IS MY COMPUTER NOW TOO OLD FOR OW? FPS < 40 DURING GAME PLAY - It worked fine a few years ago and updated to a GTX780ti sc!

General Discussion
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PC: DELL XPS 600 (2006 - yes she still runs!)
CPU: Intel Xtreme 4.2 GHz with HT (dual core + 2 HT cores)
RAM: 8GB ram (upgraded 2020)
Graphics: GTX780 Ti SC (upgraded 2020) - running at PCI-E 1.1 speeds
HD: Samsung SSD 512 GB (upgraded 2020)
OS: Windows 7 (not patched since 2016 so runs pretty fast with no CVe/Spectre CPU patching)

** The game ran fine in 2016 but there are probably more settings now to tinker with on the PC - but which ones? **

Hi all. I’ve seen so much about Overwatch on the Internet so there is definately something up with the PC version. I know it’s an online game which gets frequent updates and I have a feeling these updates have pushed up the system requirements.

I have played this game back in 2016 on a Dell XPS 600 (Intel Xtreme dual core 4.2 GHz with HT) 4GB ram on a GTX480 Superclocked. There was no issues.

Years later the computer is still alive! XPS 600 upgraded to 8GB (800 MHz ram) with a Samsung SSD and recently a GTX780 ti sc. But Overwatch is very laggy. I’ve seen so many posts about this and tried a few things like limiting the FPS and graphic settings to low. I know the GTX780 is running at PCI-EXPRESS speeds of 1.1 as the PC is old but CS Go and Starcraft and a lot of games still run fine on this PC (even Hunt Showdown runs!)

Before the PC (from 2006) is put in a museum of things which shouldn’t be running today I’d like to ask anyone if there are specific settings I can look for? My monitor is 75 Hz and I have pushed the Nvidia control panel to 75Hz. The Overwatch frame cap is limited to 150 FPS as this gets me around 40-60FPS BUT the frames can drop to 20 FPS or less! I have tried pushing the Framerate to 300 in Overwatch but this makes my FPS drop so around 150 works for me.

This is a peculiar game that not only has issues on new computers - but older ones too. The graphics card should be doing much of the work. I don’t have a fancy screen so most of the settings are on low. Am I missing something?

2020-08-03T23:00:00Z
Update: I have DVI only and not 1080p so plays about 1280x1024. I think the CPU is maxing out so most of my Overwatch settings are on low/minimum and set the rendering scale to 75%. FPS cap is at 140 (approx double of my 75Hz refresh rate of monitor which gives me more frames).

FIX to stop the frames sometimes dropping to below 10/20 fps:

FIX which worked is ALT+TAB out of Overwatch then open CMD with elevated rights>type taskmgr and go into Task Manager and open Processes tab and right click Overwatch.exe and set to HIGH PRIORITY! This has made my frames stick at >40+ fps so the game runs fine with NO lag.

Thanks all!

Thanks for your help in advance.

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Your RAM is the biggest bottleneck I see there. You have 800mhz RAM. That’s DDR2 speeds. Unfortunately, it looks like you’ll need a new motherboard, RAM and CPU to improve your framerates.

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We play at 30 FPS on console and I’ve only ever noticed a difference vs. my PC account while in menus. In-game, it doesn’t really make a difference to me. If you can get around that amount, you should be alright unless the framerate isn’t your only issue.

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buy a better computer if u wanna game lol

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I’d say laggy things started with Moira in 2017, I feel like she introduced many particle effects that lagued the game, rn the latest character echo is probably the character with the most particles
I think she’s been optimized in the recent patches, but she definitely brought a lot, not including having like every voiceline in the game, so yeah, she’s definitely laggy

Perhaps upgrading to a GTX 960 could help a bit but yeah, not much to do ignore this I suck

If anything I’d say you should put the render scale in automatic if it gives you something lower than 50%, otherwhise, put it in 50%, also put full screen and perhaps a smaller resolution

Finally, the last thing you could do to optimize the game is to open task manager, right click overwatch, go into details, right click overwatch again, go to priority, and select high

That really increases performance in low specs computers
I’d say you’ll get around +10fps average, but removes most lag spikes if you have any :slight_smile:

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No it should be gucci to get good framerates. I don’t see anything limited. Dunno might be driver issue, win7 on it too, crosscheck the settings on nvidia app

That’s big downgrade from 780ti lol

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Console is very different in this. While 30 fps on console is fine, 60fps on PC can be critical for a hitscan player. I play on 60 - 70 and it´s not enough, I can see it. But for now, I can´t get better.

