How can I maintain "Ultra" graphics and a good FPS rate?

[johnnyTheMac]

Hello,

I hope that I am in the right forum for this. If not, my apologies and I hope an admin can point me in the right direction.

I am having a hard time wrapping my head around something. Why can I not get a good and consistent FPS rate while gaming at Ultra settings? Before I go any further, I will list my specs:

i7 3770K

Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD4H

Gigabyte Windforce GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition

G.SKILL Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866

Corsair Neutron Series SSD 256GB (6Gb/s) SATA 3

Western Digital WD Blue WD10EZEX 1TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5

Corsair Professional Series AX 850 Watt ATX/EPS Modular 80 PLUS Gold (AX850)

Windows 8.1 Professional

ASUS 24" 1080p IPS @ 60Hz

Games (just a few to get an idea, but I play anything and everything):

Battlefield Series

Assassin's Creed Series

Far Cry Series

Total War Series

Skyrim

The Witcher Series

NBA 2K Series

Should I be able to run above 60 FPS with this set-up? It seems that I get stuttering with many of these games and cannot hold a steady and consistent frame rate. Do I need to upgrade? Do I just have a bum system? I am stuck on what I need to do.

Thank you in advance for your help!

[Fate]

Update your drivers

[C0LL0SS0S]

Do you play in 1080p or 1440p or even 4k ?

[Jerakl]

Keep your drivers up to date. I would grab another kit of RAM for a total of 16GB. BF games are RAM hungry, IDK about the rest. Also, which res are you playing at?

[Morpheus]

If you use the preset ultra options, they often come with maximum AA. Sometimes even 8xMSAA. This will destroy your fps even on a 1080p monitor. Try turning that down?

[johnnyTheMac]

Update your drivers

They are updated.

 

 

Do you play in 1080p or 1440p or even 4k ?

1080p only 

 

Keep your drivers up to date. I would grab another kit of RAM for a total of 16GB. BF games are RAM hungry, IDK about the rest. Also, which res are you playing at?

1080p @60Hz

 

 

If you use the preset ultra options, they often come with maximum AA. Sometimes even 8xMSAA. This will destroy your fps even on a 1080p monitor. Try turning that down?

Yeah. I still notice inconsistent FPS on games like Far Cry 3.

[LancerBG]

get another 780 or water down the ultra settings. you have a nice rig but some games just demand more. 

[typographie]

There are a few of those games that, at their absolutely literal max settings, may not reach 60 FPS on your hardware. The Witcher 2, at max detail settings + Ubersampling probably wouldn't maintain 60 FPS, for example. Assassin's Creed Unity might not even get close. But I'd expect most of the rest of those would be alright.

 

Rather than simply updating your drivers, something I'd try is completely wiping your drivers from the system and clean installing them. That should clear up any possible issues with missing/corrupted files or errant driver settings.

[johnnyTheMac]

get another 780 or water down the ultra settings. you have a nice rig but some games just demand more.

 

I don't want to deal with the dual card setup headache. Do you know what is weird? Some times when I water down the graphics, I still get microstutters and the like.

 

There are a few of those games that, at their absolutely literal max settings, may not reach 60 FPS on your hardware. The Witcher 2, at max detail settings + Ubersampling probably wouldn't maintain 60 FPS, for example. Assassin's Creed Unity might not even get close. But I'd expect most of the rest of those would be alright.

 

Rather than simply updating your drivers, something I'd try is completely wiping your drivers from the system and clean installing them. That should clear up any possible issues with missing/corrupted files or errant driver settings.

I may try that again. I just reformatted my SSD not long ago.

Sometimes, I wonder why I spent all of this money on a gaming rig when I can't get, what I would think, is proper performance. I don't know, but I think I know why people choose consoles lol. Just kidding. I love my rig, but it is frustrating sometimes.

[Imabigmac]

The problem is simply you don't have enough juice to run every single game at ultra and keep above the 60fps mark. It's gpu power that is lacking. The second problem is the games, take bf4 on certain sections of the map the game runs smooth and then in zones the game fails to utilize the gpu, add in instance fighting and that once beyond 60fps drops to below 50. Blame it on poor optimization but if want to above 60fps no matter what in every single game then you will need dual cards. And then you will still be limited to games that support dual cards.

[johnnyTheMac]

The problem is simply you don't have enough juice to run every single game at ultra and keep above the 60fps mark. It's gpu power that is lacking. The second problem is the games, take bf4 on certain sections of the map the game runs smooth and then in zones the game fails to utilize the gpu, add in instance fighting and that once beyond 60fps drops to below 50. Blame it on poor optimization but if want to above 60fps no matter what in every single game then you will need dual cards. And then you will still be limited to games that support dual cards.

That is what I was afraid of. So, even if I were to upgrade to a 980, it wouldn't really be much of a difference. I really do not want to go dual cards because of the issues I have read about. I guess the only real solution is to lower the graphics down, huh? Sometimes, though, that does not even help...well, it does but I still get stuttering going on in some games.

[LancerBG]

the last time I had just one gpu was in the days of the 9800gt but since then I have had 2 cards in every rig, both amd and nvidia cards and never had an issue that wasnt resolved by a simple re-install. I think that headache you speak of is a bit of an exaggeration. I am not saying it does not happen but just based on what I have gone through and all my online gaming buds I really dont think its a huge issue. Off the top of my head I think I have only had to do 2 re-installs and both were with amd drivers but fixed quickly. 

 

Most people say its better to have one top end gpu then 2 mid range ones however when you are close to top end already I just think it makes more sense to add another. Either way hope you figure out that issue bud. 

[C0LL0SS0S]

Try to make a few benchmarks, if those results are similar to the internet everything is okey.

[BaSkA]

It makes no sense to get ridiculously low FPS with those specs you have. It sure looks you have a problem with your software like bad drivers, bad windows install, incompatibilities, something like that.

 

If you reinstall everything and the issues continue to happen, you might have hardware issues, somewhere.

 

What are your temperatures? If your CPU or GPU are running too hot they might be throtling or something like that, check those.