I am not impressed with my Nvidia GTX 970

[pooptastic]

Like most PC users, I envied a Fury X or 980ti, but could not afford either. I settled for a 970.

First game, Fallout 4. Runs like ass at times.

2nd game, Xcom 2, Runs like ass pretty much always.

Are programmers getting lazy and just using whatever Direct-x pre-made template crap is available on consoles or something? I don't understand how this supposed powerhouse of a video card barely limps along with some of the current gen games.

Aren't they all using the same engines, unity or unreal engine? Are those just horribly optimized or something?

 

[96Firebird]

Rest of system specs?

Are you just maxing out all settings? What resolution are you playing at?

 

[LTC8K6]

What CPU? How much ram?

 

[pooptastic]

1440p

3930k.

16gb ram

850 pro ssd.

 

[futurefields]

XCom 2 has pretty widespread performance problems no?

Can you be more specific about your issues?

Are you familiar with Nvidia Inspector and how it can be used to help smooth out game performance in a lot of games? You can do things like enforce several forms of driver level vsync @ 60/30fps which usually work a lot better than whats built into the game. And you can set a 'Max Pre-Rendered Frames' of 1 which in my experience helps with input lag and frame pacing in a lot of games. I use Inspector a lot to get my games dialed in so it feels like my PC is a super powerful games console with a perfectly locked framerate.

 

[IllogicalGlory]

Fallout 4 runs about as well as it looks unfortunately. In addition to a fast GPU (your 970 is perfectly fine), it demands a very fast CPU (preferably a Haswell or Skylake i7) and relies heavily on fast system memory. Even fast storage can help. Fallout 4 requires a system without any bottlenecks.

XCOM 2 has been getting lots of complaints for running terribly too.

 

[tviceman]

On top of the other comments regarding the selection of games, the GTX 970 isn't a particularly great card at 1440p. I'd call it the poor man's 1440p card. If you're not overclocking then do so, you'll get another 10% out of it.Unfortunately, like you said, the 980 TI is a solution that makes much more sense for 1440p. Even the 980 does noticeably better, and when OC'd is a whopping 40% faster than a stock 970. (980 OC scales better than 970 OC too, btw).

 

[pooptastic]

It's just disheartening to play a game and have it go into choppy limbo at times.

 

[pooptastic]

On top of the other comments regarding the selection of games, the GTX 970 isn't a particularly great card at 1440p.

So for gaming at 1440p, what video card would you recommend? I had hoped this $300 one would have had me covered for at least a year or two.

 

[crisium]

Well, aggregate benchmarks have the 390 ahead of a 970.

http://tpucdn.com/reviews/Sapphire/R9_390_Nitro/images/perfrel_2560_1440.png
http://cdn.sweclockers.com/artikel/diagram/10954?key=38b51967afcfa7be6d07511428391c18

But it's mostly incremental - if you're dissatisfied with the 970 chances are the 390 will still be a disappointment - with the possible exception of Fallout 4 which now seems to favour AMD (390 would likely be between 290 and 290X). So like you need to either pony up for that 980 Ti or Fury X, or wait until next gen comes out hopefully no later than Q3.

 

[tviceman]

So for gaming at 1440p, what video card would you recommend? I had hoped this $300 one would have had me covered for at least a year or two.

Unfortunately nothing at $300 will give you noticeably better performance at 1440p than what you already have. Overclock your card's core and memory to the maximum stable frequencies you can get and make sure to turn off AA (FXAA might be ok), and either use the most basic SSAA setting or turn that off as well. Those two settings are among the biggest performance hits you can incur in games. Vendor specific enhancements, such as tressfx, hairworks, etc. are also huge performance hits. In Fallout 4, turn God Rays to anything but ultra - the performance gain is quite large.

Fallout 4 godray performance high vs. ultra: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/11/11/fallout_4_performance_image_quality_preview/4#.VsADFfIrIUE

 

[crisium]

^Good point, 1440p demands sacrifice. I know I need to do so on my Fury, and I have little doubt that even the monster overclocked 980 Ti users cannot always get everything they want. Find the settings that give minor IQ reductions but real noticeable FPS gains.

 

[Mondozei]

You are playing games with known performance problems at 1440p. How is this a surprise? 970 was never a 1440p card, no matter the spin

 

[Silverforce11]

Well it was 1440p capable but these new generation of games are hammering GPUs.

Case in point, Fallout 4. Compare it visually to Skyrim and you don't even come close to calling it a generation leap in visuals. It's still dull and ugly. Skyrim with mods look heaps better AND runs better.

So we're going backwards in visual quality vs performance.

XCOM 2 is another great example, Unreal 3.5 is aged and inefficient. As soon as you run with MSAA in that engine, performance tanks hard.

Lately the new wave of AAA titles like Rainbow Six, Just Cause 3, Tomb Raider, The Division is killing the 970, Tomb Raider especially. You cannot even run with max texture quality due to the gimped 3.5gb vram without major stutters.

So, buying a 970 now or recently is already paying good money for a GPU that's obsolete when it comes to performing in modern games. It even struggles at 1080p in some of these new titles.

