Hey everyone I’m looking for a little help in finding the reason/bottleneck with my computer because in theory I should be able to maintain 300fps without any issues. When in the training grounds I can hold 300fps easily, however in QP or Ranked my fps can start off as 300 and continually dip back and forth as far as 180 or 200fps. Something else that’s apparent is when I have the net graph opened my FPS dips as a result. I don’t know if this is relating to the newer versions of windows 10 but I might do a fresh install of an older version to see if that helps. The jumping seems to happen particularly during teamfights. I’ve tested two other setups with intel chips (7700k & 6700k) with identical fps drops.
Specs:
OS: Windows 10 1803
Motherboard: Asrock X470 Taichi Motherboard
CPU: Ryzen 2700x @ 4.2ghz (I’ve tried setting the bios at defaults, the fps is the exact same)
CPU FAN: Nzxt Kraken x72
MEMORY: 16gb 3200mhz Gskill Trident Z RGB CAS 14
HDD: 950 Pro M.2
GPU: EVGA FTW3 1080 ti
PSU: EVGA g3 750w
MONITOR: Asus PG279Q
I don’t have any background programs running and have tried a clean boot with no programs running. I don’t have NZXT CAM software installed as it causes SIM jumping if running with overwatch.
DISCLAIMER: I’m not here to argue whether its useful to hit 300fps or not, I’m just trying to figure out what’s bottlenecking the machine in the context of overwatch. Mainly because fps dipping below 200 doesn’t make sense for my machine.
EDIT 1: Graphics all on low 100% Scale, tested in both 1080p & 1440p.
Quite the machine you have there. Im guessing you have the graphics all the way in Epic. The 300 fps wont be necessary. Change your “limit fps” to “Display Based”. Since you have the Asus PG279Q the frames will always display 165fps~, maybe a little more.
Its normal for the frames to drop in a team fight since there’s so much happening. But with the 1080 ti I thought you shouldnt have a problem.
Maybe make a custom graphic setting for stable 165 fps.
Actually no the graphics are on low with the scaling at 100%. The only setting that’s on high is the models. My fps doesn’t lower if I set my resolution to 1440p vs 1080p. I know I can maintain a stable 165fps but I’m trying to set it to a stable 300fps as my machine should be more than capable of that. I’m more or less just trying to determine the bottleneck in general even if later i decide to lock my FPS.
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Can you run a “userbenchmark” and post the link with results? Youre saying the FPS is unchanged if you decrease of increase the resolution. I can only guess that it is RAM or CPU related related.
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Sure I’ll run that this evening for you. That’s what I thought but I’ve exchanged RAM 3 times and used 3 separate processors/motherboards 6700k, 7700k, and my current build Ryzen 2700x.
Hey Alcapwn, I had to reply on my other account because apparently I can’t reply twice in a row…
Here’s the benchmark! (remove the extra t in http)
htttp://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/9111173
And how does it run on your machine? Your seems pretty killer.
According to the bench theres nothing wrong with your current system or its configuration. I would have said its the Ryzen because i have seen some bad stories about OW performance with Ryzen chips but you also tested it with recent I7s… Well that one will be a pain to find.
I agree with Luna about uninstalling gforce experience and disabling all that windows crap. Id probably clean install the newest drivers using DDU and install only the actual driver + physix.
Go throught this list: us.forums.blizzardcom/en/overwatch/t/guide-maximizing-system-performance-for-overwatch-pc/30
Optimize Nvidia/Win settings:
youtubecom/watch?v=LW3KrLWO9PY
Also very important is to disable Gsync because it has a known FPS drop issue in OW.
Yeah as you can see everything seems like its operating to spec and above. So that’s why I’m a bit stumped as to why it seems to be performing a lot worse than I imagine it should.
Yes RAM is dual channel
XMP is enabled @ 3200 CAS 14
Nvidia Experience never installed
Xbox DVR disabled and Fullscreen optimization off
No I didnt set the Nvidia Control panel settings to off/low, only set performance mode as well as prerendered frames to 1. Though like i said the in game settings are all at the bare minimum. Out of curiosity what windows version are you guys on?
@Alcapwn I did actually do all the things you mentioned. However it seems like the guide you linked on youtube with Mendo is a little more in depth so I’ll be sure to give that a try! So thanks for that!
I just did a quick fresh install of windows 10 1607 and my FPS is a hell of a lot more stable so far. It still drops to 230/240fps in a large teamfight however it doesn’t permanently degrade from 299fps if I’m staring at a wall away from my team for example. I did however notice upon alt tabbing and re-ntering the game my FPS was still stable and when i toggled my ‘reduce buffering’ on and off out of habit from that bug my FPS permanently degraded to 250 max and below, it started dipping below the 200 range at that point. To test it i disconnected from my ranked match and relaunched Overwatch and sure enough I had 299 fps again and 240 in teamfights.
I’m not exactly sure why toggling reduce buffering caused my fps to permanently decrease until a relaunch especially considering its pretty widely known you toggle it to fix low fps in the first place. Maybe after I go through the youtube video you sent that issue will go away, I’ll update this thread again after I give your fixes a shot.
