Crysis: CPU limited with SLI?

[Le Québécois]

Hey, I know yet, another Crysis thread, sorry.

I've been running some test trying to find the best settings to play this games. First My computer specs:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
2 x 2GB of DDR2-800 CL5-5-5-15 OCZ
XFX nforce 860i
XFX 2 x 8800 GT XT Alpha Dog Edition in SLI
Western Digital Raptor 150
Vista Home Premium 64 bit SP1
ForceWare 174.74(latest Beta)
SLI with AFR 1

I know SLI is working because with the exception of low quality at 1280, all my result are lower if I disable SLI.

Here's what I found out. I've tested the games with the 4 different quality settings (no AA) and with 1680x1050 and 1280x800.

Here are my result:
VH:23
H:28
M:37
L:57

Now see that I don't list what resolution was used...because the result were the SAME at all resolution tested, from 1680 to 1280(all 16:10 ratio).

I know it's not limited by my CPU speed as it never reached 100% usage on any of the four cores on any occasion.

So in the end, I was just wondering if it's an isolated case or is other persons have seen that kind or result from Crysis?

I'm going to do some testing the the previous beta driver but still, don't you think it's a little bit strange?

 

[schizoid77]

I've got 2 8800GTS G92's and I run Crysis better with single GPU than with any of the SLI modes.

If you're running the Q6600 at stock speeds, you are most definitely being bottlenecked by the CPU.

 

[Le Québécois]

You're telling me that this game is CPU limited even at 1680x1050 and Very High? Why then the task manager is not showing 100% usage, hek, most of the time it's not even reaching 75%?

I'll be damn, never thought I would need to OC my cpu in any games(at least todays games) with such high(well, not low) resolution and settings.

 

[schizoid77]

I'm saying that your SLI is being limited by the CPU's very slow stock speed. You need at least 3.2+ on that CPU to truly get your SLI effective.

Not sure about the usage, but dunno if Crysis is optimized to use all four cores?

 

[Le Québécois]

Out of curiosity, what fps do you get with your configuration running crysis?

 

[schizoid77]

My native rez is 1920x1200, so my fps are in the single digits to teens at stock speeds - at 3.24Ghz and cards at 800Mhz in SLI, I can sometimes hit 25fps.

At 720p, I average 30-40fps in single GPU mode, and a bit less with any SLI mode.

Basically what it boils down to for me is this; SLI and Crysis don't work. I shouldn't have to hit 4.0Ghz on my proc just to reap the benefits of it, but that's what I keep hearing...

 

[Piuc2020]

It's not your CPU, it's most likely a limitation in the graphics card, GPUs are like little computers and like them they can also be bottlenecked by certain parts of it's structure, whether it's shaders, core clocks, rops, bandwidth, framebuffer size, interface but that bottleneck has not been found. It could also be another system-related bottleneck but it's definitely not the CPU.

 

[schizoid77]

From what I have read on Nvidia's SLI forums, they recommend the q6600 at at least 3.6Ghz. The CPU is choking the SLI. That's all there is to it. Open up the chip and watch SLI start to shine more and more.

 

[Throckmorton]

Originally posted by: schizoid77
My native rez is 1920x1200, so my fps are in the single digits to teens at stock speeds - at 3.24Ghz and cards at 800Mhz in SLI, I can sometimes hit 25fps.

At 720p, I average 30-40fps in single GPU mode, and a bit less with any SLI mode.

Basically what it boils down to for me is this; SLI and Crysis don't work. I shouldn't have to hit 4.0Ghz on my proc just to reap the benefits of it, but that's what I keep hearing...

I played Crysis for the first time today. I was getting around 30fps at 1920x1200 with everything on high, no AA, with an 8800GTS and 2.4ghz C2D. What gives? Is it because I'm on XP/DX9?

 

[Le Québécois]

Originally posted by: Throckmorton

Originally posted by: schizoid77
My native rez is 1920x1200, so my fps are in the single digits to teens at stock speeds - at 3.24Ghz and cards at 800Mhz in SLI, I can sometimes hit 25fps.

At 720p, I average 30-40fps in single GPU mode, and a bit less with any SLI mode.

Basically what it boils down to for me is this; SLI and Crysis don't work. I shouldn't have to hit 4.0Ghz on my proc just to reap the benefits of it, but that's what I keep hearing...