I predict when Pascal arrives and in the coming wave of DX12 games this year (Hitman next month), the 970 will suffer the worse of it, because its 3.5 + 0.5 configuration requires NV drivers to be optimized for it and there's potential for optimization focus to shift to Pascal instead.

A year from now, it would not be uncommon to see new games run 25-50% faster on the R290X compared to the 970. Just look at the 7970/280X vs 680 in recent titles. History repeats itself.

 

[Piroko]

To add to the general discussion, if you max out the graphics slider in Xcom 2 it will automatically add MSAA 8x which will eat up every GPU at 1440p.
I can't subscribe the "performance issue" part of Xcom 2, it's just surprisingly demanding if you dial everything up.

 

[Leyawiin]

Case in point, Fallout 4. Compare it visually to Skyrim and you don't even come close to calling it a generation leap in visuals. It's still dull and ugly. Skyrim with mods look heaps better AND runs better.

So we're going backwards in visual quality vs performance.

Rather sad, isn't it? I fired up Skyrim for the first time in six months (after playing Fallout 4 almost daily since release). My character was left in the autumn forest around Riften and it was just unbelievable how well it ran and how good it looked compared to Fallout 4. Is that the best they could do after four years? That said I play @ 1920x1200 with an i7 4790k @ 4.4 Ghz and a GTX 970. I use the Ultra preset and its usually in the 50-60 FPS range.

 

[DarkKnightDude]

To be somewhat fair, XCOM 2 runs like garbage in certain cases. Maybe put adaptive vsync on it. might help.

 

[xorbe]

970 is around og Titan performance, and my Titan was not enough for 1440, imho. Titan X / 980Ti have the grunt though.

 

[psolord]

I was surprised by the tittle, since I own a 970 from pretty much close to its launch and I am still impressed by its performance.

Then I read about your resolution. Yeah, you would need something better than a 970 for 1440p.

I am using it for a large 1080p HDTV and it is great.

1440p is exactly 50% larger than 1080p so I would say that you need a 50% faster card than the 970 to enjoy your resolution, just to be on the safe side.

Maybe a "GTX 1070" later?

 

[lehtv]

1440p is exactly 50% larger than 1080p so I would say that you need a 50% faster card than the 970 to enjoy your resolution, just to be on the safe side.

Correction - 1440p has 77.8% more pixels to render than 1080p.

a = 2560 * 1440 = 3686400
b = 1920 * 1080 = 2073600
a/b = 1,777777777777778

980 Ti being ahead of GTX 970 certainly helps, but GTX 970 will still achieve noticeably better framerates on 1080p than GTX 980 Ti does on 1440p. The highest factory OC 980 Ti's like MSI Lightning do achieve around 75% higher framerates than stock GTX 970 on 1440p, but OC vs OC would be a more fair comparison.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Remove AA to begin with

^Good point, 1440p demands sacrifice. I know I need to do so on my Fury, and I have little doubt that even the monster overclocked 980 Ti users cannot always get everything they want. Find the settings that give minor IQ reductions but real noticeable FPS gains.

Exactly. :thumbsup:

 

[DigDog]

well, my stock 770 ran 1080 F4 at max without me ever seeing a single frame drop or texture pop. something is wrong with OP.

 

[ibex333]

I am in the same boat.

1440p 970 OC here, with 2500k @ 4.0GHz, 16GB RAM.

Fallout 4 runs at constant 60 fps unless I go to any area that happens to be really high, like a rooftop or whatever. Immediately fps drops to low 20's or even teens. : (

Didn't try Xcom 2 yet, gotta beat Xcom DLC first. Still plenty of value there. Why waste $60 on the sequel?

I cant max out CoH 2 @ 1440p either, which is really upsetting, because I want it to run at max and I cant afford a GTX 980.

No matter, this is exactly why I keep a 1080p monitor handy and go back to it, if games don't run well at 1440p. Kinda sucks, but a necessary evil.

 

[JoeRambo]

It's all about settings ( or going dual 980 ti ).

With 980 ti @ 1.4Ghz, I had to do the stuff like this to have it real smooth:

1) Witcher 3 -> 60 FPS limit from riva tuner
2) BF4 -> 90 fps from riva tuner.
3) etc

Combined with Gsync, 144hz refresh and 1440P AND top graphics settings in games this gives smooth gaming nirvana.

You just have to be honest with yourself, just like others pointed out - pumping 1,77 times the pixels 1080P has is impossible for card not built it. Smoothness requires sacrifices in wallets and settings.

 

[amenx]

Havent played it in a while but no probs FO4 @ 1440p on 970/3570k with proper settings. I believe either Godrays or lighting on ultra caused problems, so I turn these lower or off. Didnt liked godrays anyway (washed out effect). Xcom 2 dont have yet and may hold off till better optimized.

1440p benches

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/fallout_4_pc_graphics_performance_benchmark_review,7.html

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Fallout-4-Spiel-18293/Specials/Test-Benchmark-vor-Release-1177284/

Been using 1440p since GTX 770 and even then was satisfied when at reasonable settings, but will say not a competitive gamer or 60 FPS fanatic.