18 réponses à ce sujet

[Zewks]

(edit: Problem solved, see post below)

(edit edit: Seems the devs admitted a flaw that was forcing Ultra high shaders on everyone, even if you had all settings on LOW. The latest patch fixes this by syncing shader setting to the mesh quality setting. Running with shaders on High or lower, drastically lowers GPU temps for me. Thx devs.)

 

So ive read a LOT of the threads from players with mega systems barely being able to keep a steady, decent framerate in this game even on lower settings. I seem to have the direct opposite problem. I get a consistant 60 FPS with lower settings on, but suffer from pretty inexcusable GPU temps. Typically around 85C consistantly.

 

My system:

i7 3770k (not over clocked)

8 gigs ram

Nvidia EVGA 760 (344.75 drivers)

No SSD

win7 64 bit

 

I make a point to dust out my system once a month. Ive got 2 powerful case fans (for in and out airflow). Ive got decent cable management (cliped them all on the backside of the motherboard panel, allowing the main part of my case to have unobstructed air flow). Ive got a fan profile set up for my GPU to increase the fan speed. At 80C, my fan is spinning at 100%.

 

I also realize that the GPU can safely reach these temps without it being harmed. There is a difference between "Reaching" these temps, and consistantly running at these temps for hours on end. More importantly, No game, using low settings, should cause a system to run that hot.

 

My game settings:

1920x1080

Windowed fullscreen (Fullscreen runs at the same temp)

Vsync (hate tearing, plus, capping the FPS at 60 helps USUALLY with GPU heat)

Tripple Buffering (because of vsync being on)

Texture: high

Mesh Quality: High (hate plastic hair)

Resolution scaling: 80%

 

Everything else is set to Low, or OFF. 

 

Even on these obviously low settings, MY GPU averages around 85C. Peaking as high as 90C during bigger scenes.

 

I play an assortment of games. Never, have I played a game with mostly low settings, that has made my GPU run at these higher temperatures consistantly. For instance. Farcry 4, on low/medium settings (cant run it higher), sits around 75C. Battlefield 4 (similar engine), on medium/high settings, never breaks 70C. I can run AC Black Flag on near max settings, and it also never breaks 75C (note: MSAA is always OFF in games, it gimps my framerate too much)

 

So why on earth does DA Inquis, on low settings, run so gosh darn HOT?

 

For testing purposes, I set mesh quality and texture to low, and I bumped the resolution scale from 80% down to 25%, which made the game look like early versions of Pitfall. Even with these settings, my GPU sat at a constant 75C.

 

Ive noticed a few things. Even on low settings, things like Sunshafts still are rendered. The game also seems to make heavy use of some sort of HD lighting system (ie: Walk from outdoors to inside a building, and the lighting dims, and then slowly brightens, simulating your eyes adjusting.) None of these rendering options seem to be able to be turned off.

 

Why doesnt "Post Processessing Effects" have an "OFF" option? Why is "low" the only option for players wanting to disable these things?

 

 

Its clear that the game, even on low settings, is forcing the GPU to render some pretty hefty things in the game, even if you dont want it to. It even seems to heavily task the GPU with these things even when you are on a black menu screen with no visible 3d graphics. Its been a long time since ive seen such a poorly optimized game. 

 

Also... what is up with the CPU usage on the main screen menu? All 8 cores are pegged at 70% or higher usage, and CPU temps jump way up, just on the title screen?!?!?. My CPU isnt even used nearly as much during actual gameplay.

 

 

I dont want this to be a discussion of "85C is fine to run at, stop worrying". If i was running at higher setttings, Id completely agree. What I seriously hope is that the devs release an optimization patch, with more video options for players to disable unwanted visual effects. For now, I dont feel like having my GPU sit at 85C for hours on end as I play, just because of sloppy programming.

 

(on a side note, anyone know any console commands/config commands that can fully disable post processing effects, or things like the various lighting effects in the game? Id love to be able to disable the high dynamic range lighting effects.

[Lebanese Dude]

Might I suggest downloading GeForce Experience and giving it a go?

[Zewks]

Ive got that installed, but have never used it to "optimize" any of my games. Never needed to before now. From what Ive read, doesnt it just detect my system specs, and try to adjust the settings for a game so that its runs well and looks good? Im worried that it will actually try to make the game run on higher settings, only making my GPU temps go up more.

[Lebanese Dude]

Ive got that installed, but have never used it to "optimize" any of my games. Never needed to before now. From what Ive read, doesnt it just detect my system specs, and try to adjust the settings for a game so that its runs well and looks good? Im worried that it will actually try to make the game run on higher settings, only making my GPU temps go up more.

Try it...couldn't hurt.

 

It solved some other peoples' issues, including mine.

 

If it doesn't then perhaps this is one of the driver issues that BioWare has acknowledged. If the game is not running as well as you hope, perhaps you should wait for the fixes to play it on higher settings.

[Zewks]

Ill give it a shot.

 

Like i said, the game is running fine as far as framerate goes. Getting a steady 60 FPS. So its not so much an issue of the game not running well.

 

Id actually be ok with a LOWER framerate, if it reduced the temperature that it was making my video card run at. If the geforce experience gives me different results, ill post them here.

[Dragoonlordz]

Tends to run my GPU up to 60 degrees and CPU to 50 degrees however my previous PSU blew up and this chips inside exploded because of the temperature it reached within the PSU. The game is poorly optimized though I am under no illusion the cause for the explosion was more related to me using a cheap multi-rail poor ampage PSU, the wattage was enough but the ampage spread across the rails was an issue. I have since replaced with a corsair high quality one which should be fine but time will tell. This game is very, very, badly optimized though on both AMD and Nvidia GPU's.

[aznricepuff]

You can try enabling a framerate limit for DA:I in your drivers. Setting it to something less than 60 (or whatever you get with your GPU at full load) will reduce the load on your GPU and help them run cooler.

 

You'll need Nvidia Inspector to expose the framerate limiter setting since it's not available by default through NVCP.

 

EDIT: You'll need to turn off Vsync for the framerate limiter to work properly.

 

EDIT 2: I just remembered that FB3 actually has a built-in framerate limiter, so you don't have to force it through drivers. Open up the console (~) and type in gametime.maxvariablefps [number], replacing [number] (including the brackets) with your desired max framerate.

[Zewks]

You can try enabling a framerate limit for DA:I in your drivers. Setting it to something less than 60 (or whatever you get with your GPU at full load) will reduce the load on your GPU and help them run cooler.

 

You'll need Nvidia Inspector to expose the framerate limiter setting since it's not available by default through NVCP.

 

EDIT: You'll need to turn off Vsync for the framerate limiter to work properly.

 

EDIT 2: I just remembered that FB3 actually has a built-in framerate limiter, so you don't have to force it through drivers. Open up the console (~) and type in gametime.maxvariablefps [number], replacing [number] (including the brackets) with your desired max framerate.

 

 

Wow... awesome info. Gonna try this tonight. Thanks!

[Zewks]

Ok, a follow up on the advice given above: (problem solved!)

 

First off

 

Using the GeForce Experience program to optimize the settings.

Result: Situation made worse

 

Im actually quite disappointed with this program. Ive had it installed (mainly for shadowplay, which is amazing) but never used it to "optimize" my games settings. Any game. To my disappointment, all this program does is adjust the in game options (something you can do manually) to what it thinks is best for your hardware. No special driver tweaks, no hidden improvement or performance adjustments. In my case, because Im running with lower settings that my hardware typically can handle without any issues, the "optimized" settings actually turned UP the graphical settings, causing my GPU to run even HOTTER. I cant imagine anyone who would use this tool to "optimize" settings that you can adjust manually, unless you know absolutely nothing about these settings. IE: if you have no idea what HBAO or Mesh Quality is.  