I played Crysis for the first time today. I was getting around 30fps at 1920x1200 with everything on high, no AA, with an 8800GTS and 2.4ghz C2D. What gives? Is it because I'm on XP/DX9?

Yes, DirectX9 and XP make the game a lot more playable than DirectX10 and Vista...but some of the graphic improvement running the game are just simply amazing to look at, especially those "ray of light".

 

[Le Québécois]

Originally posted by: Piuc2020
It's not your CPU, it's most likely a limitation in the graphics card, GPUs are like little computers and like them they can also be bottlenecked by certain parts of it's structure, whether it's shaders, core clocks, rops, bandwidth, framebuffer size, interface but that bottleneck has not been found. It could also be another system-related bottleneck but it's definitely not the CPU.

If you read the latest anantech Video card article you'll see that they found out more or less the same thing. All their top end card are CPU limited in the game when running in SLI, that's also probably the main reason as to why they didn't get any improvement at all using a 3 or 4 GPU in SLI.

 

[schizoid77]

Originally posted by: Throckmorton

Originally posted by: schizoid77
My native rez is 1920x1200, so my fps are in the single digits to teens at stock speeds - at 3.24Ghz and cards at 800Mhz in SLI, I can sometimes hit 25fps.

At 720p, I average 30-40fps in single GPU mode, and a bit less with any SLI mode.

Basically what it boils down to for me is this; SLI and Crysis don't work. I shouldn't have to hit 4.0Ghz on my proc just to reap the benefits of it, but that's what I keep hearing...

I played Crysis for the first time today. I was getting around 30fps at 1920x1200 with everything on high, no AA, with an 8800GTS and 2.4ghz C2D. What gives? Is it because I'm on XP/DX9?

I am also running with the Very High .cfg's, with 2xAA. So some of my fps troubles are my own fault.

 

[Lorne]

THeres also a flaw in the drivers if you havent cought that already, Its about turning off V-sync in the desktop Nvidia properties.
For those that dont know, Leave V-sync on, default or programmed controlled, It seems to cause (some) programs to run 20% slower if you change it to off.
This really shouldnt have any influence but it does and Nvidia is looking into it.

Crysis is limited by CPU speed, This is an issue with Cysis optimizasion not the hardware used, There have been many cool games in the past that have gone through this issue, Im sure a patch would could fix, Its just if they have any intent on doing so.

 

[Le Québécois]

Originally posted by: Lorne
THeres also a flaw in the drivers if you havent cought that already, Its about turning off V-sync in the desktop Nvidia properties.
For those that dont know, Leave V-sync on, default or programmed controlled, It seems to cause (some) programs to run 20% slower if you change it to off.
This really shouldnt have any influence but it does and Nvidia is looking into it.

Crysis is limited by CPU speed, This is an issue with Cysis optimizasion not the hardware used, There have been many cool games in the past that have gone through this issue, Im sure a patch would could fix, Its just if they have any intent on doing so.

Don't worry, I've read about that v-sync issue and anyways, I have to force it on in my driver to be able to launch and play the game in 64bit(another nvidida related problem with the game) but since in Vista forcing v-sync in the forceware is only "true" with openGL title, it's not really forcing anything...except allowing me to play in 64bit.

And yeah, I've tested with other drivers and read a lot about it and while few peoples seem aware of it since you need a really high end gpu like my 8800 GT in SLI for example, the game is really CPU limited, which is a shame...

BTW, the best drivers seems to be the 169.44 for Crysis. The 174.74 are a little bit slower and introduce some v-sync problems in some games.

 

[kb3edk]

I run Crysis pretty decently on a pair of GeForce 9600s popped into a badly out of date CPU/MB/OS combo: Opteron 170 (2 GHz) on an nForce 4 SLI board with 2GB of RAM and 32-bit WinXP.

But I am definitely CPU limited... at 1680x1050 resolution and all custom settings (Natural Mod v.2) I get 23 FPS on the "Island" GPU benchmark, and the second card only takes it up to 29 FPS.

Overclocking my CPU to 2.5 GHz instantly takes me to 34 FPS, so it's obvious that my video cards are just not getting enough data and could give me many more frames if my CPU/PCIe bus wasn't slowing things down so much. Kind of surprised that it's happening to people on the Intel Core platform too

BTW, you don't need DX10 for the cool "sunburst" effect mentioned in a previous post, just set r_sunshafts = 1 in System.cfg and voila, they render just fine in DX9 (along with about 90% of everything else you supposedly need DX10 for)