Low fps Max Payne 3

[grandpatzer]

I'm not entirely sure what's going on...
Either Max Payne 3 is a console port or something is wrong with my hardware.
I don't have CPU or GPU bottleneck, maybe my motherboard has too low PCI-E bandwidth (PCI-E 2.0 x16 + x8 + x8 = 32x total).

This user with 4x 7970 and 2011 CPU gets 150-170fps:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ4VUzmjBA8

3x AMD 7950 clocked to 1220core 1575memory, temperatures are below 50c for core, VRM 60c (fullcover watercooled).
CPU is 2500k clocked to 4.7Ghz.

As seen on first diagram CPU peak is 80% load, I also logged GPU usage which was 45-60% load, it never went over 60% load.

My memory is clocked at 1333, It's 1.65v 1600 that I have undervolted to 1.50v.
However it is reported as 1.376 - 1.392v VDIMM.

I was able to max out Metro 2033 on two GPU's and 1100c/1575m and with Radeon Pro I put DFC (Dynamic Frame Control) to 80fps and it was smooth as butter 99% of gameplay.

Now Max Payne 3 neither my CPU or GPU's are anywhere near to maxed out and game is horrible gameplay which is a shame because I LOVE this game.

The above is with maxed out settings, to get acceptabel gameplay 70fps with 2 gpu's I use below settings:

 

[dragoonk]

I had the same issue with Need for Speed Most Wanted 2. Terrible FPS and the CPU and GPU were nowhere near 80-90%. I never found a fix. maybe there is a driver issue.... plus the Crossfire configs are still not perfect. Does All your GPU's work when you run the game?

 

[rumblejack101]

Maybe driver as the last person said. I have been playing on triple screen with a 2600k@4.6 & 2x gtx680's running a pci-e 2.0 8x X 8x motherboard with good frames. Haven't done any testing but setting were maxed out & I would of tested if it looked choppy 5072 x 1024 if I am remembering correctly.

 

[dragoonk]

Try an older version of the driver, see how things go. i am sure this is a driver issue. One single of those 680's you got can play any games maxed out, not to mention 2. So, not handling the game is out of the question.

 

[grandpatzer]

I had the same issue with Need for Speed Most Wanted 2. Terrible FPS and the CPu and GOU were nowhere near 80-90%. I never found a fix. maybe there is a driver issue.... plus the Crossfire configs are still not perfect. Does All your GPU's work when you run the game?

yeah the card's are synchronized perfectly, they have identical load all 3.

Try an older version of the driver, see how things go. i am sure this is a driver issue. One single of those 680's you got can play any games maxed out, not to mention 2. So, not handling the game is out of the question.

Actually I have AMD cards (7950), I know this is a "Nvidia the way it's meant" game, not sure if that's the reason why I have bad fps..

 

[dragoonk]

Ahh, sorry. I misstook you for rumblejack. I don't think that's the reason for bad fps, I think it's a driver issue because I see your rig being capable of playing any game, without a problem for the next 2 years... atleast. So trying different older versions of the driver might help you determine what's going on.
I have seen people having this issue before with no fix. Hopefully not in your case.

 

[SieB]

Try with just two cards, some games just don't work well with three or more cards.
They are not optimized for it, so rather than give you better performance, it gives you worse performance.

 

[dragoonk]

Even better. Try one card at first, and then add another one, test and then the third one, and tell us how it went.

 

[grandpatzer]

Try with just two cards, some games just don't work well with three or more cards.
They are not optimized for it, so rather than give you better performance, it gives you worse performance.

Even better. Try one card at first, and then add another one, test and then the third one, and tell us how it went.

I ended up trying 2x 7950 overclocked to 1220core/1575memory.
I got a GPU usage peak of 88% load with DFC 70 (RadeonPro capped 70fps).
So the scaling is excellent and seems like somethinging is holding back my gpu's (CPU?):
(3gpu's usage is 60%*3= 180%, 2gpu's usage is 88%*2=176%).
Tesselation if OFF, everything else maxed out.

I'm starting to think this game is heavily 1 cpu core dependant.
I think one of my cores is getting full load while the 3 other cores have 30-40% load.

I might try disable 2 cores and run 2 cores@5ghz and see if that helps me.

I have 1600mhz 1.65v memory that is running at 1333mhz 1.50v, however my motherboard reports VDIMM as 1.392v which is strangely low.

