Minor FPS drops in Doom

[Electronix]

Hey Linus Tech Tips,

 

I've been playing the new Doom a lot lately, and I noticed that I'll occasionally get some frame rate drops to around 45-50 FPS when I'm in intense combat. I'm running an AMD Radeon 390 with a Haswell Core i7 CPU and 8 GB of RAM, so I shouldn't have any problems hardware wise. Is there a way to fix this? 

[dizmo]

Do you have the latest driver set?

[Electronix]

1 minute ago, dizmo said:

Do you have the latest driver set?

I'll check

 

EDIT: Just checked Radeon settings and I apparently have the latest drivers. 

[DarkRuskov]

check the load on your components (gpu, cpu and ram) but it's probably the gpu having a hard time as you said yourself in "intense" scenes.

[Electronix]

1 minute ago, DarkRuskov said:

check the load on your components (gpu, cpu and ram) but it's probably the gpu having a hard time as you said yourself in "intense" scenes.

How would I do that? I'm a noob so my apologies. 

[DarkRuskov]

for cpu and ram while gaming just open the task manager.

for the gpu msi afterburner is one of the most popular.

[Electronix]

17 minutes ago, DarkRuskov said:

for cpu and ram while gaming just open the task manager.

for the gpu msi afterburner is one of the most popular.

Here are my GPU stats from MSI Afterburner. My CPU load from task manager generally stays around 40%, and my memory stays around 60% when Doom is running. 

[DarkRuskov]

well to avoid your fps drops the only option is to tune down the quality a little bit...

[Electronix]

1 minute ago, DarkRuskov said:

well to avoid your fps drops the only option is to tune down the quality a little bit...

I turned down the lighting and shadows to medium and the anti-aliasing to the lowest settings. What else should I drop? 

[DarkRuskov]

i don't really know the options in doom, but usually antialiasing and quality are the main culprits.

[HPWebcamAble]

8 minutes ago, Electronix said:

Here are my GPU stats from MSI Afterburner. My CPU load from task manager generally stays around 40%, and my memory stays around 60% when Doom is running. 

Looks like your GPU is being bottlenecked, possibly by your CPU. Switch the CPU view in task manager by right clicking the CPU graph and changing the graph to "Logical Processors"

 

Does any core go above 80%?

[Electronix]

15 minutes ago, HPWebcamAble said:

Looks like your GPU is being bottlenecked, possibly by your CPU. Switch the CPU view in task manager by right clicking the CPU graph and changing the graph to "Logical Processors"

 

Does any core go above 80%?

Here's the information. Do the individual graphs represent the CPU cores? This is with Doom running on my computer. 

[HPWebcamAble]

45 minutes ago, Electronix said:

Do the individual graphs represent the CPU cores?

They do. Well, 4 are real, physical cores, the other 4 are hyperthreading cores but that's not important right now.

 

The important thing is to capture the graphs after your FPS has dropped. It looks pretty good in that picture.

[Electronix]

8 minutes ago, HPWebcamAble said:

They do. Well, 4 are real, physical cores, the other 4 are hyperthreading cores but that's not important right now.

 

The important thing is to capture the graphs after your FPS has dropped. It looks pretty good in that picture.

I started another save file in which the FPS unstably fluctuated between about 45-100 frames. Here's the CPU information while it was running the intro area where Doom Guy smashes a demon's head. 

[HPWebcamAble]

1 minute ago, Electronix said:

I started another save file in which the FPS was unstably fluctuated between about 45-100 frames. Here's the CPU information while it was running the intro area. 

Looks OK. It's close to 80 on some cores but I wouldn't expect an i7 to have issues like that.

 

Your GPU certainly isn't running out of VRAM and I assume your system RAM is ok. So I have to conclude that your CPU is bottlenecking your GPU.

Try lowering settings a bit more.

[Electronix]

11 minutes ago, HPWebcamAble said:

Looks OK. It's close to 80 on some cores but I wouldn't expect an i7 to have issues like that.

 

Your GPU certainly isn't running out of VRAM and I assume your system RAM is ok. So I have to conclude that your CPU is bottlenecking your GPU.

Try lowering settings a bit more.

I just turned off the anti-aliasing, and I turned down the shadows and lighting to low. I haven't gotten any FPS drops whilst battling demons thus far. Considering that my CPU is a Haswell i7 how would it be bottlenecking my GPU? Should I consider investing in a new CPU for future games? 

[HPWebcamAble]

9 minutes ago, Electronix said:

I just turned off the anti-aliasing, and I turned down the shadows and lighting to low. I haven't gotten any FPS drops whilst battling demons thus far. Considering that my CPU is a Haswell i7 how would it be bottlenecking my GPU? Should I consider investing in a new CPU for future games? 

The 4770k isn't exactly new but it's not old either.

 

Upgrading to a 4790k (no MOBO or RAM change) would probably help, upgrading to a 6600k or 6700k (requires new MOBO + RAM) would be a bit better in terms of future proofing.

[Electronix]

3 minutes ago, HPWebcamAble said:

The 4770k isn't exactly new but it's not old either.

 

Upgrading to a 4790k (no MOBO or RAM change) would probably help, upgrading to a 6600k or 6700k (requires new MOBO + RAM) would be a bit better in terms of future proofing.

I'll probably look into building a new system in the future. I'll just give this system to my father so he can use it for making music and work.