 

On top of it everything, this program has NO idea of the games inherent optimization problems. So while the program thinks "GTX 760 can run fine with Tesselation set to HIGH" it really has no clue that doing this, lowers the framerate by about 15 frames. Im willing to bet that for most people struggling for performance in this game, using this program to "optimize" your settings is going to make it look better, but run slower. Unless you specifically tell it to focus 100% on performance. In which case, all it will do is set ALL of your in game options, to the lowest possible setting. (something you could have done on your own)

 

 

Next up:

 

Using the console command to limit the games framerate.

Result: Problem solved! (with additional bonsues!)

 

I actually put this in the command line for launching the game. I set it to 30. UGH... why 30 you ask? 30 is awful. I know, right? Especially when ive been so used to gaming (pretty much any other game) at 60 FPS. The reason I picked 30 FPS is based on 2 things.

 

1. Ive read a ton of threads about how the games cinematics are locked at 30 FPS due to some issue with the frostbite 3 engine (which makes them have that stuttering/hitching effect as you watch them.

 

2. Despite all the claim about this game being designed foremost for PCs, the common sense part of me realized that the truth of the situation is that this game was most likely designed and optimized for CONSOLES first, and was probably focused on a 30 FPS cap since that is what a lot of console games seem to run at.

 

So... to my amazement, setting the game to cap at 30 FPS did WONDERS for me.

 

- Heat issues: GONE. My temps when from 85C on average, down to 65C on average, never breaking 70C.

- Stuttering issues: GONE. Game cinematics are somehow much smoother, even though they were already supposedly running at 30 FPS

- Actual game performance: Its still smooth, just not 60 FPS smooth. It doesnt look jittery or jerky like I thought it would. The best part? No more hitching at ALL. Its gone.

 

 

Im simply baffled at how poorly and how silent Bioware has handled the port of this game. Its very clear to me now that this was NOT optimized at ALL for PC. Quite the opposite. Its unmistakenly clear to me that this game is ONLY optimized for console gameplay. Using the console command to cap my framerate to 30 solved so many different problems, most importanlty, my GPU high temps. I was actually able to even go back and raise several of the video options to a higher setting for even better visuals. 

 

Thank you aznricepuff for your info on how to do this. I can now play and enjoy the game.

[AlanC9]

Tends to run my GPU up to 60 degrees and CPU to 50 degrees however my previous PSU blew up and this chips inside exploded because of the temperature it reached within the PSU. The game is poorly optimized though I am under no illusion the cause for the explosion was more related to me using a cheap multi-rail poor ampage PSU, the wattage was enough but the ampage spread across the rails was an issue. I have since replaced with a corsair high quality one which should be fine but time will tell. This game is very, very, badly optimized though on both AMD and Nvidia GPU's.

 

Wow. I haven't seen anything like that myself since a couple of my company's Mac Pluses caught fire.

[RageReload]

So, a problem I occurred (which took me about a week of troubleshooting) was that my game audio would cut out. First a buzzing feedback noise that would grow in volume, until my right speaker would go out followed by the left. Turn out after a lot of audio driver tweaking, system wipes, etc. that it was all a gpu temp issue. My game was optimized through Nvidia and all that. I finally found the answer while monitoring my temps, and realized the audio issues began at approximately 83 degrees Celsius. My solution (I haven't tried limiting fps to 30 because I thought the game came that way, and the console command was just to unlock 60 fps. I plan to test this as well). After attempting different settings, which eventually landed at all low or off, with the SAME temp results, I found d a SIMPLE solution. Some may fund this unacceptable. However all I did, was lower my resolution (not utilizing the slider... That makes the game look horrible). I adjusted from 1920, to 1600x900 60.01Hz. This may not seem acceptable to most, but I cannot see a difference at the 900p resolution. This minor change allowed me to back to ultra with a few high settings, maintaining a temp of around 60 degrees. Sorry for the wall of text. This was done on a msi gt70 dominator pro 888. With the gtx 880m card. Running at a stable 60 fps. So, if you can live with a 'downgraded' resolution (sarcasm) this is the most easy fix I recommend to maintain those frames.

