36 replies to this topic

[Brollocks]

Currently still using my near 5 year old i3 2100 3.2ghz and now looking at buying a new motherboard and processor. i5 4690k and will likely overclock up to whatever it can manage on air with a quality cooler. 4.5ghz?

Should I expect a considerable increase in performance in this game? I'm really only upgrading to play MWO with better FPS and looking the best it can. MWO has been the only game I've played for the last 2-3 months. Couple of days ago I bought a new psu, mastercase pro and a gtx 970 and transferred everything to the new case. Nice upgrade to MWO from my old overheating gtx 560ti, but still not really good enough, and already got an itchy wallet for a 980ti, but I'm guessing my current processor is a huge bottleneck and is limiting my performance? I'd really like to play at 1440 (DSR) with everything but AA maxed out and at 60 FPS minimum in combat. Is the i5 going to allow me to do that? The 970 is overclocked to just under 1500mhz.


Thanks for any advice.

[Ex Atlas Overlord]

Muddy Funster, on 11 October 2015 - 04:31 PM, said:

Currently still using my near 5 year old i3 2100 3.2ghz and now looking at buying a new motherboard and processor. i5 4690k and will likely overclock up to whatever it can manage on air with a quality cooler. 4.5ghz?

Should I expect a considerable increase in performance in this game? I'm really only upgrading to play MWO with better FPS and looking the best it can. MWO has been the only game I've played for the last 2-3 months. Couple of days ago I bought a new psu, mastercase pro and a gtx 970 and transferred everything to the new case. Nice upgrade to MWO from my old overheating gtx 560ti, but still not really good enough, and already got an itchy wallet for a 980ti, but I'm guessing my current processor is a huge bottleneck and is limiting my performance? I'd really like to play at 1440 (DSR) with everything but AA maxed out and at 60 FPS minimum in combat. Is the i5 going to allow me to do that? The 970 is overclocked to just under 1500mhz.


Thanks for any advice.

None, MWO is not "CPU limited" despite what claims you hear.

When running it with all settings set as high as they'll go, I only hit 32.01% on all eight of my cores.... with temps at ~55C.... all the while FPS between 40-55 on the newer maps.

The game is just badly coded, nothing short of buying 10X the GPU that you would normally need to play this game is going to increase your frame rates.

Edited by The Atlas Overlord, 11 October 2015 - 04:55 PM.

[Durant Carlyle]

If you have anything less than a true quad-core, you are missing out on performance in MWO. Once you hit quad-core, then straight speed is the ticket.

A 4690K will serve you much better than your i3.

Edited by Durant Carlyle, 11 October 2015 - 04:44 PM.

[Lordred]

The Atlas Overlord, on 11 October 2015 - 04:36 PM, said:

None, MWO is not "CPU limited" despite what claims you hear.

Patently false.

MWO is VERY CPU bound.

[Duke ramulots]

This game never seems to push my CPU beyond 30% but I still get framerate drop to 25-30 at times and even some visual sega slow down once in a while.

[Deathlike]

Lordred, on 11 October 2015 - 04:57 PM, said:

Patently false.

MWO is VERY CPU bound.

It does need a beefy GPU to go with it.

I'm running a GTX960 now... the CW map runs @ 60fps w/o issue. Prior to the new vid card, the GTX650 I was using was alright, but for whatever reason made the CW map run @ 30 fps.

The game is woefully unoptimized regardless, so both components being exceptional helps.

Edit:
FYI, previously I was running on a Core 2 Quad (Q9650) for a bit, then eventually a Core i7-4960S (and previously used a GTX260 video card before it died overheating - the GTX650 was the replacement and ironically was an upgrade at that point).

It's so sad this game requires so much and does so little...

Edited by Deathlike, 11 October 2015 - 05:31 PM.

[Ex Atlas Overlord]

The Atlas Overlord, on 11 October 2015 - 04:36 PM, said:

When running it with all settings set as high as they'll go, I only hit 32.01% on all eight of my cores.... with temps at ~55C.... all the while FPS between 40-55 on the newer maps.

Duke ramulots, on 11 October 2015 - 05:06 PM, said:

This game never seems to push my CPU beyond 30% but I still get framerate drop to 25-30 at times

And there here comes this guy...

Lordred, on 11 October 2015 - 04:57 PM, said:

Patently false.
MWO is VERY CPU bound.

