15-20 FPS on Mirror's Edge and Skyrim

[chimerad]

I get around 15-20 FPS in games such as Mirror's Edge and Skyrim and I have no idea why. I've tried different screen resolutions and different settings such as texture detail, anti-aliasing, and view distances (skyrim).

At first for Mirror's Edge I got around 40-70 FPS at all times, but after I shut off my PC before going to bed and turning it on the next morning, the FPS dropped to the value mentioned above.

My system specs are:
GPU: ASUS GeForce GTX 550 Ti (smartdoctor says Vcore: 1.1V, Engine: 910 MHz, Memory: 4104 MHz, and Processor: 1820 MHz...These are the default settings)
PSU: ULTRA-D0206 500W 28A under +12V rail
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 840 3.0 GHz 4x512 KB L2 Cache 95W
RAM: All I know is that I have 4 gigs of DDR2 RAM

[Vonje]

Someone had a similar issue with a GTX 560 Ti.

[ElijahChondo43]

Do you have the latest stable or beta drivers from Nvidia? I have a EVGA GTX 550 ti and I can play on Ultra at 1680x1050 with ease(~60FPS). Mine is a slight overclock but it shouldn't matter much.

I don't have Mirror's Edge so I can't test that.

[chimerad]

Originally Posted by ElijahChondo43

Do you have the latest stable or beta drivers from Nvidia? I have a EVGA GTX 550 ti and I can play on Ultra at 1680x1050 with ease(~60FPS). Mine is a slight overclock but it shouldn't matter much.

I don't have Mirror's Edge so I can't test that.

Oh, you're using the beta drivers? I didn't even think of that!
Will have to try them out.
EDIT: DLing the 304.79 beta driver, is that the one you have?

[ElijahChondo43]

Originally Posted by chimerad

Oh, you're using the beta drivers? I didn't even think of that!
Will have to try them out.
EDIT: DLing the 304.79 beta driver, is that the one you have?

I'm still using the Beta 304.48 driver...

I'm gonna update mine now too

[chimerad]

Originally Posted by ElijahChondo43

I'm still using the Beta 304.48 driver...

I'm gonna update mine now too

No dice with the latest beta drivers, going to try out 304.48
Hmm, no dice with 304.48 either...could my CPU be bottlenecking my GPU?

[Teufel9000]

Originally Posted by chimerad

No dice with the latest beta drivers, going to try out 304.48
Hmm, no dice with 304.48 either...could my CPU be bottlenecking my GPU?

no no it isnt. i got a 955 @ 3.8ghz atm /w a Radeon 5770 and i max mirror's edge @1080p with 60fps easily.

last time i checked a 550ti was stronger than my card by a tad.

im thinking its a driver issue

[chimerad]

Originally Posted by Teufel9000

no no it isnt. i got a 955 @ 3.8ghz atm /w a Radeon 5770 and i max mirror's edge @1080p with 60fps easily.

last time i checked a 550ti was stronger than my card by a tad.

im thinking its a driver issue

Can't be a driver issue, I've tried the drivers that come on the disc (267.##), 301.42, beta 304.48, and beta 304.79. Could it be that my PSU isn't giving it enough power? I've read about off-brand or shoddy PSUs that say 500W and 28A but only really deliver say around 250W and 14A under the +12V rail...Is my PSU one of either of these things?

Anyone else with this card have recommended clock and Vcore settings for my current rig?

[fincher234]

Did you change your software environment just prior to this problem, especially something like smartdoctor you mention or some other graphics tool that might be messing with the clocks?

Were you manually adjusting the clocks recently?

If the answer to the above is no, and given that the problem was nonexistent with the previous run of the machine and immediately cropped up when powering it up the next day, you could indeed have some issue with the power supply. I would remove and reconnect the pci-e power connector to the card and make sure it is fully seated. If your power supply has more than one pci-e connector I would try using one of the others.

I guess you don't have another machine you can try the card in to see if you get a different result?

[chimerad]

Originally Posted by fincher234

Did you change your software environment just prior to this problem, especially something like smartdoctor you mention or some other graphics tool that might be messing with the clocks?

Were you manually adjusting the clocks recently?

If the answer to the above is no, and given that the problem was nonexistent with the previous run of the machine and immediately cropped up when powering it up the next day, you could indeed have some issue with the power supply. I would remove and reconnect the pci-e power connector to the card and make sure it is fully seated. If your power supply has more than one pci-e connector I would try using one of the others.

I guess you don't have another machine you can try the card in to see if you get a different result?

I just use smartdoctor to adjust the clocks. I was messing with the clocks on the day everything was working fine, I was seeing if OCing it from the statistics in the OP would make a difference or if underclocking it from the stats in the OP would make a difference in game performance, I came up with no results, everything ran just fine no matter what the clocks were set to. And sorry but, I do not have another machine to test the card in.

At this point I am inclined to believe that there is an issue with my current PSU.

[fincher234]

Originally Posted by chimerad

I was messing with the clocks on the day everything was working fine, I was seeing if OCing it from the statistics in the OP would make a difference or if underclocking it from the stats in the OP would make a difference in game performance, I came up with no results, everything ran just fine no matter what the clocks were set to.

Even so, I think there is a significant probability that your problems are related to this activity.

My suggestion would be to uninstall smartdoctor and gamerosd.
I would then clean out and reinstall the graphics drivers and NOT install any overclocking utilities and see if the problem is corrected.

[chimerad]

Originally Posted by fincher234

Even so, I think there is a significant probability that your problems are related to this activity.

My suggestion would be to uninstall smartdoctor and gamerosd.
I would then clean out and reinstall the graphics drivers and NOT install any overclocking utilities and see if the problem is corrected.

Okay, so...uninstalled gamerosd and smartdoctor, did a clean reinstall of my drivers and the problem is gone. But without smartdoctor I can't tell it to speed up my fan as my card heats up.
I've tested games using auto-fan control (fan speed stayed the same no matter how hot my card got) and with smartcooling on. The results were that with smartcooling my card stayed between 50-55 Celsius and without smartcooling it got up to 68 Celsius.
What should I do at this point? I love having virtually no lag, but my card gets pretty hot without smartdoctor.

[Sleepy Ben]

The auto fan setting is fine - the target temp for cards nowadays is in the mid 70s celsius so a high of 68 is quite acceptable.

Don't confuse CPU and GPU temps ....

As for monitoring - use MSI Afterburner like everyone else - its dead simple and you can use it to keep an eye on temps and fan speeds without touching the clock speeds if you want.

[fincher234]

Originally Posted by chimerad

Okay, so...uninstalled gamerosd and smartdoctor, did a clean reinstall of my drivers and the problem is gone. But without smartdoctor I can't tell it to speed up my fan as my card heats up.
I've tested games using auto-fan control (fan speed stayed the same no matter how hot my card got) and with smartcooling on. The results were that with smartcooling my card stayed between 50-55 Celsius and without smartcooling it got up to 68 Celsius.
What should I do at this point? I love having virtually no lag, but my card gets pretty hot without smartdoctor.

I agree that 68 is not anything to worry about.

[hailtomichigan]

for me to get mirrors edge to stop slowing down/laging/low fps was disable physx