Help With Framerate Issues?

[AlphaWolf777]

My brother has an HP Desktop with a factory motherboard, 800watt power supply, ATI radeon HD 6990 (not using Catalyst), 6GB RAM, 1TB HDD and a 23" LG widescreen. When playing TF2, the game will sometimes drop to 30fps, when it otherwise would be doing 60. And it's the same case with Left 4 Dead 2, Skyrim, Diablo 3, Starcraft II etc. This seems odd considering the power of the GPU and the correct power supply. We've done everything including cleaning the registry, trying old drivers, researching the game's and possible associated problems, but nothing works. I need help.

 

[GhOsT1321]

Does the problem occur when playing offline?

 

[Talkin' Tech]

I am going to go ahead and share my hypothesis.

First off, some quick questions...

~Have you installed any new hardware, replaced some old parts?
~How long has this been happening, since the PC was purchased, or is it a new experience?
~Have you done any sort of benchmarking to determine a baseline of performance?
~Are you overclocked in any way?
~OS (operating system)?
~Why are you disabling CCC (Catalyst Control Center)?

Without these answered correctly, it is very difficult to ascertain knowledge of the problem at it's root cause. There could be a concert of issues plaguing the system, it is best to isolate with the basics.

My hypothesis is this. Hidden in this link you will find a glint of a possibility that may solve your problem outright or may just do absolutely nothing. This is called the "Windows System Assessment Tool (WinSAT)". Quoting the article it reads...

This is standard Windows Performance test with cleanup previous editions (== NOT the same as you would run regular WinSAT/Performance Testing) > in terms you are telling your windows 'I got better performing driver now' without this no drivers will perform correctly. This function is also capable of disabling your entire CrossfireX systems and is also the one thing which has huge affect to drivers, if not completed & it will automatically degrade all hardware unless passed clean through. You should consider this as your biggest problem in entire installation of any driver.

~Open a command prompt, type "winsat formal -restart clean" (without the quotes)

It will then begin a series of tests and evaluations for your hardware. What I am guessing here is that you bought the ATI radeon HD 6990 as an aftermarket GPU. My best guess is that HP doesn't put that quality of a card in its systems. I could be wrong about this but it will certainly not do any harm to you PC by attempting it.

Also if you spend as much time as I did reading that post in the link, you will gain a wealth of knowledge. Beware some of the information is slightly inaccurate, but overall its pretty much spot on when it comes to performance.

Answer the questions and we will go from there.

 

[AlphaWolf777]

I am going to go ahead and share my hypothesis.

First off, some quick questions...

~Have you installed any new hardware, replaced some old parts?
~How long has this been happening, since the PC was purchased, or is it a new experience?
~Have you done any sort of benchmarking to determine a baseline of performance?
~Are you overclocked in any way?
~OS (operating system)?
~Why are you disabling CCC (Catalyst Control Center)?

Without these answered correctly, it is very difficult to ascertain knowledge of the problem at it's root cause. There could be a concert of issues plaguing the system, it is best to isolate with the basics.

My hypothesis is this. Hidden in this link you will find a glint of a possibility that may solve your problem outright or may just do absolutely nothing. This is called the "Windows System Assessment Tool (WinSAT)". Quoting the article it reads...


~Open a command prompt, type "winsat formal -restart clean" (without the quotes)

It will then begin a series of tests and evaluations for your hardware. What I am guessing here is that you bought the ATI radeon HD 6990 as an aftermarket GPU. My best guess is that HP doesn't put that quality of a card in its systems. I could be wrong about this but it will certainly not do any harm to you PC by attempting it.

Also if you spend as much time as I did reading that post in the link, you will gain a wealth of knowledge. Beware some of the information is slightly inaccurate, but overall its pretty much spot on when it comes to performance.

Answer the questions and we will go from there.

-No, all hardware was installed at the same time, framerate issues started immediately, but games are playable enough to where it wasn't always noticeable.
-Since the PC was purchased.
-No benchmarking, although for comparison, I also own an Alienware M17x laptop with the same graphics card, and it runs everything at 60>fps on max settings.
-No overclocking.
-Windows 7.
-We disabled CCC at the behest of a computer expert who tried that and it solved some of our major issues. I can't see myself re-installing it if it brings back the other issues, which were strange desktop glitches and game crashes.

I don't know if I want to try that WinSAT thing, are you absolutely sure it can do no harm? I have poured so much money and man hours (myself, and helpers) into this computer that anything that screws it up will cause me to simply forget about it altogether. The games are playable, it's just that sometimes they run at lower fps, maybe it's heat? But the comp has good fans, and there's no reason why a modern graphics card of that caliber couldn't run a game from 2007 at 60fps right?

 

[Talkin' Tech]

Okay, now that we got those questions out of the way...

From what I gather, this is a deeper issue than I had originally thought. I was convinced that there were aftermarket items installed. Since there is not, that throws WinSAT out the window. And, no WinSAT wouldnt harm your computer whatsoever if attempted. However, there is no need to do that now, since the computer has the factory hardware.

Another route I would try is the following. Since your computer is stock and its a name brand, all the drivers will be on HP's support page. We are looking for any major updates concerning, BIOS, audio, main board, and chipset. Skim through the support page with your make and model selected. While you have Device manager open, check the dates of the new (if any) drivers compared to the ones present in your system. Do not attempt new driver installation if you are not savvy on how to install them correctly. BIOS driver can be tricky on older generation boards, I would leave this for last if there is an update. If you are knowledgeable about driver installation (uninstalling old, cleaning up instances with driver sweeper) then I would go ahead and update any drivers that appear to be out of date.

Other than that, there are a host of reasons why you could be getting poor performance in games. From the games themselves not being optimized, to out dated drivers, all the way to a bad memory slot or card, or hardware failures.

Have you experienced any BSOD's (blue screen of death)?

Have you checked into your error logs and reporting software to determine a conflict? (right click Computer, manage, event viewer, custom views, administrative events)

The thing about CCC, it is needed to run and manage your GPU. I know that in your case you feel it solved some problems, but in the grand scheme of things it is best to keep all the CCC.exe, MOM.exe processes running. I would assume you were getting errors because of a bad driver not because of CCC. What you have done is put a band-aid on the issue, instead of finding the problem at its roots. Disabling CCC is only masking what is really happening.

Without actually looking at the computer myself it is reasonably difficult to determine the cause of you problems.

Start with drivers and report back.

And yes, the computer should have absolutely no trouble (aside from Crysis) running a game from 2007 getting 60+ FPS.

Good luck!

 

[Oreo]

You shouldn't really be dropping below 60fps with that hardware, but if it does and you have V-Sync on, it will drop from 60 straight to 30fps, as that is how VSync works. I very much doubt this is the issue at all, like talking tech said - it's probably a more serious issue - perhaps even hardware related. But make sure V Sync is off and see if the issue occurs.

 

[mac_attack]

Vsync limits the FPS to the refresh rate of the monitor.