GTX 1070 performance remains limited even when staying under the Vsync frame rate cap in Fallout 4.
GTX 1070 performance remains limited even when staying under the Vsync frame rate cap in Fallout 4.
Hi everybody, I've got a question for y'all. Does anybody have any ideas as to why my GTX 1070 isn't being fully utilized in Fallout 4, despite the fact that the game is running well below its FPS cap of 60 (due to Vsync on my 60hz monitor)? My apologies for the rather long post, I wanted to make sure I included every piece of information that I thought could possibly be relevant. If I did miss anything that y'all need to know, just let me know and I'll come back and add it in. Notes: Game settings are basically maxed out, with a few exceptions for stuff I either don't like or don't find makes enough of a difference to warrant the potential performance hit. I am running 23 different mods on the game with ModOrganizer2 from Nexus Mods, but this problem also occurs with no mods enabled. This happens both at stock speeds and while overclocked with Afterburner (112% power limit, 85C temp limit, software defined fan curve, automatic "OC Scanner" curve overclock on the GPU core, and +200MHz on the memory). The data I have from last night's gaming session is with the OC applied, I can gather data from stock speed operation if that is necessary. I know that the card is not thermal throttling, as my software fan curve has it peaking at 65C in-game, and normally hovering right around 57C. The max temp it got to during a 3hr FO4 session last night was 61.2C with a hotspot of 72.2C, and that's with my OC applied. I also don't think my i7-3770 CPU is holding it back (although I could be wrong), as I don't ever see full utilization of any of the 8 threads while playing FO4, even while running Steam, Task Manager, HWINFO, Afterburner, Discord (on voice but not streaming or watching a stream, and nobody had their cameras on), and Firefox with a few tabs open all in the background or on other displays. I do have and use Winaero Tweaker (version 1.33.0.0), I have used it to: Disable Telemetry Disable Edge prelaunching and Edge tab preloading Disable the Windows Ink workspace Disable Cortana Tell Windows to keep the thumbnail cache on a restart or shutdown Disable Timeline Disable Power Throttling Make the taskbar clock show seconds Disable driver updates (since Windows decided to disrespect my group policy that forbade it from doing anything with drivers without direct permission!) Disable app lookup in the Microsoft store Disable ads in Windows 10 Stop unwanted apps that Windows installs automatically Start menu suggestions Ads in File Explorer Tips about Windows Spotlight and Lock Screen Ads Welcome Experience (Welcome Page) Ads in Settings Ads in People Flyout Timeline Suggestions Fallout 4 Graphics Settings: Resolution: 1920x1080 Antialiasing: TAA (Best Quality) Anisotropic Filtering: 16 Samples Windowed Mode: Enabled Borderless: Enabled Detail Settings: Texture Quality: Ultra Shadow Quality: Ultra Shadow Distance: Ultra Decal Quality: Ultra Lighting Quality: Ultra Godrays Quality: Ultra Depth of Field: Standard (Low) [I don't like the fake Depth of Field effects, I just want as much info and detail on my screen as possible, so I leave this as low as it goes.] Ambient Occlusion: SSAO (High) [I don't notice a difference between SSAO and HBAO+ like I do between Off and SSAO, so I leave it here.] Weapon Debris: Off (Best Performance) [I don't care one way or the other about having shell casings littering the ground everywhere, so I leave this off because it taxes the physics engine more to handle the shell casings and FO4 is already a crashy, buggy mess, so anything I can do to help it out a bit is definitely worth it.] Screen Space Reflections: Enabled Wetness: Enabled Rain Occlusion: Enabled Motion Blur: Disabled [I hate motion blur just like Linus!] Lens Flare: Disabled [Unnecessary in my opinion.] View Distance (All maxed out because I favor a long-range