Ignore this guy OP, he's one of those false information spreaders I told you about.

Open something that montiors your CPU usage and see for yourself.

You quad core CPU won't give two ***** MWO is running....

If you want more frames, upgrade the GPU.... b/c that's the only thing holding you back.... well and the terrible coding.

Edit: Just for Fun when you're playing Press Right Shift + F11 to turn off the HUD and watch your FPS jump up. They REALLY need to rewrite the HUD code.

Edited by The Atlas Overlord, 11 October 2015 - 06:08 PM.

[Troutmonkey]

Upgraded from
AMD 1090T X6 3.2GHZ CPU
ATI 6970 OC
(From 2011)

to
Intel i7 4790k 4.4GHZ CPU
nVidia GTX970

Went from ~30-40 frames on Ultra to ~40-60 frames on Ultra
Game is terribly optimized and nothing short of a super computer can run it well

[MrEdweird]

I think some of you are confused about the Windows CPU usage meter.
And I'm more inclined to believe what Lordred says.
CPU utilization as you see in Windows is a measurement of how much of the time past the CPU has been used at 100%. There's no such thing as 50% CPU usage - that just means that for half the cycles, the CPU was fully used.

Take my old dual-core, 1st gen i3. 60% usage, GTX780, 40fps consistent.
Now take a 4790K and a GTX970 (which is slightly more powerful than the above GPU) and you get 60+ consistent.

I rarely drop under 50 on my i7-4710HQ/GTX980M laptop.

MWO loves powerful cores, preferably 4. In your case, I'd expect around 10fps increase. If you go for an i7, I'd bet on maybe 12-13, though the dependancy seems to have decreased over the past 1.5 years as some optimizations have gone in.

If you really wanna see a CPU-bound game, try PlanetSide2...

Also, the HUD is based on Scaleform - which, in every game that has it, if you turn it off, you will see a rise in frames. World of Tanks, for example.

Edited by Edweird, 12 October 2015 - 02:33 AM.

[Peter2k]

Muddy Funster, on 11 October 2015 - 04:31 PM, said:

Currently still using my near 5 year old i3 2100 3.2ghz and now looking at buying a new motherboard and processor. i5 4690k and will likely overclock up to whatever it can manage on air with a quality cooler. 4.5ghz?

Should I expect a considerable increase in performance in this game? I'm really only upgrading to play MWO with better FPS and looking the best it can. MWO has been the only game I've played for the last 2-3 months. Couple of days ago I bought a new psu, mastercase pro and a gtx 970 and transferred everything to the new case. Nice upgrade to MWO from my old overheating gtx 560ti, but still not really good enough, and already got an itchy wallet for a 980ti, but I'm guessing my current processor is a huge bottleneck and is limiting my performance? I'd really like to play at 1440 (DSR) with everything but AA maxed out and at 60 FPS minimum in combat. Is the i5 going to allow me to do that? The 970 is overclocked to just under 1500mhz.


Thanks for any advice.

I have a GTX970 stock
i5 with turbo boost to 4Ghz
2560x1080 resolution

can run this game at medium and high settings at 60fps or so in CW
if everything is on low except textures which are always very high it's always above 100fps in CW

CW is draining more fps than normal matches

high clock speeds will give you something, and powerful cores (like single thread performance)

The Atlas Overlord, on 11 October 2015 - 05:50 PM, said:

stuff

you could have 64 cores and it wouldn't matter
8 cores doesn't give you anything at all since this game and DX11/DX9 don't multitask well

Karl Berg, on 12 June 2014 - 09:18 PM, said:

The draw calls made into D3D are very CPU intensive. A good chunk of that is due to the lego-like nature of the mechs; being formed out of dozens of individual components rather than a single character that can be rendered with a single draw call, like in most other games. It's also compounded by the particle system, the terrain system, and the older Scaleform 3 integrated into the engine.

Because of this, you're definitely going to want a very strong CPU. I'd recommend a quad core.

Because we're so CPU limited, most decent GPU's will do a good job, but the more raw fill rate you have, the less the particle system will slow you down.

what you need is really strong cores that are fast
meaning modern i5 or i7 with a nice turbo boost or OC


any API before DX12, Mantle, and Vulcan are literally useless at handling many draw calls and proper multitasking
and even those modern API's don't scale so impressively beyond 6 cores any more (just too much cache misses I guess, here's hoping for a Skylake i7 K with loads of eDRAM)

hence the reason why more weak core (like AMD) are no good in this game
or why having more real cores on i7's or xeons but low frequency is giving worse performance

and why OC'ing AMD and Intel CPU's gives fps boosts (increasing IPC, and well of course if you're not limited by your GPU in the first place)


despite what some people think MWO needs a more modern API in the end
hell with DX12 or Vulcan you could probably power this game on an core 2 duo as long as your GPU is modern enough

Edweird, on 12 October 2015 - 01:57 AM, said:

And I'm more inclined to believe what Lordred says.

I second that

Lordred, on 11 October 2015 - 04:57 PM, said:

Patently false.

MWO is VERY CPU bound.

just for the giggles, please indulge me

what are you running these days?
1 Titan X
or is it 2 already (as in not being GPU bound under 4k I guess)

MWO's troubles with SLI aside

Edited by Peter2k, 12 October 2015 - 02:07 AM.

[Bilbo]

I went from an i7 @ 2.9ghz to an i7 @ 4ghz and got 40-60+ increase at medium settings depending on the map with the same video card installed. Your milage may vary.

[Lordred]

Peter2k, on 12 October 2015 - 02:00 AM, said:

just for the giggles, please indulge me

what are you running these days?
1 Titan X
or is it 2 already (as in not being GPU bound under 4k I guess)

MWO's troubles with SLI aside

I still have only a Single Titan X, I bought that because that would be all I need.

But for testing reasons, I have tested performance @1080p with the game on "high" frame rate results were the same for my GTX 480, GTX 680 4gb, and Titan X.

Also last I recall, I gave away my GTX 480s and the owners are very happy with the performance of those cards in this game.

Edited by Lordred, 12 October 2015 - 07:46 AM.

[Clit Beastwood]

The Atlas Overlord, on 11 October 2015 - 04:36 PM, said:

None, MWO is not "CPU limited" despite what claims you hear.

It *is* cpu bound, it's just not well optimized for multiple cores (it won't use all 8 of your cores). Please refrain from presenting unqualified opinions unless you make it clear that it's just that - opinion. It would be unfortunate if a user took one of your replies as fact, invested in upgrades, and found your statement to be incorrect (or more likely to be an overgeneralization).

[anecdotal]
For the OP - I have a water cooled 3770k @ 4.8 - I've played the game at everything from stock to 4.9Ghz and FPS noticeably scales upwards - CPU performance has a more direct impact on game performance than the GPUs do after a certain point. That being said, however, you need to match your components.

[factual]
A core i3 with a titan X is going to be CPU bottlenecked. By that same token, an Extreme edition Intel CPU running onboard GPU is going to be GPU bottlenecked - the key is scaling both factors upwards to deliver performance. Too much GPU for your CPU and you're going to see FPS spikes and dips.

[quantification]
You can test this yourself - turn shading/shadows down as far as they go, then change your resolution - both up and down. If changing the resolution makes no real difference in FPS, then you're likely CPU bound. You could also install something like MSI afterburner and keep it and a cpu load meter on a second screen, and see what is taxed more based on what you ask of it. Watch the CPU spikes in relation to particles. Now leave your resolution alone and change settings (texture settings, etc. - but only one setting at a time) - if texture quality changes your FPS drastically where resolution changes did not, then you've identified GPU limitations.

[other considerations]
There are also lots of little things that affect FPS - Hyperthreading, etc. With MWO's implementation of CryEngine it can take some fiddling to optimize - time consuming, I know, but worth it. Don't be afraid to experiment!

[tips]
- Make sure all your drivers are up to date
- Make sure you minimize the amount of stuff running in the background
- Make sure you're running the appropriate version of the client (64bit where appropriate)
- Experiment! Come up with a baseline test, then change things. Test test test. Document document document. Spreadsheets are good for this. Then you can use the data to make an educated upgrade decision.
- Have fun!

Edited by Fierostetz, 12 October 2015 - 08:33 AM.

[Goose]

Duke ramulots, on 11 October 2015 - 05:06 PM, said:

This game never seems to push my CPU beyond 30% but I still get framerate drop to 25-30 at times and even some visual sega slow down once in a while.

The Atlas Overlord, on 11 October 2015 - 05:50 PM, said:

Ignore this guy OP, he's one of those false information spreaders I told you about.