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I ran further testing with absolutely no luck. Have all the fixes applied and my fps is still dipping below 220fps at times. I might try older nvidia drivers to see if that makes any difference at all. If you guys have any other suggestions let me know.
(had to post using this account because it told me I had to wait for someone else to post again)
I find it interesting that mendo also plays without reduce buffering.
This is from mendo himself:
“I get inconsistent frames with reduced buffering ON, so I personally don’t use it, I prefer having a consistent FPS more than the very very small difference in feeling that reduced buffering gives me.”
Id suggest trying out the 385.69 drivers. Seen a lot positive feedback about about the drivers performance.
It would also be interesting to see if the 7700k setup peforms better with all the fixes and changes applied.
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Yeah I downgraded to 385.69, I haven’t applied the tweaks to the Nvidia panel for this version yet but I’ll test that out later. So far my FPS is still dipping to 220.
I’ll be reassembling my 7700k build then I’ll see what happens on that computer, in the meantime I can test the 6700k instead and see how the FPS looks on there.
Do you have Nvidia Experience installed? I had similar issue a while back just after building my dream machine and being disappointed with lower frames. Upon research I found an article that accused this program of dropping large chuncks of frames. I uninstalled Nvidia Experience using Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) from Guru3d, this program allows you to not only uninstall your display driver but also the packages along with it like, GeForce Experience.
Remember to follow the directions, I hope this helps you! 
(I put a space at http so I can link)
h ttp://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html
Nvidia Experience was never installed and I would never install it. I make a point of avoiding bloated software like that because I know basically anything that has an overlay built in of any kind + Windows 10 & Overwatch doesn’t play nicely. I only install the GPU Driver itself and Physx.
And yes, I do use DDU in safe mode whenever I install new drivers so that can’t be it.
So I believe I found the bottleneck, I’m not 100% sure but its the only difference I found between my 7700k setup and 2700X. RAM Latency.
Despite my RAM being CAS 14-3200 apparently on a ryzen system in general the latency is higher. If you look at the previous benchmark I sent on this forum:
htttp://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/9111173
You can see under RAM latency its performing about 15ns slower than its supposed to. From reading a bit online I found out only VERY particular sets of RAM can get 51ns on a Ryzen system while mine sits at 63.5 ns. I honestly don’t know if that alone would affect FPS but it seems likely considering that’s the only visible performance based thing between both computers.
My 7700k is 48ns (or lower) and the Ryzen 63.5ns. Apparently that’s around the norm for a Ryzen system without actively seeking a particular set of ram.
So have you tested the 7700k setup in OW? Is it performing better with all the changes and fixes than previously? Its pretty likely that Ryzen isnt able to maintain 300 FPS at least from what ive seen from all the benchmarks and reports. 12ns difference can be pretty huge especially in a game like OW that likes high clocked RAM.
I did test it and the results were a slightly higher framerate but the frame drops were still there. I ran benchmarks and both my sets on RAM on both computers are running at the top 1-2% of all RAM ran on the site. But yes no matter what I clock my RAM at on the Ryzen it remains around 62-64ns and apparently can’t get faster without hunting down very particular sets of RAM.
So my point is neither can maintain 300fps, they both drop down but the Ryzen dips down a little more, give or take a 20fps-40fps difference. I ran my Ryzen setup with league and the fps difference was significantly different from the 7700k too so its not just OW. But the drops themselves are OW specific.
At least I know the Ryzen is performing as intended, so now its not really bothering me, as I bought this CPU for the exact purpose of multi-tasking, for example being able to run OBS as well as spotify, discord, etc. So now that I know the RAM/CPU limitations are the reason I’ll likely just limit my fps and see if it holds stable to the limit I set. If so I’m good to go. Though its a shame that OW has insane network issues…can’t really play until they fix it, for now I’m just using it to benchmark more or less and fix it for the future.
Sounds reasonable. Still weird that you cant maintain stable 280-299 with the 7700k setup. Did you OC the CPU or tried OCing the RAM sticks during the tests you did last time?
The testing I did was stock 4.2ghz & the RAM is OCed to run at CAS14 3200mhz. The reason I left it at stock and had the OCed the RAM to those values was so they matched my Ryzen’s specs. I’ll try overclocking the 7700k to 5ghz & run the ram at 3600mhz @ CAS 16 most likely. Though I’m no expert at tweaking ram values…I was lucky enough to have a ram calculator for my Ryzen but I’m not too sure how to go about it with Intel. Though in my opinion the stock settings should be overkill for a game like overwatch to begin with. Not sure why I need this tweaking to get a game like that to run at a stable value (not to mention there’s a cpu deadlock they still haven’t . I’ll do some overclocking and test it out nonetheless.
Because OW actually scales with RAM speed. Has been proven many times already on reddit and here in the tech forum. Basically the higher the FPS goes the more important RAM speed becomes.
Reason why Ryzen underperforms a little bit is because Ryzen still has issues with RAM speed.
We are not looking to run the game at good enough performance but instead min maxing it to run at the highest possible framerate. So ofc it is required to push the hardware to its limits.
I am kind of suprised you didnt OC the 7700k tbh. Same goes for RAM.