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I just mean from a visual quality standpoint. It’s not like console players don’t need to aim well, too. Hitscans actually have higher accuracy on console than on PC.

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it´s not about aim… 30 fps on console would always run way, way smoother than 30 fps on PC. Console has optimalisations and doesn´t run all things that PC run. 30 fps on console is perfect while 30 fps on PC is disaster. If you need more info, google it. you just can´t compare this two things.

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Oh, ok. I admittedly don’t know a bunch about tech specs. I just know the game looks about the same to me on both platforms even with different framerates, though loading times and menus run smoother on PC.

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I have no idea what any of this means

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Trust me, the day you play in 144Hz you’ll see the difference, it’s like playing a new game.

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Tbh, I’d suggest just grabbing parts to build a new PC.

Maybe skip the SSD and case, if you wanna trim costs, and use the old one.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/nxkzQq

Although personally I’d probably go for a build around this price range.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/kLt6Jb

Although make sure to backup your important documents to a portable drive, or email or dropbox.
Or just leave the old PC intact.

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Try see gpu drivers version, Nvidia. almost, doesn’t do a good job on old products on new drivers. The game added more features too. Try see options like shadows, lightning and turn off/low.
If stay high it’s CPU Issue. (most likely)
If not stay high it’s GPU issue.
8gb ram it’s okay for overwatch, but not that okay if you do more than that on “daily basis”, also intel cpus doesn’t “get older very well”, not mentioning the security issues who you said you didn’t patched up. Because intel cpus relied on single core performance when most of applications doesn’t used too much cpu cores, their threads dominated from a long time. Today most of applications uses gpu and multi-core processing, so most of the time older intel cpus doesn’t aged very well.
For my experience your cpu it’s keeping your game down, because 2 cores with 2 HT it’s too low to push 70-100 fps. If i’m right you using Pentium 4 / Pentium D and these really doesn’t work well on multithread applications, so try do drop almost every setting reliant on CPU(dynamic lighting, shadows, lightning) also set default your physx on gpu.

EDIT: Removing wrong typing, add some notes and also I think they make the game arquitecture more robust to take the new stuff from Overwatch2, because they plan to use the same client(sort of cross play), that can make more hardware usage and add some challenge to older setups.

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I dont know what the definition of “fine” is for you, but that PC was already pushing it on the minimum settings needed to play the game in 2016 mate.

Take into account that even if you lower everything … OW doesnt have “picmip” or things like that so the RAM and CPU are going to hold everything up and that GPU will give you 60 non stable FPS at best.

It is too old, upgrading stuff will just give you a few frames here and there but you are looking at a full PC upgrade. You can leave that one for streaming if you want by just adding a Capture Card.

This is 100% false. OW is really really really really really well optimized. It plays on small maps and lowering dynamic lights and shadows yield brutal stability. If you play anything else, Apex, CoD, Destiny 2, CSGO, Valorant … you will get WORSE results.

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Wait was it ti?

Oops

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That PC is a dinosaur :slight_smile:

But as settings ingame goes, set Graphics Quality to low. Make sure Render scale is 75 or maybe 100. Then Local Reflections and Ambient Occlusion off.

In nvidia control panel, 3d settings make sure the slider is set to performance.

Thoose settings should help abit. Overwatch is heavily CPU dependent, so it doesnt care as much about an upgrade of GPU. And yeah, as time progresses alot of games and programs tend to require abit more power to run at the same speed.

