Does RAM and processor frequency matter ?

I have an AMD FX-8120 running at 2.8 GHz, 8 GB of RAM at 667 MHz each, MSI MD 6770 1 GB and about 3.5 TB HDD space. With full settings i get 19 fps and with lowest i get 24 fps.

Should I be looking to overclock my processor to about 4-4.5 GHz and get some new RAM with a higher bandwith ? What might be causing the low fps ? Is something bottlenecking my computers performance ?

Sorry for any mistakes in my English, its not my native language.

 

Do you have post FX enabled?

 

Yes, but even if i switch it off the fps rise is only by 2 or 3 max.

 

is the graphics card driver correct and up to date?

Yes processor freq matters though. I have a 2.8ghz core 2 duo and it runs 30fps

 

Overclock from 2.8 to +4 Ghz? make sure you have a nice cooler

 

a 6770 isn't super higher performance I don't think so you may have to turn more settings down. Maybe your cpu is overheating and throttling the clock speed down. I don't really know though.

 

Press J to pause physics, see if that makes a difference to frame rate. If it does, then the CPU is bottlenecking, if it doesn't then the GPU is bottlenecking.

If the CPU is bottlenecking then that much of an overclock would help considerably. If the GPU is bottlenecking, then the cpu overclock likely won't help as much, any effect it does have will be positive though (and there should be an effect, just not as big as if it was the CPU bottlenecking).

Overclocking will increase heat output. The stock cooler may not cope. If buying a new cooler isn't an option then I would not risk overclocking personally. However if your insistent on it, overclock in increments and keep an eye on temperatures.

If it is the GPU bottlenecking, then turn down graphics settings, disable PostFX and maybe drop the game resolution too. Your GPU isn't really high end so you cant expect it to max this game


I have not heard of 667MHz RAM in this day and age unless there is a problem or you are using CPU-Z which shows half the RAM speed in which case you would have 1333MHz sticks most likely. Upgrading to higher clocked RAM may bring improvement, probably not huge improvement but improvement none the less.

 

@moosedicks All of my PC's drivers are up to date.

@Davidbc I am going to buy a new cooler and a new cabinet (total price range is about 400-500 dollars max).

@SixSixSevenSeven My screen resolution is 1280x1024 pixels ( the resolution is constant for this test ). With full settings, if I press J ( to stop the physics ) the fps increase is of about 10-15 fps on Dry Rock Island. On Lowest setting, the fps increase after pressing J is a massive 75 fps on the dry rock island. Without pressing J the fps is right about 20 fps with both the settings. So i guess I should go ahead and overclock my CPU and look to buy a new GPU ( thinking about the R9 280X if my dad allows me to buy it ). Oh and I did use CPU-Z to look at the memory speed which showed 667, so i guess mine is 1333 MHz then.

Thank you all for your quick replies and tremendous help.

 

My 6750 gets better fps than that. Just a heads up. I believe my ram is 1600 MHz, 8GB and my Athlon II x4 645 is clocked stock at 3.1 GHz, but I did get a boot error this morning about failure to overclock, so I think I shall look at it after work.

 

the processor frequency doesn't matter as much as the IPC. an AMD processor clocked at 5ghz could still be slower than an intel at 3ghz. it's the differences in architecture that matter.

this game uses one thread to simulate the physics of vehicles as i understand. as such, only one processor core is doing the physics work. the AMD fx-series of processors has a weird architecture where your "eight" cores are actually 4 modules, each with two integer-cluster cores. this type of core is much slower than intel cores.

anyway, find your fx-8120 in this list:

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

it's pretty slow. i wouldn't be surprised if it was bottlenecking your performance in-game.

 

I am personally aware of this (and have attempted to point it out to others on several occasions), but in this case we're talking the same CPU pre and post overclock, which will always result in a performance increase provided you dont overheat the CPU to enforce thermal throttling (presuming your CPU supports that, honestly I have never checked if thats just a laptop thing or not, I should) or have an unstable overclock (I haven't overclocked my system before, going to soon, is stability still a concern these days or is that a thing of the past?).

I think its actually 1 thread *per* vehicle, not 1 thread for all vehicles. So the 8 cores (or 4 modules) will be utilised, he should have the edge on multiple vehicle simulation as opposed to someone with lets say a dual core. Of course there is little benefit to single vehicle simulation and of course an 8 core intel chip would beat AMD still, but 4 modules isn't anything to be snuffed at for multitasking, its more effective than intel god damn hyperthreading (although no doubt the Haswell-E octa core will support hyperthreading too).






Back to OP. Definitely seems to be CPU bottlenecking. Close a few external programs if any are running. Then look into overclocking perhaps, with bigger cooler if necessary.



I'm looking into getting a better cooler for my rig and then overclocking. I'm still running an AMD athlon II X3 @3.4ghz, pretty outdated. I'll see if I can get someone to buy a bigger cooler for christmas and probably new RAM (4gb 1333Mhz, could do with an upgrade ). At least with a bigger cooler I can look into overclocking a replacement CPU too when I can budget for one.