 

[dragoonk]

I highly doubt that.
Read this article
http://www.techspot.com/review/537-max-payne-3-performance/

 

[computergeek]

I think I may know your issues.
This maybe either an MSI Afterburner issue or an ATI catalyst issue.
Where the software is trying to manually control the clock speeds on all GPU's at the same time, I had this issue using a graphics card with two GPU's on the pcb board using MSI Afterburner.
Not sure about the ATI catalyst software as I am recently quite new to using AMD GPU's but in the MSI Afterburner software go into the settings area and untick the option to clock all similar processors or whatever its called, I forget sorry.

 

[dragoonk]

Unlesse he flashed the bios with new, higher, stable clock values...

 

[dragoonk]

It seems you are not the only one experiencing issues with Max Payne 3.
http://www.gamespot.com/forums/topic/29185544/max-payne-3---low-fps-stuttering-problem-?page=1

 

[grandpatzer]

Thanks for all the input guys.

I was able to get 120fps on 1 card, what I did was completely remove MSAA and Tesselation.

My 1 7950 is clocked at 1220core/1575memory, I got 96% GPU load peak.
I'm now going to try 1100c/1575m on 2 cards and see if that is better.
Without Vsync I had horizontal lines which is lol because I'm on 120hz display.
Hopefy 2 cards removes horizontal lines, also I felt a bit dizzy playing with Vsync.

A scarier thing happened after gaming, I launched Firefox and watched a video clip on sherdog.com when this happened:

http://youtu.be/uv2soJyJzeE

 

[dragoonk]

That looks like an unstable overclock crash. Have you tested you graphic cards for stability? What modifications have you done to your setup since you came and asked for advice?

 

[grandpatzer]

That looks like an unstable overclock crash. Have you tested you graphic cards for stability? What modifications have you done to your setup since you came and asked for advice?

well because I was not able to get good fps I decided to try higher clocks then 1100c/1575m, I ended up with 1220c/1575m.

Unigine Heaven 3.0 passes good on 1.68v, however I decided to bump up the voltage to 1.20v because ingame artifacts, Long session Max Payne 3 no problems@1.20v, I think there is a bug in Firefox maybe odd that watching videos with firefox would artifact@1.20v 1220c/1575m.

However I get negative scaling in Crossfire, 2x GPU's 1100c/1575m give me less fps compared to 1x GPU 1220c/1575m.

I get solid 120fps with one card 1220c/1575m.
I get 110-120fps with 2 cards 1100c/1575m.

Also I know that Crossfire works in other games (Metro 2033, BF3, Unigine, AvP 2).

 

[dragoonk]

I suggest using 3dmark vantage for testing for stability. If an overclock isn't stable it will not pass 3dmark vantage ( most of the times ). Also BF3 is a good real life benchmark, ( all my unstable overclocks failed with it ). Sometimes it'll seem to pass all the stress tests and even be stable in games and crash at an alt+tab in/out a game or when quitting a game ( freezes or display driver error ). i think you should lower your core clocks a bit and you need to do some hardcore testing, all the benchmarks you can think of ( I do not recommend Furmark ) along with all the games you have, alot of alt+tabbing untill it's rock solid stable. Graphics cards are still alot harder to overclock than CPU's.

Does your cards have the same overclocking potential. In a multi GPU configuration, the core/memory frequencies have to be identical for all GPU's otherwise you will lose performance.

After using just one card and getting good results, I am sure you are convinced that your CPU isn't the issue, your graphics configuration is. Try multiple older versions of drivers. Troubleshooting can sometimes be a pain in the neck.

 

[grandpatzer]

Thanks for youre input.

my 2nd card needs way more voltage, for 1100c/1575m it needs 1.25v, also I have played alot of games including BF3.

I will test 3dmark vantage.

Seems like 2 cards has microstutter that I can feel, and it's alot less fps.

2 Card setup 1100c/1575m:

2012-12-31 23:05:53 - MaxPayne3
Frames: 44139 - Time: 375697ms - Avg: 117.486 - Min: 84 - Max: 120

1 Card setupe 1220c/1575m:

2012-12-31 23:20:43 - MaxPayne3
Frames: 26110 - Time: 217965ms - Avg: 119.790 - Min: 111 - Max: 121

 

[dragoonk]

Single card gameplay experience is always smooter than multiple GPU configurations. I'm sorry to see you're having issues with yours. I heard that the game on other crossfire configurations has been running well. Like I said before, try different versions of the display driver and see how things go. Also, if you are overclocking your cards do it one by one, AND... they must have the same clock speeds for the core and memory. Good Luck mate!

 

[computergeek]

If the card is unstable you don't overclock it higher.><
Stabilize it first by either reducing the clock/memory speeds or by increasing the voltage but at the same time (if required?) raising the default pwm fan profile in the bios or just the fan speed itself.