680m SLI but very low FPS in games

Well, i don't play much, but lately i am playing Crysis 3 Beta and get Max FPS up to 45, and somewhat average is like 38-40 FPS, I'm using FRAPS for checking that.
In Far Cry 3 single player 38 FPS is like max of what i see, and usually it is 32-35 FPS.
I play games on max quality settings.

I believe, that with setup I have (see sig) it should be better than that.

I'm using Performance mode. I'm using 313.96 Nvidia drivers

What would you say, what's wrong on my end?

 

Hey, what is your GPU utilisation like? Primary and secondary (can check with GPU-z and switch between them with the drop down menu).

 

I made a screenshot of that, left window is 1st card, right - 2nd

 

Run a game and set both to the sensors tab, alt tab or exit the game and take a picture.

 

here we go. Temps are a bit high because i didn't play in my normal environment, so cooling didn't have enough air, but this was like just a test for a few minutes

 

Hey SpyCam!

according to those pics you posted, all looks A-OK

On either crisis 3 or far cry 3, are your running any antialiasing? I have the same spec notebook as yourself and with any AA on...on either one of those games, causes the fps to drop dramatically.

 

Most likely yes, I have everything set to MAX. What do you recommend?

 

Just turn everything to max but find the AA setting in either/each game and have it set to off! Being a 17inch screen the need for AA is not really needed! Some may disagree, so for now, turn AA settings off for now and see if your fps boost up!

 

Are those dips in the graphs telling me GPU underutilisation or are they normal?

 

No likey another bottleneck such as cpu.

You could try over clocking the video ram as this would hold such powerful cores back at 900mhz (1800ddr) try setting it to 1150 (2300ddr) to see if tbat helps. Use msi afterburner or nvidia inspector.

 

Nvideo inspector throws errors, divide by zero or such, so I can't use it.
MSI Afterrner I never used it before. Do i just UP the memory clock by 250, as the difference is between 900Mhz and 1150Mhz? See the attached img:


If I edit it, will it apply settings on boot or instantly, and will it be for both GPUs at once?

 

MSI afterburner works on DDR clocks so +500 DDR = +250mhz memory clock.

 

OK, I have applied the +500 to memory clock and tried playing a game for a couple mins.
Here's the stats:


Is it any better?

 

So, if I now have antialiasing set like MSAA High (x8) should i set it to OFF?

 

You tell me if it runs better, it should be the FPS that now improves.

MSAA should be set to 4X, AF (if an option) should be 8X.

 

I just tried playing Crysis 3 for 10 min and i already see improvement, Fraps is showing max FPS of 60-62 and some average I see like 55.

Are there some other ways of getting more FPS without installing custom VBIOS and heavy overclocking?

 

The maximum allowed overclock in the bios is not really that bad, +135mhz is nothing compared to the +400mhz of the high end, but only do what you are comfortable going for. You can try sliding that memory up a tad.

The AA setting smooths jagged edges of items caused by the pixel arrangement in a screen being a grid, but 4x usually has the best visuals for your performance.

 

I tried upping the RAM frequency by +700 and I got the blue screen of death. Then i lowered it to 600 and played with it for like an hour with a bit. Seems to be stable

 

Yeah +500mhz is usually pretty stable but after then it becomes pot luck how far you get, my best card reached +800mhz, my current one does +750mhz.

 

I will try some more today to find the best spot.
What will happen if I'll touch the core clock in MSI Afterburner?

BTW, if i touch the settings for Crysis 3 in Nvidia control panel, can I reach any better results?

UPDATE:
I did some stress tests with MSI Kombustor, seems like the highest memory clock i could get was +670, more than that caused the screen go black

 

Today i was playing with MSI Kombustor and Nvidia CP program settings. MSI Kombustor didn't work with both GTX680m's in SLI, just 1st card was being used and I got Geforce SLI Profile Tool and a profile for Kombustor, imported it and didn't know that ALL MY SETTINGS GONE after that, damn it.
I just tried playing Crysis 3 Beta and my FPS dropped like 2 times now, to 24-30 FPS and it is not acceptable to play now

Do i need to reinstall Nvidia driver for everything to get restored like it was before?

 

Just so you are aware SLI/crossfire only work in fullscreen mode.

 

Yes i'm playing in full screen of course

 

I was checking because of kombuster.

Does your system drop clocks or does the second card just get unloaded?

 

before i got the Nvidia profile for Kombustor, it was using only one GPU.

 

Keep in mind that,

1.) You're playing a beta game that might not have the best driver optimization from nVIDIA and its SLI profile may need tweaking. Later drivers will improve performance.
2.) Crysis 3 has some of the highest recommended system requirements for any game out there and maxing its settings will put just about any system to its knees.
3.) Maxing Anti Aliasing and Antistropic Filtering provide diminishing returns as you crank them up. Keep those settings on but low and you'll see a major performance increase. You can also use nVIDIA's alternative called CSAA in the control panel which should be less demanding.

On a side note, disable v-sync in the game and in your nVIDIA control panel, enable Adaptive V-Sync. This will eliminate micro stuttering and increase your overall SLI performance.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Crysis-3-System-Requirements-DirectX-11-Radeon-GeForce,19509.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7990-devil13-7970-x2,3329-10.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-680-review-benchmark,3161-5.html
https://developer.nvidia.com/csaa-coverage-sampling-antialiasing

 

Thanks for valuable information!

 

I couldn't find CSAA anywhere in Nvidia CP, just FXAA

 

@sha7bot
as per your recommendations, i used to set up BF3 and played it for 2 days.
With everything at ULTRA and just Anti Aliasing and Antistropic Filtering lower settings I cannot get more that stable 50 FPS
If i set almost everything to HIGH i can then get FPS around 60

With my setup and overclocked memory, can i expect something more or this is an OK results?

 

That doesn't sound right to me. Maybe it's only using one GPU? With AA disabled and AF at 16x on my single 680m I sit at around 50-60 FPS in the multiplayer.

 

I have set 2xMSAA and 4x AF and i now get around 65-70 FPS
Such FPS is enough for gaming

But do i have AA and AF on a good level?

 

Put AF to 16x. It has nearly no effect on framerate. Personally I don't think AA is necessary, moreso on a 17 inch screen of this resolution.

 

OK will try that

 

I tend to use AF at twice the level of the AA I am using, that tends to be enough. Nothing stopping you from flipping it between the two and seeing if you notice the difference though.

 

I was able to get something around 70 FPS so far in BF3

 

In Crysis 3 open beta the game does not recognize SLI or crossfire so its actually only running one of the cards which could explain the low frame rates.

 

You might want to check your battery profile as well. I had mine stuck in Energy Star, and was perplexed for about a week as to my performance issues.

 

That was quite amusing benjamin, but I believe he did check that.

It seems it was just a case of not quite maxing everything in the games for now.

 

Looking at SLI benchmarks for ultra settings, your frame rates are right where they should be in Battlefield 3. I'm not expert enough about overclocking in a Sager, but a CPU overclock might help as BF3, like Skyrim and Crysis, is DX11 and threaded. Meaker may have a recommendation there.

Also, get MSI afterburner and OC those 680s.

 

As per Meaker's recommendation, I only OC'ed the RAM, didn't touch anything else in MSI Afterburner
And I'm not experienced at OC'ing CPU on laptops, I don't want to mess anything

 

You can get more increases with overclocking but it does introduce certain warranty concerns and heat, with the 680M you can also start to introduce clock bouncing unless you flash the vbios so it can get messy.