[Lebanese Dude]

Ok, a follow up on the advice given above: (problem solved!)

 

First off

 

Using the GeForce Experience program to optimize the settings.

Result: Situation made worse

 

Im actually quite disappointed with this program. Ive had it installed (mainly for shadowplay, which is amazing) but never used it to "optimize" my games settings. Any game. To my disappointment, all this program does is adjust the in game options (something you can do manually) to what it thinks is best for your hardware. No special driver tweaks, no hidden improvement or performance adjustments. In my case, because Im running with lower settings that my hardware typically can handle without any issues, the "optimized" settings actually turned UP the graphical settings, causing my GPU to run even HOTTER. I cant imagine anyone who would use this tool to "optimize" settings that you can adjust manually, unless you know absolutely nothing about these settings. IE: if you have no idea what HBAO or Mesh Quality is.  

 

 

Woops
 

I haven't used that program in a while ( haven't downloaded any new games) but I've only had good experiences with it.

Perhaps it's not as useful for high-end computers. It did wonders for my relatively out-dated one and it let me run DAI on appropriate settings with relatively low heat emissions.

 

A couple of games kept overheating my system until I installed it. Its why I recommended trying it. Perhaps I had just missed something.

 

Glad someone else helped you fix the issue.

[Zewks]

So after the latest patch (2), and the comments from the developers, I wanted to facepalm. I KNEW the game was doing something with the GPU outside of the options we had to control.

 

In this case, it was forcing Ultra Shader settings for everyone.

 

Now that Mesh quality directly controls shader quality as well, simply setting this from Ultra, to High, has allowed me to run the game not only smoother, but with much higher settings elsewhere AND without capping the framerate to 30.

 

I now play with pretty much all High settings (minus multisampling and HBAO), getting an average of 50 fps in the heat of combat, and my temps never get higher than 70C. Game still looks amazing and now plays even better.

 

Thank you devs for fixing your "oversight"

[Rannik]

Settings do not matter, as long as you ask for more frames the GPU will try to stay at a 100% and draw more of them, doesn't matter if you are playing at 640x480 low settings or 4K on ultra, paying money for silicon and then tell it to work less for no reason is pointless.

 

Unless you hit a CPU bottleneck or cap/sync the framerate, that's exactly how it is supposed to work...

 

85ºC is perfectly fine for some cards, that 760 should be a bit cooler though, you probably have bad airflow in your case.

[Zewks]

Settings do not matter, as long as you ask for more frames the GPU will try to stay at a 100% and draw more of them, doesn't matter if you are playing at 640x480 low settings or 4K on ultra, paying money for silicon and then tell it to work less for no reason is pointless.

 

Unless you hit a CPU bottleneck or cap/sync the framerate, that's exactly how it is supposed to work...

 

85ºC is perfectly fine for some cards, that 760 should be a bit cooler though, you probably have bad airflow in your case.

 

Um, I take it you only skimmed most of this post?

 

The high temps were due to an error by the developers, forcing ultra shaders on people, even if they had all settings on LOW.

So yeah, LOW settings getting 85C  IS/was an issue on an 760.

 

Now that they fixed it, and im getting no more than 70C, i seriously doubt I have an airflow issue with my case.

[Rannik]

Um, I take it you only skimmed most of this post?

 

The high temps were due to an error by the developers, forcing ultra shaders on people, even if they had all settings on LOW.

So yeah, LOW settings getting 85C  IS/was an issue on an 760.

 

Now that they fixed it, and im getting no more than 70C, i seriously doubt I have an airflow issue with my case.

 

Then either the framerate is capped (and you're wasting budget) or there's something wrong with your system because the GPU should always be working as hard as possible (assuming no power saving laptop stuff), the only difference between cranking the settings up or keeping then low is how many frames you'll get out of it.

 

Using a money analogy if your GPU has 1000 bitcoins you can either but lots of cheap things (low settings, high framerate) or fewer more expensive ones (higher settings, higher frame times and therefore lower framerates), you're still spending the 1000 bitcoins either way.

