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I'm running an FX-8350, 8 gig of ram and a GTX-760ti so figured that it really shouldn't be struggling the way it was, I tried all the stuff on the forums about hardware acceleration in flash, switched between dx's, adjusted graphics settings and so on, all to no avail.
Then I started monitoring my cpu with cpu-z and found that the massive drops in framerate exactly corresponded to my cpu experiencing suddenly throttling itself to a third normal rate, some further research revealed that this was happening in all probablity because my cheap motherboard (ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3) has a vrm (voltage regulation module) insufficient for the processor, and thus throttles the cpu to keep itself within temperature tolerances.
So, I downloaded a tweaker tool and experimented with power state settings to find a more stable configuration, which I present below in case it helps anyone:
BEFORE TRYING ANY OF THIS PLEASE READ AND UNDERSTAND THE FOLLLOWING 3 THINGS:
1. The settings I give below work stably on my system, this does not necessarily mean they will be right for your own system, you may need to experiment a little to find whats right for you.
2. Playing around with the multipliers and voltages for your cpu may cause system instability, complete shutdowns, component burnout or motherboard fire.
3. I am NOT responsible for any damage you incur playing around with your own machine.
That bit out of the way, here's what you'll need:
A copy of CPU-Z (lets you monitor processor performance), amdmsrtweaker 1.1, PSCheck (if you want to stress test your own settings)
Firstly, boot your machine into bios and disable Cool and Quiet, then boot into windows normally.
Next open up cpu-z, on the first tab (cpu) you will see a lot of information but don't worry, we're only looking at the the "clocks" section. The first entry there is "core speed", load up mwo and have a play, keep an eye on the core speed while playing (I've got a dual monitor setup, you might need to run mwo windowed if not) if you experience a sudden framerate drop have a look at your core speed, if its much less than it should be then the chances are its the cpu being throttled.
Assuming thats the case, then close mwo and open a cmd prompt. Navigate to the folder you put amdmsrtweaker into and then into the win32 or x64 folder as appropriate, then type "amdmsrtweaker". this will display a window with a bunch of information, take a note of your default power state settings... on my system they look like this:
P0: 21x at 1.425V
P1: 20.5x at 1.4125V
P2: 20x at 1.3375V
P3: 17x at 1.2375V
P4: 14x at 1.1375V
P5: 10.5x at 1.0125V
P6: 7x at 0.8875V
You also need to scroll up and check the "turbo" state.
Next, if turbo is enabled we want to disable it, while this may seem counterintuitive to improve performance whats happening is that the processor comes from the factory with a small amount of overclocking enabled as default, when your system is trying to use this (settings P0 and P1) the vrm is getting too hot and forcing the cpu to throttle. Removing this will provide a much more stable run.
To do so go back to your cmd prompt in the win32/x64 folder and type: amdmsrtweaker turbo=0
Now run mwo again and see how it gets on, you should find the amount of throttling you receive is reduced or possibly eliminated altogether. If you still experience throttling there is still something you can do to improve it, however this is going to involve tweaking the systems power settings. (read the 3 important rules above
)The setting we're interested in is the P6 one, this is the computers throttled setting, you want to increase it so that the system runs faster whilst throttled, but not so much as to cause overheating. You adjust it with the following command on amdmrstweaker (still in win32 or x64 folder).
amdmsrtweaker p6=<multiplier>@<voltage> substituting the desired multiplier and voltage without the <>.
On my system I managed to get a stable run using my P4 settings (14@1.1375), higher than that caused my system to completely power off after a few minutes. You may well need to experiment to find whats right for you, you can use PSCheck to do stress tests on different settings if you are so inclined.
If you do have to find your own settings then I would suggest only ever making very small adjustments to the current voltage and multiplier (amdmsrtweaker works in increments of 0.5 multiplier and 0.0125v)
Hope this is helpful to some of you, its massively improved my play experience (at least until I've got the cash for a new non ghetto motherboard).
Post any questions below and if I can I'll help
Edited by Chafe, 20 August 2015 - 09:13 AM.