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I have bad news for you, but the main culprit here most probably is a bottleneck caused by your old, weaker CPU to your pretty capable GPU, which only really makes a major difference on GPU - “intensive” games such as Overwatch.

I would really appreciate it if you could provide the exact model of your CPU and you can test and see if there really is a bottleneck here by launching Overwatch as you always would and having Task Manager on the background while playing. If your GPU is at 40% - 60% and your CPU is at 90%+, then that’s a clear sign of a CPU bottleneck.

Unfortunately, you can’t really fix this problem, unless of course you upgrade your motherboard, CPU and GPU (or you could buy the best supported CPU in a used condition for your motherboard’s chipset, but I don’t that will make much of a difference).

Haven’t seen 800Mhz RAM sticks in a while, but while they certainly do bottleneck the rest of the rig a bit, they’re not the main culprit here… One question though. Please tell me it’s 2 sticks if 4GB and not just one of 8GB. Additionally, you may be able to overclock them a bit…

(Also, out of curiosity, since you upgraded your RAM in 2020, was 800Mhz really the maximum speed your motherboard could support?)

Not that much a performance issue, but unpatched 2016 Windows 7 is a major security issue here. You should at the very least update your OS to the latest version and install/buy a good, but lightweight Antivirus. (If you already have one, write it in your response if that’s ok with you.)

Bitdefender or something like Avast would be some of the best choices as lightweight, but effective Antivirus software (make sure you run a Full Scan as soon as you install them and set up their Settings accordingly).

One last thing in terms of software, your CPU and RAM resources are limited, so while gaming at least you should make sure that you have no background applications running except possibly a lightweight Antivirus and you should make sure as well that you disable almost all Startup programs from your Task Manager!

As a general note because I’ve had this problem when upgrading older PCs with SSDs, please make sure that your BIOS Booting is set to UEFI (if available) and not Legacy and even more importantly, that your Driver Controller is set to AHCI (if available) and not IDE or Compatibility, because this setting could severely limit the performance of your otherwise great hard drive.

(You can change all of these settings from your BIOS relatively easily. I would certainly implore you though to make a backup first, as I have messed up stuff in the past. Proceed at your own risk!)

From what I’ve read I’m guessing that you’re running Overwatch at 1080p Low settings. Want to maybe try tinkering a bit with Render Scale and as a last resort, reduce your resolution to 720p?

Also, do you have VSync on?

And one last thing just to make sure… What are your temperatures exactly while gaming (HWMonitor is a great program to get that information)?

These are extremely lightweight games that can run even on integrated graphics. I want you to try a game with comparable spec requirements as Overwatch and report the results. Also, for how many months/weeks has this problem with Overwatch been affecting you?

First of all and as a side note, I’m pretty sure that the fact that you’ve pushed the Nvidia Control Panel to 75Hz doesn’t mean anything as long as your refresh rate hasn’t been set to 75Hz as well from Windows Settings. I can show you how to do that if you don’t know how.

I would also suggest, in order to be sure, that you Return to Default all settings from your Nvidia Control Panel and then test Overwatch performance again.

Additionally, if your specific GPU supports it I would suggest you also install GeForce Experience and make sure once again that your Drivers are the latest.

If said software though doesn’t support your GPU, then go to the official Nvidia website and install the latest Drivers manually (be careful to install the correct Drivers based on whether your OS is 32-bit or 64-bit):

https://www.nvidia.co.uk/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-uk

Finally, you could install a program such as iObit Driver Booster that will just find the latest versions for all the Drivers of your PC. This specific one hasn’t caused me any problem, but again, proceed with your own risk.

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780 ti is about equal to gtx 1060 which is plenty for overwatch, and he already has 512GB SSD. Rather go with new cpu like ryzen 3 3100 + b450m(bios flashed) + 2x4GB ddr4 (or 2x8GB if budget allows it) + new mATX computer case + 500-550W bronze+ power supply.

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Boom. Right there’s your problem.

You COULD speed it up by removing bloatware and micro managing your services.

Or you could spend $12 on one of those key sites, and get windows 10 installed.