Game lags despite graphics card is not at 100%

[Fuzz Ball]

Ohai.

I'm copying this straight from the Steam forums, where I originally posted it. Unfortuantely no one there was able to help me (no replies AT ALL). So if you don't understand some terms about Team Fortress 2 or any of the update names, just ignore them and interpret them as a name.

Ever since the Manniversary Update for TF2, I've been experiencing noticeable lag.

Before the update I played at a smooth and fairly regular 60 FPS. Now I'm fairly happy to get 30 FPS.

I am not aware of any programs I installed or settings I changed around the time of the update, but I don't think anything I did would have affected it.

Here's a quick rundown (from memory) of the settings I was on:

• Texture, Models etc: High (recommended)
• Reflective water models, shadows, lighting etc: All on (recommended)
• AA: 4x, Anisotropic: x8 (recommended)
• Multicore rendering: On (not recommended)
• Direct X Level: 9 (despite I have 11 on my system)
• Multiplayer Decals: 200

Those are the main settings I remembered. After realising what multicore rendering was, I checked it back to off (as my GPU doesn't have more than one core).

About a week ago I decided to forgo the nice graphics a bit and dropped AA from x4 to x2 (NOTE: Steam/TF2 recommended x4). It increased performance by about 20% or so. I'm still having serious issues when:

• Looking over a vast area. This is clearly obvious when playing cp_manor on the first red point or out of blue spawn. Makes sniper harder to play.
• Heavy, intense firefights on points etc. Noticeable on every map. If there's too many people, it screws around. This makes playing pyro just that LITTLE bit harder

After being very confused, I decided to log my system usage while I was playing. On a standard temperature day, over the course of 3 hours, this was my approximate usage:

• CPU (1st core): 30-50%
• CPU (2nd core): 40-65%
• CPU (3rd core): 50-70%
• CPU (4th core): 0-20%
• GPU: 30-50%
• RAM: 80%

So my system's not being fully utilised, which would explain the very nice 60 FPS but not the drop. A more unusual note is the high usage of the processor compared to the graphics card. I'm aware my graphics card outclasses the i5, but it's not a big discrepancy.
Now, the very important computer specs:

• Model/Brand: MSI GX740-235US
• Processor: Intel i5 450m @ 2.4GHz (standard overclock to either 2.5 or 2.6)
• Graphics Card: ATI Radeon Mobility HD 5870: 1 GB vDDR5
• RAM: 4 GB DDR3 @ 1333MHz (CPU slows it to 1066)
• HDD: 320 GB Western Digital @ 7200 RPM
• OS: Windows 7 HP: 64-bit

To add a bit more info, I tried playing around with the graphics settings. I set the graphics down to low, pretty much at the minimum. Aside from looking more ugly, it did show a slight increase in the performance and FPS rate of the game. At this stage, the GPU usage sat around 30%.

Then I decided to do something completely different. In my attempts to try and fix this, I'd found something about CPU bottlenecking. I know what it is, but not the way they were putting it. Some guy turned UP his settings in a game and it got better for him. For some reason, the low usage of the GPU was affecting the CPU, and hence the CPU was being over-used or being made to work harder than its limitations. It's a bit confusing, and I don't fully get it.

So I tried it, and I got an even bigger increase in performance. I have 60FPS more often than I used to, however looking over large areas and intense firefights still causes some trouble for me. So basically just about everything is on max (I think the only thing is that AA is set to 4x rather than 8x). Everything else is top as far as I know.

If you would like the log files or a more detailed report of my settings, please feel free to ask for them. I'm open to any help, as this is something I'd really like to get fixed. I know technical stuff, so come at me.

----

Adding extra details, I am very confident my graphics card drivers are up to date, as I just did an update on them (which also blue screened my laptop part way through the drivers... that was scary). Also, the "Manniversary Update" did not involve a major update to the "source" game engine (which TF2 runs off).

Thanks in advance,
Fuzz Ball

 

[Maguscreed]

I've experienced the same drop in performance in tf2 since the last few updates. I can only blame the update as I know nothing has changed for my system in the meantime.
All my other games work fine too, I was also forced to add a launch command as my voice stopped working without it.
This kind of stuff happens fairly often with software that is updated so regularly.

 

[badger906]

I think they should have left tf2 as it was, its not like it needed anymore customers!

While this is purley speculation, I'd guess that valve/whoever is involved. Has come to the conclusion computers are more powerful now, just upping the required hardware needs wouldn't cause to much harm.

If you think tf2 uses the original source engine used in hl2 and its sequel episodes. So that's 2004ish tech.

Saying that, my mac struggles with hl2, counter strike and tf2 despite being more than powerful enough.. But that's another subject and a frowned upon word! Lol

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

 

[Maguscreed]

I will tell you that manually disabling catalyst ai has improved performance in a lot of games for me.
The intelligence in artificial intelligence is still a bit lacking it would seem.
Image is clearer and things function better with it off.
Problem is you have to manually disable it now. They don't give you a way to do it in the catalyst control center anymore.

 

[Fuzz Ball]

With the new Catalyst Centre thingy that came out they've made the interface and program more usable.

I checked up with the settings. Most of the stuff is set to "Use application settings", however something called mipmapping (not sure what it is) was turned to max so I put it down a couple notches.

I just turned Catalyst A.I. off, so we'll see what that does.

The main issue is that my laptop went from playing TF2 on almost max, 60 FPS, recommended settings to a drop very often. I do still get 60 FPS in quieter areas, but I'd expect a drop in performance if my graphics card was at 100%, not sitting happily around 50%. That's why its posted in the graphics card section, is there any way to make the graphics card work harder? Should in theory increase the frame rate.