Open something that montiors your CPU usage and see for yourself.

I find your lack of clues disturbing:


Note the last two graphs: The bottom-most would be what TaskMan will show you in an over-all listing, where-as the previous graph is the largest load of all the cores at any given moment.

With more then two cores, TaskMan reports can mean anything I want.

People keep carpin' 'bout "14CKz 0PTY]\/[Is4710N," yet never seem to find their way to Teh Department of Hardware Dept. …

[KHETTI]

Hey Muddy, i have an i5 4590K + GTX 960 and i have everything maxed and get upwards of 70 fps, so that 4690k + GTX 970 will definitely do the trick.

[Clit Beastwood]

Goose, on 12 October 2015 - 08:15 AM, said:

I find your lack of clues disturbing:


Note the last two graphs: The bottom-most would be what TaskMan will show you in an over-all listing, where-as the previous graph is the largest load of all the cores at any given moment.

With more then two cores, TaskMan reports can mean anything I want.

People keep carpin' 'bout "14CKz 0PTY]\/[Is4710N," yet never seem to find their way to Teh Department of Hardware Dept. …

Don't post graphs, heads will explode!

[Mothykins]

My AMD 1090t is fine for MWO, it's the low memory on my graphics card that ways my frame rate.

[TKSax]

Bilbo, on 12 October 2015 - 07:09 AM, said:

I went from an i7 @ 2.9ghz to an i7 @ 4ghz and got 40-60+ increase at medium settings depending on the map with the same video card installed. Your milage may vary.

Same here, upgraded my cpu and mother board, kept same amount of memory and same GPU, and got anywhere from a 40-60+ fps increase, upgrade my video card.. saw no noticable incresase in FPS in MWO, saw lots in other games. So that points me to the direction of a game that is CPU bound.

Edited by TKSax, 12 October 2015 - 10:48 AM.

[Bilbo]

TKSax, on 12 October 2015 - 10:22 AM, said:

Same here, upgraded my cpu and mother board, kept same amount of memory and same GPU, and got anywhere from a 40-60+ fps increase, upgrade my video card.. so no noticable incresase in FPS in MWO, saw lots in other games. So that points me to the direction of a game that is CPU bound.

I made the mistake of upgrading the video card first. It gave me absolutely no improvement.

[Ex Atlas Overlord]

Edweird, on 12 October 2015 - 01:57 AM, said:

I think some of you are confused about the Windows CPU usage meter.

CPU utilization as you see in Windows is a measurement of how much of the time past the CPU has been used at 100%. There's no such thing as 50% CPU usage - that just means that for half the cycles, the CPU was fully used.

No I get how it works.

The back and forth here is on how hard MWO hits a cpu.... if the CPU isn't running 100% or at least close to it.... it's not CPU bound.

A CPU running at 50% means the other half of the time it WASN'T fully used.... hence not limited by the cpu.

Edweird, on 12 October 2015 - 01:57 AM, said:

And I'm more inclined to believe what Lordred says.

Believe whatever you like.

I'm just telling you what I've seen upgrading from a 6 core (3.2) CPU to an 8 core (4.7) without upgrading the GPU..... and then upgrading the GPU.

A game will always be "bound" by something in your PC..... the question of which part has to be more powerful.

You can run a 5 year old quad core "meh" cpu and get solid 60 as long as you're running a powerful GPU.

In MWO's case, the hardware it needs most to run 60fps stable... is the GPU.

aka... not CPU bound.

Lordred, on 12 October 2015 - 07:43 AM, said:

But for testing reasons, I have tested performance @1080p with the game on "high" frame rate results were the same for my GTX 480, GTX 680 4gb, and Titan X.

I was going to keep replying to this thread but then I came across this treat.

This guy is either:
A) Running some ancient dual core from 2000 and then claiming "oh guys it's totally CPU bound, my cell phone processor can't handle it even though I have a titan"

B- Running it on super low settings and claiming "Oh look guys FPS with vsync on didn't change even though I changed GPUs"

C) Lying

Assuming you actually met the recommended CPU requirements, and had the settings maxed out, you're just a liar.

And I'm not going to waste my time with that.

P.s Didn't get a performance boost upgrading from GTX480 to a TitanX... I still can't believe he actually typed those words out with a straight face.

Edited by The Atlas Overlord, 12 October 2015 - 10:52 AM.