphic options which are all set to Use Global Settings... not sure where to check the options you mentioned.

Here's a picture with my graphic settings all turned to max (I actually discovered I can set the shadows to Softest and it requires even more video memory):

I'll try to get the programs to check the temps as soon as I have a bit of time..

 

Op,
This will take time to ascertain.
Try to trace backwards and recall when things worked and when things changed.
In a situation like this with hardware at its latest I would advise reinstalling Windows with default supplied drivers and install 3dmark11 and see if your score is similar in performance to other users with same setup.
Then continue benchmarking with game titles and continue to monitor temps, fps, etc.
Once all good create a restore point for reference.
By the sound of it certainly sounds weird but finding it could be like finding a needle in haystack.
Good luck.

 

take msaa down to 2x and grass to very high, even my titan x wouldn't be able to run these settings at 60fps constant

 

yeah like previous post said reduce msaa(i would off it) and grass to very high and all advance features for shadows and you get a nice framerate without noticing the change

 

Too much AA, MSAA and Reflection MSAA to 2X and Voila !
else turn down the grass to very high, there aint any difference between ultra and V high.
By the way, having 4150Mb/8192Mb used doesnt mean the game will run at 60fps, it just says it wont sutter because the VRAM is full and not able to deal with big textures..

 

OP here. Thanks for the comment guys.

I have turned down the graphics settings A LOT and I have now around 45-60 FPS, which is good enough (I don't care about having a constant 60, even at 45 it feels smooth).

But the problem wasn't getting 60 FPS, I knew that by turning down the settings I would eventually achieve this, the concern is that the system is under-performing.

There have been various users reporting maxing out the game with the same graphic card (980M), even on overall weaker systems.
This, in addition to all the other odd behaviours that my computer has (some of them described in my first post), is what makes me think that things are not going as smooth as they should go.

@tron^2: My computer is only 2 months old, so there hasn't been a point in which everything seemed to work perfectly. I mean, I didn't notice any problem at first, but the more time I spent on it, I started noticing all these little quirks in Windows, Firefox, Media Player, etc, and in games it feels like it should be doing better than what it can do, considering how very high-end all the components are. I'm not saying I should definitely be able to max out GTA V, but I'm pretty sure by now I should be able to do better than 10-25 FPS at max settings.

about the benchmark: these are the scores I had when the computer arrived, after all drivers were installed:

 

Those scores look pretty normal to me. You can compare them with the benchmarks over at http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-980M.126692.0.html if you want to be sure. Maybe you can run a benchmark now and see if there are any changes?

This is the problem of people claiming they can run games at 'maximum settings', especially with games like GTA V that really have a wide array of performance options. I can guarantee you that others (like myself) with a 980M are NOT running the game with 8xMSAA and getting 60 fps. It simply won't happen, and that kind of AA is an excessive strain on the system. Perhaps they are turning the other settings to 'Very High' and leaving out MSAA and claiming they are running the game at 'max settings'. The advanced graphics options in GTA V also bring even high-end systems (such as those with a desktop 970) to their knees at 1080p- you can check some benchmarks online to confirm this.

 

I think the notebook is fine but your expectations are quite demanding.
As per oceanic's reply use that link to compare and if within tolerance then be satisfied that your system is working normally.
Good luck.

 

Hehe only 75C lol my 920xm at 3.73ghz all cores is running about 10C warmer than that in GTA 5 dead stable though.

 

Thanks for that link. Yes, I compared the scores, they seem within range.
I'll run the benchmark again later to see if there has been a noticeable change since 2 months ago.

Since you also have a 980M, could you please tell me the rest of your system specs (just CPU, RAM and HDD/SSD)? I just wanted to see what system other people have and how far they can really go with the graphics options in GTA V. (if it's not too much to ask. If you can't, no worries).

Perhaps I got used to the fact that having a new laptop with the latest hardware in all components meant being able to fully max out any new game for at least a year after purchase (this was my experience with my previous two laptops), and this time it's not being the case, since perhaps GTA V is simply that demanding that it doesn't matter how new the laptop is.

But even if it turns out that my performance in GTA V is normal for the hardware I have, it's certain that there's something wrong going on with the system, since it's having way too many quirky moments here and there.

Oh, and by the way, another thing I noticed while running GTA, even with graphics reduced so that I would get 60 FPS, is that if I type into anything (Word, Steam chat, in the browser), the text is laid out extremely slowly, like I can type a whole sentence and the letters will slowly appear one by one, like a letter every half second. Even though the game is running, if the game is minimized, this shouldn't be happening, right?

 

You can see what 980m sli overclocked can get at 1440p at the detail settings in the video.

Warning: strong language.

 

Sure, I have a 980M with an i7 4810MQ and 16gb of RAM. I have the game installed on a 7200 RPM hard drive, although my OS (Windows 8.1) is on an SSD. I'm running the game with 2x MSAA and most Graphics options set to Very High. Shadows, Ambient Occlusion, and PostFX are set at High. Soft Shadows using Nvidia PCSS. Main density/variety/scaling sliders are turned all the way up. All options in the Advanced Graphics tab are turned off/down to 0. With vsync on, I only drop below 60 fps occasionally during driving.

I also noticed the strange delay with typing text and having GTA V open. I really don't have an explanation for it, but I experience it too.

As far as 'maxing out' any game goes, it's a term I try not to use, because it somewhat contradicts the huge variety of graphics options, mods, and driver options that PC gamers utilize. Have you played Ryse: Son of Rome with 4x4 Supersampling? Shadow of Mordor or Battlefield 4 with 200% resolution scaling? Crysis 3 with 8x MSAA? None of these options will run very smoothly on your system, and you really shouldn't expect them too. I would be wary of people who talk about playing games like GTA V at max settings; look for videos or benchmarks on comparable systems where you can really see what options are being used. Of course with a 980M you can run any game out there quite well, but heavy antialiasing and >1080p resolutions will be a strain with some new games. It's not that GTA V is particularly demanding to run, but it offers very high-end options for scalability on SLI systems or 3K/4K resolutions.

What kinds of issues/quirks are you experiencing with your computer? Unless you're seeing things like thermal shutdowns/hardware failure warnings from Windows, it's most likely driver or software related. You might be able to get to the bottom of it with some troubleshooting. However, as far as your GPU goes, it looks like its probably performing normally.

 

Yes, actually on youtube there's a bunch of videos of GTA V running on a 980M (most of which are actually the 4GB version, not 8GB like mine) at (supposedly) max settings. These settings might not actually be all on max, but still they seem to do a much better job than my system with similar settings. That's what leaves me somewhat dubious I'm doing fine.

So my system is almost identical as yours, perhaps mine is slightly more powerful, in theory. I'm gonna go back in the game in a moment and take a screenshot of my current settings, which give me FPS in the range of 45-60, so we can compare.

Alright, so at least it's not just me, that's somewhat reassuring.

You can see I described most of the quirks in my first post.

I also run again 3DMark, I got similar results as 2 months ago, so it seems nothing has changed in the system...

 

That video was recorded myself with the highest settings and 980m sli often getting 50-60 fps with tuned clocks so a normal single 980m will get around 20-30 fps at those settings.

 

I see. What's the CPU/RAM/SSD of the system?

About my current settings:

For some reason, during the intro (the one with the blurred police sirens), and on the main menu, I get exactly 31 FPS constant.
Once in game, it stays at 30-31 FPS for a minute or so, then it starts going up again and fluctuate in between 45-60. Very odd.
The FPS fluctuation is quite big I think, and every time I seem to get a slightly different behaviour. There were no other programs running in the background.

If you guys could test these exact settings and let me know how many FPS you get, that would be awesome.

 

Start by turning everything to "very high" except turn off any AA or advanced shadows. Then start bumping those up incrementally. I can average around 60FPS on 970m with all max options, but AA turned off. AA is just a bandwidth killer, and unless you're a jaggie-phile, at native resolution there is little need for AA, maybe 2x MSAA to help smooth things out a bit. But I personally don't see the need for AA at native resolution.

See this post for 970m and settings and video. Benchmark results represent only the last part of the benchmarkd with flying/driving.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/gta-v-discussion.754767/page-56#post-9984601

 

During cut scenes the game is locked to 30fps I believe.

 

I haven't read the whole thread so I'm sure someone has already mentioned this but having MSAA at 8x is your problem here. Enabling MFAA in the NVIDIA Control Panel would definitely help you, if you haven't already done so.

 

I recommend turning the 'Extended Distance Slider' down to minimum, and from there you'd certainly have headroom to run 16x Anisotropic Filtering and put Shader Quality + Tessellation on Very High. That's just my preference, of course; the increased draw distance is nice but IMO too performance-taxing for the minor improvements. Just to note, Anisotropic Filtering is related to texture filtering and shouldn't have any fps impact on modern GPUs. Turning it up to 16x should have no performance hit at all.

The video you showed was of a system with a 980M SLI- i.e., two of them together. Performance would naturally be much better than what you (or me) can get with a single 980M. Here is a benchmark with a single 980M with 8xMSAA and other Graphics settings turned up, and you can see the fps rate is mostly in the low 20s:


I'll see if I can do a test later tonight, but honestly it sounds to me like your performance (in GTA V at least) is pretty normal.

 

I know we have already been through this thread and the general consensus was that my system was performing appropriately, and I was simply expecting too much from it, and simply had to lower down the settings, which I did, A LOT, in order to get around 30-45 FPS with high fluctuations and drops in open areas or actions scenes.

But then, what ABSOLUTELY BAFFLES ME, is the fact that sometimes, like the past hour or so, I CAN GET AN ABSOLUTE SOLID 60 FPS.

How's that normal at all? With the graphics settings all considerably toned down, I can get sometimes 30-45 FPS with big fluctuations and sometimes, in rare case, solid 60 even in open areas. Isn't this a sign that something is not right here??

What I believe is that when I get the 60 FPS, that's when my system is actually working AS IT SHOULD, and when it doesn't, which is most of the times, then's when it's under-performing, for whatever reason we haven't been able to figure out yet.
u
Sorry for bringing up this thread, but I really wanted to add this new bit of information.

My current graphics settings, are as follow, only difference is that I turned up Reflection MSAA to X8 (NOT MSAA, big difference): ------EDIT!!! Sorry, I was mistaken, I didn't turn up Reflection MSAA to X8, that's still at X2, it was REFLECTION QUALITY that I had turned up, to Ultra. My bad.

 

Have you used an overlay to check cpu and gpu clocks (and temps) real-time when you game?
Run RivaTuner (RTSS) and Hwinfo64. In Hwinfo choose what to display in the overlay. Compare values between high and low performance. Hwinfo can logg to a file too.

 

I don't have the game, but having just upgraded from a laptop that got me by for 4.5 years ...I've tweaked a heck of a lot of games



1: Vsync off unless you've got an intolerable amount of screen tearing. In fact, turn Vsync off anyway while you tweak because as the game gets easier to run, the tearing [if any] should stop and you shouldn't have to lower as many settings.
2: Some ambient occlusion is better than none, but more is marginally better.
3: Shaving off a bit of population density helps all around.
4: FXAA and only FXAA
5: AF is cheap, use it.
6: When in doubt, ask you self two questions: "Do I notice a big difference?" & "Do I care?". If you can answer "no" to either, lower the setting. Sometimes "robbing Peter to pay Paul" works to keep another setting higher
7: Don't just rely on the benchmark, use FRAPS and test performance in game. You can't always trust the in game benchmark. I've found in-game benchmarks to be slower than actual game performance more often than the other way around.

 

Stop using MSAA. FXAA is better for performance, and you won't tell the difference.

If desktop cards twice as powerful as a single 980M struggle to maintain 60 FPS with this game, there's no way a single mobile GPU will be able to. That's an unrealistic expectation for a gaming laptop.

Maybe when Pascal hits, you'll be more satisfied with its performance.

 

@Mr Najsman : thanks, I really do need to start using some program to check temps, I still haven't done it, but I'll try to get around to do it soon.

