GTA V - poor performance

[MarkoInBC]

Ok, so I built this PC for myself in the last year.  I've got an i5 8600K (overclocked to 5ghz) on an ASUS Prime Z370-A, 16GB of 3200DDR4 GSkill ram, EVGA 1080Ti FTW3, boot drive & game drive is a Crucial MX500 M.2 SSD drive.  My monitor is a Dell S2716DG 1440p G-SYNC display.  Trying to run GTA V but it's not performing to expecations.  I use the GeForce Experience and set the settings to optimal, start the game and run the benchmark.  My FPS is coming out in the 20-40 range, FAR below what I expect it to be... what am I doing wrong?

[boey]

Did you plug your monitor into the graphics card instead of the motherboard? If you plug the monitor into the motherboard you'll use the integrated graphics on the i5 8600K and not your 1080Ti. 

[TheKDub]

23 minutes ago, MarkoInBC said:

Ok, so I built this PC for myself in the last year.  I've got an i5 8600K (overclocked to 5ghz) on an ASUS Prime Z370-A, 16GB of 3200DDR4 GSkill ram, EVGA 1080Ti FTW3, boot drive & game drive is a Crucial MX500 M.2 SSD drive.  My monitor is a Dell S2716DG 1440p G-SYNC display.  Trying to run GTA V but it's not performing to expecations.  I use the GeForce Experience and set the settings to optimal, start the game and run the benchmark.  My FPS is coming out in the 20-40 range, FAR below what I expect it to be... what am I doing wrong?

What are the "Optimal" settings that it's being run at? (What resolution? General settings? Anti-Aliasing? Etc...)

 

I get 150+ FPS at 1440p on normal settings, AA turned off, using DX11 with an i7 8700K @ 4.8GHz and a GTX 970 (w/ 200Mhz underclock) while driving at high speeds.

At very high settings I get 70+ FPS.

 

It's possible GeForce Experience is using DSR (Dynamic Super Resolution) to render the game at a resolution higher than 1440p, but it's hard to say without more information.

[MarkoInBC]

9 hours ago, _d0nut said:

Did you plug your monitor into the graphics card instead of the motherboard? If you plug the monitor into the motherboard you'll use the integrated graphics on the i5 8600K and not your 1080Ti. 

LOL, fair question but I'm not that new :p  Definitely running off the 1080Ti.

[MarkoInBC]

9 hours ago, TheKDub said:

What are the "Optimal" settings that it's being run at? (What resolution? General settings? Anti-Aliasing? Etc...)

 

I get 150+ FPS at 1440p on normal settings, AA turned off, using DX11 with an i7 8700K @ 4.8GHz and a GTX 970 (w/ 200Mhz underclock) while driving at high speeds.

At very high settings I get 70+ FPS.

 

It's possible GeForce Experience is using DSR (Dynamic Super Resolution) to render the game at a resolution higher than 1440p, but it's hard to say without more information.

The optimal settings were pretty much max everything, ultra this, very high that.  I did see the spot for DSR and I'm 95% sure it wasn't enabled.  I'm at work now and can't give exact details, but can post later when I get home.

[boey]

22 minutes ago, MarkoInBC said:

LOL, fair question but I'm not that new Definitely running off the 1080Ti.

check gpu and cpu temps & utilisation then, could give a clue to why the fps is low

[MarkoInBC]

11 minutes ago, _d0nut said:

check gpu and cpu temps & utilisation then, could give a clue to why the fps is low

CPU utilization was not maxed, I'd say in the 50% range.  GPU was definitely not being used much, under 20% utilization.

[boey]

9 hours ago, MarkoInBC said:

CPU utilization was not maxed, I'd say in the 50% range.  GPU was definitely not being used much, under 20% utilization.

Is VSync on? I was at 40% CPU and 35% GPU with VSync on and stuck at 40fps, but after disabling Vsync GPU shot up to 99 and CPU shot up to 70, and i managed to get 80-90fps

[MarkoInBC]

Tried that, no difference.  The benchmark starts out at around 22-23FPS... my system should be crushing that.

[Paul Rudd]

1 hour ago, MarkoInBC said:

Tried that, no difference.  The benchmark starts out at around 22-23FPS... my system should be crushing that.

Have you tried checking your Nvidia control panel settings? Check for things like Power management mode being set to Prefer maximum performance(especially in the GTA5.exe settings under Program Settings since your issue is just GTA 5 related) and see if your 1080 Ti is set to the PhysX setting processor(it most likely is, couldn't hurt to check though).

 

One more tiny thing to try, while playing the game at this low fps, hit Alt+Tab to go to your desktop and then let go to go right back into the game and see if your fps doesn't jump right up to where it's suppose to be. Try this 2-3 times too. Not back to back, give like 15-20 seconds or so between each Alt+Tab.

 

Also try Alt+Enter as well to go into windowed mode, then change back to fullscreen via the settings to see if that does anything. Check your fps while in windowed mode and when you go back to fullscreen.

[MarkoInBC]

I seem to have discovered the problem.   I disabled "Frame Scaling Mode".  It was set to 2.5x, I must have set everything to max in thinking my system could handle it.  I disabled it and performance numbers jumped up to 90-110FPS.  However, GPU usage was minimal at best... so now I decided to try enabling DSR.  I turned it on to 2X, set the resolution to that, ran the benchmark again.  Now at least the GPU is being used to around 33%.

 

FYI, the frame scaling option is not adjusted by GeForce Experience.  So it was me who messed that one up at some point!

[Paul Rudd]

56 minutes ago, MarkoInBC said:

I seem to have discovered the problem.   I disabled "Frame Scaling Mode".  It was set to 2.5x, I must have set everything to max in thinking my system could handle it.  I disabled it and performance numbers jumped up to 90-110FPS.  However, GPU usage was minimal at best... so now I decided to try enabling DSR.  I turned it on to 2X, set the resolution to that, ran the benchmark again.  Now at least the GPU is being used to around 33%.

Glad to hear you fixed the issue. If you want higher fps than 90-110 without losing the Ultra look of things, just lower some of your graphic settings. It may lower your GPU and CPU usage even more but why exactly do you want your GPU and CPU to be higher if your fps is around the 144 range that your monitor lets your eyes see? If I had your PC, I could get GTA 5 to a locked 144 fps and call it a day. Could care less of how high or low my usages are. And this is how I would do it...

 

If you want an instant 55+ fps boost, lower the following graphic settings:

• Shadow Quality to High instead of Very High(around 9 fps boost)
• Soft Shadows to Sharp instead of whatever you have it on(around 2-7 fps boost, depending on what you already have this set to)
• Reflection Quality to Very High instead of Ultra(around 15 fps boost)
• Reflection MSAA to OFF instead of 8x(around 6 fps boost) Turning this on in any way with any PC you can barely notice a difference at all visually.
• Grass Quality to High instead of Ultra(around 13 fps boost) Set to Normal for another 12 fps boost and a much easier driving experience.
• Extended Distance Scaling to 70% instead of 100%(around 10 fps boost)

You could lower some other graphic settings and go even further down on these but with your hardware there's really no reason to on your current monitor. And I assure you that you will lose very, very, very minimal visual fidelity by lowering these settings. If your fps is currently 90-110, expect to see a locked 144 with fps dips(minimal and common, the game is to blame) in certain areas of GTA 5(like the city).

 

Take this with a grain of salt if you wish but I recommend at least trying it out. See if you like the insanely high fps over the completely unnecessary Ultra settings.