 

If I OC my CPU and i damage it or burn it, will it affect the other components of my PC like me GPU or HDD ? Will it cause data loss or data corruption from my HDDs.

Also, I keep my PC on for days or months at a go. I rarely shut it down, so if I do the OCing should i continue doing this or will it harm my pc ( CPUR, GPU or HDD ) ?

 

If the temps get too high on the CPU the computer will shut down itself.

 

So no danger of losing data or damaging anything, except the processor ( worst case ) ?

Sorry I have so many doubts, its the first time I am overclocking a processor.

 

Nothing will break. When I overclocked mine I set a 4Ghz target (from 3,4Ghz default), and then I was messing with voltages until I found one that was low but stable.

 

The only parts which are at risk are the CPU and *potentially* however absurdly unlikely the motherboard or power supply. Chances are if the power supply was going to die, it would have, however you do want a decent one, a high quality power supply will simply shut down rather than be damaged, a poor quality one the extra current draw of an overclocked system could throw it over the limit and kill it. Motherboard, I can't see how that would be damaged except for perhaps bios corruption or something. I thnik you can quite safely ignore those 2 risks if your power supply is upto scratch.

Most CPU's (and pretty much all in the last few years) have thermal shutdown, they will detect the temperature reaching dangerous levels and cut the power (they will not perform a safe shutdown so you may lose work). Most mobile chips (I havent checked if this is a feature on desktop chips yet) also have thermal throttling, they detect the processor getting warm and automatically underclock it as at a lower clockspeed they don't produce as much heat.
However if the CPU runs at a temperature just below the shutdown temperature for prolonged periods of time it may still be damaged, the shutdown temp is almost to avoid imminent danger, not for prolonged running. If the system is idle of course then its not really going to get too warm so it should be fine to be left overnight etc. Keep an eye on the temperature (there are utilities to check the CPU temp) and just try to keep it low, if you overclock to lets say 4.2ghz, think its a bit warm, perhaps scale back to 4.0ghz. Might take you a few days of use until you establish a perfect overclock for your hardware. Most of the time though, thermal shutdown should catch any issues in your first few days.

You can undervolt, this reduces power consumption a bit. But does cause instability. Large numbers of transistors switching (of which there are millions upon millions in a CPU now) will cause voltage drop on the main supply, normally this is fine as the voltage on the main supply is somewhat higher than that required for a transistor to switch. But if the main supply voltage drops too low then the voltage to the transistors wont be enough for them to switch, which means they wont switch, which means your processor isnt doing things correctly anymore. Undervolting is a much finer art, go down in small increments and you should be fine, usually windows or other software will crash repeatedly before anything permanently damaging happens, the potential for loss of data is there though when the processor has a mind of its own (although when you start to look into how a computer works, you will see that loss of data from an unstable CPU is so unlikely that you could almost label it impossible beyond the data you are working on at that exact moment in time in RAM, not on the hard disk)

 

I did experience an abrupt shutdown when I was running a stress test via the IBT software which was due to overheating. This was probably cause by the dust in the heat sink cause after i cleaned it and re ran the test the temps were constant at 55 degrees Celsius.
As for the PSU, I am going to buy a new one to reduce the chances of any damage and also my current one has quite a low power output ( 300 watts i believe ).

I just found a new software a few hours back called AMD OverDrive, it is to help users to overclock and be in control of their CPU. Is it any good ? I might try and use it to do the overclock. I will be using Core Temp software to monitor the temps and have set an auto shut off for the PC when the processor is at 65 degrees Celsius.

When I complete the overclock I will post my results over here.

 

65ºC for a shutdown is rather low.

 

I have a Corsair AX860i and its a powerful PSU I upgraded it to run a ATI Radeon HD3870X2 which sadly died on me but I went back to my old HD 3870 before recently I liberated a HD5770 and its now running in my pc but I mean my own processor is running around 50 Degrees C and I need to really dismantle my computer so strip it out so everything is out the case and then give it the mother of all cleaning outs and then rebuilding it again I swear there is a ton of dust somewhere in my Asus Vento M9 Case that I have not yet found...give me a few weeks and I will find it and clean it out

 

@Davidbc Changed the temp from 65 to 75 for a shut down( the Tj.Max is 80 according to Core temp ).

@RobertGracie No need to strip out the PC. I just put the vacuum cleaner on the blow mode and blew out the dust. Then I took a paint brush ( the kinda bug one ) and just roughly brushed up my graphics card, the processor, PSU and the top of the HDDs followed by another session to blow out the dust with the vacuum. Took my about 30 minutes to do it but its really worth it.
And as for your PSU, it is kinda too expensive for me at the moment as I will be buying stuff for about 250-300 dollars already for my PC's cooling.