playstyle and therefore need to be able to see things as far away as possible): Object Fade: Maxed out Actor Fade: Maxed out Grass Fade: Maxed out Item Fade: Maxed out Distant Object Detail: Ultra Object Detail Fade: Ultra Other: I use the console to set my FOV to 110 ("fov 110 110") because... that's how I like it I guess. On a 27" monitor things are still totally big enough to be workable, even stuff that normally would be an issue like in-game terminals. System Specs: Dell Optiplex 9010 i7-3770 (3.4GHz, 4c8t, Intel stock cooler) 24GB DDR3 1600 (2 8GB sticks and 2 4GB sticks, properly populated for dual-channel operation) Zotac GTX 1070 (8GB VRAM, blower style cooler, running the GeForce Game Ready Driver version 512.95 released on 5/24/2022) 512GB WD Blue SSD (boot drive, running Windows 10 with almost all of the updates done [the "2022-05 Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 21H2 for x64-based Systems (KB5013942)" has been refusing to work ever since it was released, citing "Some update files are missing or have problems. We'll try to download the update again later. Error Code: (0x8007000d)".) 2TB Seagate Barracuda HDD (game & bulk storage drive) <-- Fallout 4 installed here thru Steam 2TB WD Black HDD (scratch and other misc stuff disk) Optical CD/DVD drive (because I can ) 500W PSU Monitors Monitor 1 (primary monitor, this is the one I use to game on) 27" 1920x1080 LG at 60Hz Connected over HDMI Monitor 2 21.5" 1920x1080 LG at 60Hz Connected over HDMI (via DisplayPort to HDMI converter plugged into a DisplayPort connector on the GPU) Monitor 3 17" 1280x1024 Dell at 60Hz Connected over VGA (via DisplayPort to VGA converted plugged into a DisplayPort connector on the GPU) Monitor 4 7" 1024x600 No-Name at 60Hz Connected over HDMI (via DisplayPort to HDMI converted plugged into a DisplayPort connector on the GPU) HWINFO data from a 3hr session last night (during which I repeatedly noticed framerates down in the upper 40s or lower 50s while Task Manager reported a GPU usage of about 80%): CPU: Max Package Temp: 70C Max IA Cores Temp: 70C Max Package Power: 45.428W PL1 Power Limit: 77W PL2 Power Limit: 96.3W Chassis: Max Intake Air Temp: 27C Max CPU Fan Speed: 1042RPM Max Mainboard (Rear exhaust right next to the rear IO, in-line with the center of the CPU heatsink) Fan Speed: 1155RPM GPU (keep in mind this is with an Afterburner OC applied that is set to 112% power limit [meaning 168W], 85C thermal limit, custom software fan curve, a OC Scanner curve applied to the GPU core, and +200MHz on the memory): Max GPU Temp: 61.2C Max GPU Hotspot Temp: 72.2C Max GPU Power: 128.835W Max GPU Core Load: 100% (I think this is a random spike that occurred when I launched the game, the highest I ever saw it get to while gaming was about 81-82%) Max GPU Memory Controller Load: 30% Max GPU Video Engine Load: 4% Max GPU Bus Load: 13% Max GPU Memory Usage: 46.9% Max GPU Fan Speed: 77% GPU Performance Limiters (reading from the maximum column, so if any of them flip on even for a split second it'll be recorded here) Power: No Thermal: No Reliability Voltage: No Max Operating Voltage: No Utilization: Yes Max Total GPU Power (normalized % of TDP): 84% Max Total GPU Power (% of TDP): 86.7% Max GPU Memory Allocated: 3,838MB Does anyone have any ideas as to why the GPU usage (and the power consumption of the GPU) don't increase to their maximum in order to try to hold my 60FPS Vsync target?
It seems the discussion focuses mainly on CPU age and performance limits. The main concern is whether the system exceeds 50% CPU usage in Task Manager, which would indicate a potential bottleneck. Before reaching that threshold, you might already be constrained by other factors.
I'd agree with that as well... at least to reach the 60 fps goal. It might help if he runs one monitor at a time, since some of the four could be causing problems.
My task manager shows usage per thread, and none reach full capacity (usually 50-60%). It seems my CPU isn’t limiting performance.