@thegreatsquare : thanks but this thread has never really been about how to find a good balance of FPS-to-visual-quality, it's more about understanding IF and WHY my computer is under-performing based on what it should be capable of. I know I can't run the game at max settings, but the point here is that I seem to have lower my settings way too much for what my system is to get around 30-45 FPS with high fluctuations and drops here and there, while on some other cases I get 60 FPS solid even in big open environments. A completely inconsistent behaviour.

@J.Dre : thanks, but as I specified, I'm not using MSAA, I only enabled Reflaction MSAA which only affects things like mirrors in your house, and not even reflections like on cars (I checked). And, also, same as I was saying to thegreatsquare.

My specs again:

GPU: GeForce GTX 980M 8192MB (8GB) GDDR5
CPU: i7-4790K | Quad Core | 8 Threads | 4,0 GHz
RAM: 16GB (2x8192) SO-DIMM DDR3 RAM 1600MHz Crucial
SSD: 512GB SSD Samsung m.2 XP941 (this is like the fastest SSD ever commercially available now, check it up)
OS: Windows 8.1 64 Bit
DRIVERS: 350.12 (drivers specifically released for GTA V)

Check my first post to have an insight of what my problem really is.
Regardless, thanks everyone for your involvement.

 

Short answer: No, your Gpu can't handle the game at max.

Try to use my settings:
MSAA: 2X
Grass: very high
advantage distance scaling: 30%

U should now get around 50fps




*edit* your card behaves inconsistent because the games landscape is inconsistent. Makes sense doesnt it?

Especially grass on ultra will crush most GPUs. And you were even running 8xMsaa. Turn these two settings down for a major FPS BOOST.

 

He get´s higher fps in open areas with grass though. I understand his concern/confusion.

 

No. The thing is this: given the graphic settings I posted above on this page (ignore the ones on page 1), a few times I was able to play for hours at a solid 60 FPS in city environments and in open environments, while some other times, for the same environments, I have around 30-45 FPS, and now, recently, I seem to be stuck on 30 FPS.

This thread has gotten confusing, especially if people just read my first post in it and reply to just that. I understand. I'll probably make a new thread later on to explain things better.

The thing is that I have quite a few other quirks in the system in general, outside of games.

Like, while listening to songs with Windows Media Player, I can noticeably hear a stutter that goes for a second or so while the song plays. For example, the song would go "PRRRRRR" (like, looping a sound for a second), and then continue.

I'm going to install HWMonitor, GPU-Z, Rivatuner RTSS, HWInfo64 and check everything that you guys suggested me on this post. Once I have enough data, I'll make a new, less confusing thread.

 

I just recorded 15 minutes of gameplay with my handheld camera, going at a SOLID 60 FPS from city to open areas, having police fights and chases.

Next time I get 30 FPS with the SAME SETTINGS, I'll record it too, and show you all, guys.

 

I found an invisible line on the map from which the frame rate drops from solid 60 to solid 30. Moving forward (away from the city) drops it to 30, going back again through this invisible line restores the 60 FPS.
Doesn't matter what direction is faced.
If anyone wants to check it, here's the spot:

I also took a video if you guys need to see it.

 

Looks like they need to release another patch.

 

@ignorant you do realize that TOD has a big impact on performance even in the same geographical area of the game, right? Daytime is much more demanding due to the increased view distance.

 

@octiceps , what's eve TOD? Time of day? I don't think you really know what I've been talking about. Which is perfectly acceptable since this thread has degenerated into something else from what it originally started.

But really, no, time of day has nothing to do with it.

Yesterday I played for a few hours at solid 60 FPS.
Tonight, with the same graphic settings, I can't get more than 30.

And yesterday, like I posted, I found an invisible border line on the map which gave me 30 or 60 FPS depending on which side of the line I was, like I posted.

Something in my system is messed up big time.

I'll find out what it is one way or another.

 

Hey guys, to all the people who were helping me out here, well, I finally collected all the logs and info that I have and made a comprehensive post over here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ng-any-help-appreciated.776495/#post-10012372

Please have a look, thanks.