87fps in DX11 vs 40fps in DX12, SOTR

[Cruizer219]

Please help me understand why I get half the FPS in DX12 that I do with DX11 in Shadow of the Tomb Raider bench (and gameplay)? 

 

DX12 is supposedly really optimized in this game and everyone seems to be getting slightly higher FPS with DX12, except me.  Searched everywhere and don't have a clue what I am doing wrong. 

 

This doesn't occur with other benchmarks (e.g. Metro Exodus).  Display and graphic settings (medium) held constant, only DX version changed.  Same results across many different Nv driver versions.

 

 

 

Any insights GREATLY appreciated! 

Cruizer

 

Aorus X7 DT V8 laptop

i8850h 6 core 4.3ghz

Nv GTX 1080

Gsync display 144hz

32GB 2666 RAM

 

DxDiag.txt NVIDIA System Information 10-15-2020 22-57-42.txt

[badreg]

Check your CPU clocks. The benchmark results show 100% CPU bound in the DX12 run. The GPU score is higher in DX12 compared to DX11, which is expected, but your CPU scores drop off a cliff, so that's where the problem is.

[FinTheHuman]

Double check the graphics settings (you're in the display settings in both screen shots) and make sure that the ray tracing option is turned off when you switch to DX12 (this is a DX12 exclusive feature so it automatically won't be on for when you're in DX11 mode). The 1080 doesn't have tensor cores and if ray tracing is on it puts a ton of extra overhead on the CPU. This is the only thing I can think of off the top of my head that might cause this.

[Lord Vile]

3 hours ago, badreg said:

Check your CPU clocks. The benchmark results show 100% CPU bound in the DX12 run. The GPU score is higher in DX12 compared to DX11, which is expected, but your CPU scores drop off a cliff, so that's where the problem is.

Also if the DX12 bench was run after without time to cool down it could have thermally throttled.

[Cruizer219]

All good ideas, thank you.

 

Here's another DX12 bench, run just after cold boot, with LOW graphic settings this time.  Avg fps increased by just 1 point vs Med settings, jeez what is going on?!?

 

In this and prior benches, ray trace features are off, to my knowledge.  During bench, CPU remains at max clock whole time,CPU utilization is high at times but never maxed on any cores.  I can't figure this out. 

 

Why not just run DX11 and assume its an SOTR issue?  I do but I lose HDR (on an OLED, so its really nice) but my main concern is that I will encounter similar in future games.  Also, I seem to be the only one encountering drastically lower fps in SOTR with DX12.

 

Suggestions welcomed,

Cruizer

 

 

[Cruizer219]

New result really puts into perspective...

 

SOTR:

80fps on HIGHEST preset using DX11

44fps on LOWEST preset using DX12 (ray tracing & ray marching = off, no HDR)

 

Metro Exodus (minor difference):

104fps Medium DX11

90fps Medium DX12

 

Control:

(very slight difference)

 

Every DX comparison I found on Youtube and message boards reveals small differences with DX12 often performing better for SOTR. 

 

Appreciate any ideas,

Cruizer

 

SOTR (Steam version)

Aorus X7 DT V8 laptop

i8850h 6 core 4.3ghz

Nv GTX 1080

Gsync display 144hz

32GB 2666 RAM

 

[Guest]

Hi, I'd like to help. Not sure where to start really, but maybe looking at the video card drivers.

 

The comparisons you see online, what drivers did they use when running the benchmarks? 

Perhaps rolling back your driver to an earlier one could help? Use DDU to uninstall the current drivers first.

[Cruizer219]

Thank you ShrimpBrime, you have made a DDU Believer out of me!

 

Running DDU in safe mode, I installed some old drivers (441.41) that I saw showed high dx12 fps in a youtube benchmark.  My own benches then reached to 100fps on highest preset in dx12 (up from 44fps at lowest preset; all 1080p). 

 

I repeated DDUninstall in safe mode then loaded the most recent drivers (456.71) and BAM!  They worked just as well!  

 

PROBLEM SOLVED!  Leftovers from old drivers clearly must have been the culprits!  I had always done "clean installs," updating drivers at least monthly.  I always thought DDU, and even moreso, safe mode uninstall requirements, to be excessive on a user.  One would think the author, Nvidia, would know enough to make their clean installations do everything needed to fully remove their old software during updates.  BUT, I've learned how wrong I was.  I will use DDU through safe mode hereon.

 

Thank you all.