How can I lock the CPU freqency at max?

Hello,

I'm having strange performance issues while playing Farcry2 and i believe its caused by the CPU frequency going down unexpectedly. Typically when i switch between my laptop power modes mid-game, the frame rate will drop drastically on power saving mode, but this is not happening in Farcry2. instead, the game just chugs along 20~25 FPS regardless of the laptop power mode and occasionally there will be a 30+ FPS spike (i think this is when the CPU randomly kicks in at max freq.).

I want to know if there's any way to lock the CPU frequency at max, or any programs to monitor and make a log of the CPU frequency so that I can confirm this is actually happening.

thanks.

 

there are any number of logger programs. One thing that will make your cpu freq do down is a cooling problem. If you intend to run at full speed all of the time, you're going to want to make sure that the cpu cooler is properly installed with quality heat sink goop. And clean out the fan(s).

Get into your system bios and shut off speedstep. A less drastic and adjustable alternative is to create for yourself a power profile that locks the cpu at full speed.

I'm assuming that your lappie is stuffed with as much ram as it can hold, yes?

 

hmm the heating problem sounds the most logical since the game actually runs fine for the first minute, then performance drops.. i never experienced any problems with other games though (crysis, etc.). i'll take a look at the bios settings anyways.

as for the software, i really am not able to find something that will log the cpu frequency every x second. there are plenty of softwares to monitor and log the temperature but not frequency.

and yes, i have 4GB of ram in my lappy

 

RMClock can track CPU frequency over time, as well as temperature and voltage. You can also use it to disable all but the highest multiplier.

 

Thanks guys! It was indeed an overheating problem as suggested. i was able to confirm the frequency being throttled down when the cpu hits a certain temperature. i just didn't expect it to be an overheating issue considering that I have been playing many other games as well, but I guess either farcry2 works the CPU harder or dust is starting to accumulate on the heatsinks. i'll go ahead and dust the laptop out and look for some better venting solution.

 

Far Cry 2 while not horrible is very CPU intensive, Though I can run the performance settings on Very High I run them on high just to gain some frames.

Note for you. Games that have heavy AI and Physics.... modern games cant render a frame until all the ai and physics concerning the frame being rendered are completed. So the cpu now plays a huge factor in getting high frame rates in alot of games. Crysis, Far Cry 2, World in Conflict to name a couple and especially the quad hungry GTA 4.

Properly designed laptop the the cpu shouldnt overheat under a normal 100% load, though the intel burn test can push it far. Would definitly clean it out. If the gpu heat affects the cpu heat then I can see it. My laptop the cpu heat affects the gpu, my new cpu atload causes the gpu to get hot.

 

Change your power profile to "Always On" to disable processor throttle altogether and keep it in max frequency all the time. This Microsoft document shows how to use 'powercfg' to see exactly what the different profiles do, and how to customize it further if you like. This ms document also tell how to find CPU speed.

 

That Microsoft doc seems to be valid for only Server 2003.

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You guys are brilliant here jeez..