 

Also, software can't actually "fry" modern hardware.

[Zewks]

Then you either capped the framerate or there's something wrong with your system because the GPU should always be working as hard as possible (assuming no power saving laptop stuff), the only difference between cranking the settings up or keeping then low is how many frames you'll get out of it, the budget is the same.

 

Using a money analogy if your GPU has 1000 bitcoins you can either but lots of cheap things (low settings, high framerate) or fewer more expensive ones (higher settings, higher frame times and therefore lower framerates), you're still spending the 1000 bitcoins either way.  

 

In your example, my gpu, even when handling a 1 texture, spinning cube, should be running at 100% and sitting around 80C.

So why dont most people ever see things like this? Because there is more to how hardware performs, than the hardware itself. A lot is controlled directly from the code/software.

 

For instance. I can write a simple bit of code that repeats itself making your GPU hit 100% load, and get really hot, whithout it really doing anything spectacular visually.

 

Or, I can take that same code, add a few extra lines, and make it barely take up 1% of the GPU load, intentionally.

 

It all depends on the necessity of how fast the code needs to run at. Sure, you could make a 1 texture spinning cube that renders at 30,000 frames per second. But this isnt needed. Most developers realize this. In order to optimize resources, code will be added to balance out what the hardware has to do based on how its needed. If a spinning cube only needs to be going spinning at 200 fps, even if it can do 30,000 fps, it will be capped via the code to do so, freeing up GPU load for rendering other things (if needed). Games do this (at least well programmed games). A good example of this in some games: Walk into a wall, so that you can only see the wall texture and nothing else. Often, your GPU load and GPU temp will go down dramatically, while your framerate goes up. Why is this? Because the way the code is written, its not telling your GPU to handle anything else other than the wall you are looking at, since there is no reason to. All you can see is the wall.

 

Games also arent telling your GPU to do tons of stuff every second that the game is running. A lot gets prerendered and stored in memory, allowing the GPU to have periods where it doesnt need to do nearly as much work. 

 

So the reality is, depending on the code AND hardware, your GPU wont be running at 100% in most games. 

 

The only time you will commonly see your hardware hit 100% is with programs specifically designed to be "uncapped" and push your hardware to the max limits, such as benchmarking software. 

 

And in your comment of "Settings dont matter"

 

Settings DO matter, because settings impliment these intentional "caps" and restrictions put in by the developers, to make it so your GPU doesnt have to work as hard. Your theory of "Your GPU should run at 100% and just as hot regardless of settings" isnt necessarily wrong, its just not accurate when applied to how most games are purposely programmed to work with the hardware.

 

"Also, software can't actually "fry" modern hardware."

 

Dont let ignorance get the better of you. I have first hand experience showing how this is possible.

 

The gist:

 

Hardware gets hot (90C). Plastic cover over the hardware heats up, warping. Warped plastic keeps the fan from spinning. Plastic heats up more, dripping onto circuit board. Smoke, zzzzzt. Damaged hardware.

 

Yes, this happened. To me. Thankfully EVGA replaced it free.

[DemGeth]

Tends to run my GPU up to 60 degrees and CPU to 50 degrees however my previous PSU blew up and this chips inside exploded because of the temperature it reached within the PSU. The game is poorly optimized though I am under no illusion the cause for the explosion was more related to me using a cheap multi-rail poor ampage PSU, the wattage was enough but the ampage spread across the rails was an issue. I have since replaced with a corsair high quality one which should be fine but time will tell. This game is very, very, badly optimized though on both AMD and Nvidia GPU's.

Mentioned this in another thread but that happened to me.  In my case it was all user error, I had forgotten my psu had an outfan on the bottom.  So years worth of dust  .  I ended up being pretty lucky in that I keep my cpu shut off pretty low in case I do something stupid      ....The dust was so choking it off the vent I had to put a dab of grease on the ball bearing type part to get it moving again.  Lucky...very luckily actually...no permanent damage and back to running at nice cool temps. 

[CIA]

my gpu temps have gone up after the recent patch for some reason