Thanks for the replies so far, its helping I think.

 

[Maguscreed]

oh you know I totally missed that it was a laptop, you may want to check the fans and clean it well decreased performance in laptops is sometimes a side effect of heat not dissipating properly.

 

[Fuzz Ball]

oh you know I totally missed that it was a laptop, you may want to check the fans and clean it well decreased performance in laptops is sometimes a side effect of heat not dissipating properly.

Yeah opened it up a week ago to give it a clean. Need a can of compressed air to do a proper job, but there wasn't much dust there either (cleaned out heatsinks quite well)

 

[smarteyeball]

I just turned Catalyst A.I. off, so we'll see what that does.

Ostensibly, it disables any 'driver level' optimizations.

Ever since the Manniversary Update for TF2, I've been experiencing noticeable lag.

Before the update I played at a smooth and fairly regular 60 FPS. Now I'm fairly happy to get 30 FPS.

Adding extra details, I am very confident my graphics card drivers are up to date, as I just did an update on them

Just to clarify:

You installed the update and the game starting lagging and then decided to update the video driver?

Or

You installed both the update and driver prior to playing and then noticed the lag?


Assuming nothing else apart from the update was installed - then the problem lies solely with the update. (It may not solve your issue, but at least you can stop wondering exactly what)

If you installed both the update and driver - try reverting your driver.


Also, since it's AMD - have you installed the latest CAP profiles? If not, check it out because CAP profiles often contain 'quick' fixes for certain games.

 

[Fuzz Ball]

Just to clarify:

You installed the update and the game starting lagging and then decided to update the video driver?

Or

You installed both the update and driver prior to playing and then noticed the lag?


Assuming nothing else apart from the update was installed - then the problem lies solely with the update. (It may not solve your issue, but at least you can stop wondering exactly what)

If you installed both the update and driver - try reverting your driver.

Order in which things happened:

• Get laptop, play TF2, everything fine.
• Update graphics drivers (this is when I first got it)
• All is fine
• TF2 Update
• All is not fine
• Update drivers
• TF2 update
• All gets worse
• Update drivers
• Slight increase in performance.

I do suspect it was something to do with the engine update. A couple others I saw had the same problem, but only a couple. No one had answers.


The thing that just really confuses me is that it doesn't matter what level I put the graphics on, it will still lag (I am confident its not my internet).

Also, since it's AMD - have you installed the latest CAP profiles? If not, check it out because CAP profiles often contain 'quick' fixes for certain games.

Uhh... not entirely sure what CAP profiles are, but if this is what it is:
http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/8462/cat3v.jpg

(I know its not the most up to date picture, found it on the internet).

Then that's the thing I just updated with my drivers at the same time.

 

[smarteyeball]

• Get laptop, play TF2, everything fine.
• Update graphics drivers (this is when I first got it)
• All is fine
• TF2 Update ◄ Bingo?
• All is not fine
• Update drivers
• TF2 update
• All gets worse
• Update drivers
• Slight increase in performance. ◄ Hmm. Driver level optimization. known issue?

I do suspect it was something to do with the engine update. A couple others I saw had the same problem, but only a couple. No one had answers.

It looks like the Update was definitely the beginning. Have you read the changelogs to see if it mentions network optimization or any such thing?

The thing that just really confuses me is that it doesn't matter what level I put the graphics on, it will still lag (I am confident its not my internet).

It's been eons since I last played TF2 - can you still create a 'local' server to run around the map by yourself? If you can, have a quick run around some empty maps. If so does it still lag?

If yes, it's probably a core change to the engine. If it only occurs with other players, then it's probably something they've changed in the network.

(How do you know it's not your ISP? Good pings etc? )

Uhh... not entirely sure what CAP profiles are, but if this is what it is:
http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/8462/cat3v.jpg

No, that's just the Catalyst Control Centre suite. The CAP profiles are a separate download.

This page explains them (and has links). Although I couldn't see any reference to TF2 :huh:

 

[Fuzz Ball]

It looks like the Update was definitely the beginning. Have you read the changelogs to see if it mentions network optimization or any such thing?

I suspected the engine change from the start... but I don't recall any significant changes other than a couple 'graphical' changes (nothing major). I'll have another look at their logged changes though.

It's been eons since I last played TF2 - can you still create a 'local' server to run around the map by yourself? If you can, have a quick run around some empty maps. If so does it still lag?

Yeah you still can. Last I checked, no problems there. It did lag a bit, but that's because I had 23 bots being controlled by my CPU, which just couldn't take it properly

(How do you know it's not your ISP? Good pings etc? )

Download: Around 18Mbps, Upload 0.5Mbps. Ping rate varies from server to server but its usually between 20 and 50.

No, that's just the Catalyst Control Centre suite. The CAP profiles are a separate download.

This page explains them (and has links). Although I couldn't see any reference to TF2 :huh:

Ok, I'll have a look at that. Maybe one of the changes to it might help TF2, especially if they mention anything else that runs on the source engine.

 

[smarteyeball]

I suspected the engine change from the start... but I don't recall any significant changes other than a couple 'graphical' changes (nothing major). I'll have another look at their logged changes though.

The more I read about this update, the more I'm certain it's the changes they've made. They appear to be working on updates constantly, so I'm beginning to wonder if you might be stuck with a 'wait for another update' because there's nothing you can do :huh: