GTA V being bottleknecked?

[MCManiac52]

Hey guys, so I've had the same system for almost 4 years now. i5-4670k @ 3.8Ghz (boost to 4) 16GB of ram, 600W PSU, 240GB SSD, 2TB HDD, GTX 960 4GB. Since i've started playing GTA V again in the past few months, I've noticed that the game performance a lot worse than it used to be, a year or so ago it ran perfectly on very high settings, now my CPU usage is pinned at 100% constantly while playing.

 

My friend has a GTX 1080 and an i7-4790k which is pretty much the same as my CPU only with hyperthreading and a slightly faster clock speed, so he disabled HT and underclocked his CPU to 3.8 so it was the same as mine and we did the same tests on GTA V. His CPU ran at 90-100% while mine was still at 100%. With HT enabled, he runs at around 60%. Both were running at 1080p, his graphics settings were also higher than mine.

 

Is my quad core i5 really not good enough for GTA V? Does GTA really need more than 4 cores to run optimally? Rockstar recommend a quad core i5-3470 @ 3.2GHz but i'm fairly certain my cpu is way better than that and is apparently not good enough.

 

Has anyone got any suggestions as to whats going on? Is my system just performing abnormally or is it time to say goodbye to the i5? Also would be great to here from anyone else who has a similar CPU about their performance.

[Oryzaki]

Background tasks are probably eating up cpu reasources.

[LooneyJuice]

There are a few scenes in GTAV that can really put the hurt on many i5s. I know for a fact that a 3750k at 4.2-ish was chugging hard as well. That being said, you have some room to overclock a bit, and it should be fine. Those couple of instances in GTAV where it really asks quite a bit of your CPU are among the outliers in gaming. If you can, just look up reputable video tutorials pertaining to your CPU and MB combo, and maybe help yourself to a few extra MHz, and you should be alright.

 

EDIT: I forgot. The "B" word should only be used according to a point of reference. What is your target framerate/resolution? 1080p 60fps? Are you running uncapped? Is your buddy running capped?

[tom_w141]

1 minute ago, MCManiac52 said:

i7-4790k which is pretty much the same as my CPU only with hyperthreading

That makes a lot more difference than you think. There is a reason they sell for $100 more.

 

It's unlikely that it suddenly got worse. Are you talking about single player? Because they have never updated that ever really since they discovered what a cash cow GTA online was. Check for background processes you may have picked up some crap over the years. It's very easy to fully load a 4 thread cpu nowadays so I'm not surprised about the 100%. The same game shouldn't get worse over time though.

[MCManiac52]

6 minutes ago, Oryzaki said:

Background tasks are probably eating up cpu reasources.

there's nothing abnormal here is there? I figured this would be the same as most systems.

4 minutes ago, LooneyJuice said:

There are a few scenes in GTAV that can really put the hurt on many i5s. I know for a fact that a 3750k at 4.2-ish was chugging hard as well. That being said, you have some room to overclock a bit, and it should be fine. Those couple of instances in GTAV where it really asks quite a bit of your CPU are among the outliers in gaming. If you can, just look up reputable video tutorials pertaining to your CPU and MB combo, and maybe help yourself to a few extra MHz, and you should be alright.

I have a new motherboard on it's way that I ordered yesterday. My current board is only a B85 chipset so I cannot overclock anymore than I have. It's not just a few scenes in the game, it's constantly while playing online.

3 minutes ago, tom_w141 said:

That makes a lot more difference than you think. There is a reason they sell for $100 more.

 

It's unlikely that it suddenly got worse. Are you talking about single player? Because they have never updated that ever really since they discovered what a cash cow GTA online was. Check for background processes you may have picked up some crap over the years. It's very easy to fully load a 4 thread cpu nowadays so I'm not surprised about the 100%. The same game shouldn't get worse over time though.

I know it makes a lot of difference, however we disabled it on his CPU while testing so theoretically they were pretty much the same CPU during the tests, which lead me to believe that I don't have enough threads on my CPU as his also struggled with just 4. I'm talking about online, I haven't tested single player as I don't really play it, whereas I play online every day. My thought was all the DLC in GTA online could have caused the game to become more demanding. I've attached a screenshot of my task manager while playing i'm standing by a road on GTA online, i've sorted it by most CPU usage.

 

[Oryzaki]

1 minute ago, MCManiac52 said:

there's nothing abnormal here is there? I figured this would be the same as most systems.

I have a new motherboard on it's way that I ordered yesterday. My current board is only a B85 chipset so I cannot overclock anymore than I have. It's not just a few scenes in the game, it's constantly while playing online.

I know it makes a lot of difference, however we disabled it on his CPU while testing so theoretically they were pretty much the same CPU during the tests, which lead me to believe that I don't have enough threads on my CPU as his also struggled with just 4. I'm talking about online, I haven't tested single player as I don't really play it, whereas I play online every day. My thought was all the DLC in GTA online could have caused the game to become more demanding. I've attached a screenshot of my task manager while playing i'm standing by a road on GTA online, i've sorted it by most CPU usage.

 

Single player technically has all the dlc you just can't use it so that should be a non issue but connecting to a low signal wifi can sometimes cause more strain on a CPU so if you are that could be it other wise you will just have to upgrade or live with the performance you currently have.

[MCManiac52]

Just now, Oryzaki said:

Single player technically has all the dlc you just can't use it so that should be a non issue but connecting to a low signal wifi can sometimes cause more strain on a CPU so if you are that could be it other wise you will just have to upgrade or live with the performance you currently have.

No wifi here, full Gigabit ethernet through my network, so I guess i'm keeping my performance for now

[tom_w141]

6 minutes ago, MCManiac52 said:

I'm talking about online, I haven't tested single player as I don't really play it, whereas I play online every day. My thought was all the DLC in GTA online could have caused the game to become more demanding

Online is more CPU intensive anyway + they have added to it since launch. It could be that their additions to the online portion of the game have taken it beyond your older i5's capabilities. You can try things like a clean install of windows (maybe unnecessary but will yield best possible performance), but I don't think tweaking game settings will do anything.

 

IMO if you suffer seriously you need to upgrade. To either an R5 1600 or an i7.

[LooneyJuice]

9 minutes ago, MCManiac52 said:

-snip-

I have a new motherboard on it's way that I ordered yesterday. My current board is only a B85 chipset so I cannot overclock anymore than I have. It's not just a few scenes in the game, it's constantly while playing online.

-snip-

Refer to the edit I made in my previous post regarding whether you're capping or not. How this was reproduced and tested matters.

[MCManiac52]

1 minute ago, LooneyJuice said:

Refer to the edit I made in my previous post regarding whether you're capping or not. How this was reproduced and tested matters.

ideally 1080p60 but i'm fine with 45-50 too. The main issue is that the game will randomly stutter or crash due to CPU load, fps isn't really a problem.

[MCManiac52]

3 minutes ago, tom_w141 said:

Online is more CPU intensive anyway + they have added to it since launch. It could be that their additions to the online portion of the game have taken it beyond your older i5's capabilities. You can try things like a clean install of windows (maybe unnecessary but will yield best possible performance), but I don't think tweaking game settings will do anything.

 

IMO if you suffer seriously you need to upgrade. To either an R5 1600 or an i7.

I'm definitely more inclined for an i7-4670k rather than a R5 as I'd have to get a whole new motherboard and ram which I don't have to money for. Currently I'm still saving for the i7 and i'm trying to find one cheap. If you know anywhere I can get one cheap in the UK other than ebay, that would be great.

[tom_w141]

1 minute ago, MCManiac52 said:

If you know anywhere I can get one cheap in the UK other than ebay, that would be great.

Gumtree sometimes works but its local. Don't forget on sites like gumtree you can haggle.

 

2 minutes ago, MCManiac52 said:

I'd have to get a whole new motherboard

You'd need to do that anyway if you wanted to overclock your i7.

[LooneyJuice]

9 minutes ago, MCManiac52 said:

ideally 1080p60 but i'm fine with 45-50 too. The main issue is that the game will randomly stutter or crash due to CPU load, fps isn't really a problem.

My main point is that the CPU will much more often top out at 100% if you're running uncapped. And if your buddy was running capped, he would certainly see slightly less overall usage during simulating a 4670k f.ex.

 

Additionally, if you're getting massive stutters, inconsistency and eventual crashes, it might not be your CPU. It could be RAM or VRAM.

 

What I've observed is that GTAV is mostly alright with 4GB of VRAM but push it a little more, and that's it, you've hit the ceiling. And VRAM saturation would be consistent with stutters, inconsistency and eventual crashes. I would comment on RAM also, but you have 16GB, so it should be alright (assuming you're not using mixed kits or something).

[MCManiac52]

Just now, tom_w141 said:

Gumtree sometimes works but its local. Don't forget on sites like gumtree you can haggle.

 

You'd need to do that anyway if you wanted to overclock your i7.

I've already got a new motherboard coming, it's an asus maximus ranger VII Z97 so that should be okay.

[tom_w141]

8 minutes ago, MCManiac52 said:

I'm definitely more inclined for an i7-4670k rather than a R5 as I'd have to get a whole new motherboard and ram which I don't have to money for. Currently I'm still saving for the i7 and i'm trying to find one cheap. If you know anywhere I can get one cheap in the UK other than ebay, that would be great.

Spoiler

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£330.00 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - GA-Z97P-D3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (£77.02 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £407.02
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-07-13 13:52 BST+0100

Spoiler

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor  (£188.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - GA-AB350-GAMING 3 ATX AM4 Motherboard  (£87.95 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Memory: Crucial - 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  (£54.98 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £331.92
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-07-13 13:54 BST+0100

£75 Cheaper to upgrade to a current system with DDR4 RAM I know what I'd do  "Upgrading" to already obsolete systems doesn't make much sense to me.

[MCManiac52]

3 minutes ago, LooneyJuice said:

My main point is that the CPU will much more often top out at 100% if you're running uncapped. And if your buddy was running capped, he would certainly see slightly less overall usage during simulating a 4690k.

 

Additionally, if you're getting massive stutters, inconsistency and eventual crashes, it might not be your CPU. It could be RAM or VRAM.

 

What I've observed is that GTAV is mostly alright with 4GB of VRAM but push it a little more, and that's it, you've hit the ceiling. And VRAM saturation would be consistent with stutters, inconsistency and eventual crashes. I would comment on RAM also, but you have 16GB, so it should be alright (assuming you're not using mixed kits or something).

His was also uncapped but I'm guessing as he has a 1080 vs my 960 it would run a lot better anyway. Should I try running the game with Vsync on and see if that improves anything? As far as I can tell from MSI afterburner, my VRAM doesn't really go above 3GB and in the game settings it only shows around 2-2.5GB (i can't remember the exact value)

[MCManiac52]

7 minutes ago, tom_w141 said:

  Hide contents

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£330.00 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - GA-Z97P-D3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (£77.02 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £407.02
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-07-13 13:52 BST+0100

  Hide contents

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor  (£188.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - GA-AB350-GAMING 3 ATX AM4 Motherboard  (£87.95 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Memory: Crucial - 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  (£54.98 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £331.92
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-07-13 13:54 BST+0100

£75 Cheaper to upgrade to a current system with DDR4 RAM I know what I'd do  "Upgrading" to already obsolete systems doesn't make much sense to me.

Oh wow, I didn't realise how much cheaper that would be, I was expecting it to be way more expensive than that. How does the R5 compare to both the i7 and my i5? Is it a big improvement over both? Also what's the difference between the 1600 and 1600x?

[LooneyJuice]

Just now, MCManiac52 said:

His was also uncapped but I'm guessing as he has a 1080 vs my 960 it would run a lot better anyway. Should I try running the game with Vsync on and see if that improves anything? As far as I can tell from MSI afterburner, my VRAM doesn't really go above 3GB and in the game settings it only shows around 2-2.5GB (i can't remember the exact value)

As a disclaimer, the VRAM calculation in game is completely bogus. Additionally, the game will always peak at certain scenes. GTAV is notorious for variance. You could test all day long between two systems, but unless you use the same time of day, same area, same broad traffic etc, you'll always have differences. So, unless you can cross-check a crash, or stutter with the max VRAM usage at the time, you can't really make heads or tails of the issue. 

 

Also, what framerate are you generally sustaining regardless of CPU usage? (Another silly thing, but is worth mentioning, is that a couple of driver releases ago, there was a pretty substantial hit in GPU performance, you may want to update if you haven't)

[MCManiac52]

1 minute ago, LooneyJuice said:

As a disclaimer, the VRAM calculation in game is completely bogus. Additionally, the game will always peak at certain scenes. GTAV is notorious for variance. You could test all day long between two systems, but unless you use the same time of day, same area, same broad traffic etc, you'll always have differences. So, unless you can cross-check a crash, or stutter with the max VRAM usage at the time, you can't really make heads or tails of the issue. 

 

Also, what framerate are you generally sustaining regardless of CPU usage? (Another silly thing, but is worth mentioning, is that a couple of driver releases ago, there was a pretty substantial hit in GPU performance, you may want to update if you haven't)

I'm running at around 50 average, max at 65, minimum of ~30. I could watch the vram usgae next time i'm playing. The drivers should be fully updated but i will check in a bit and let you know.

[LooneyJuice]

1 minute ago, MCManiac52 said:

I'm running at around 50 average, max at 65, minimum of ~30. I could watch the vram usgae next time i'm playing. The drivers should be fully updated but i will check in a bit and let you know.

Yeah that sounds like what I'd expect out of your setup. Assuming there isn't a spiking background application. I would ideally close stuff in the background just to check while running, and eliminate variables but that's up to you. I can't see anything fundamentally wrong with your setup other than maybe some VRAM intensive setting that brings the game to a crawl. CPU usage otherwise would indeed generally be pretty high on an i5 in GTAV. However you cut it, it's very CPU-intensive at times. I know I've seen spikes in the region of 65-70% and I'm running capped at 75 with an admittedly older but overclocked i7.

[tom_w141]

15 minutes ago, MCManiac52 said:

Oh wow, I didn't realise how much cheaper that would be, I was expecting it to be way more expensive than that. How does the R5 compare to both the i7 and my i5? Is it a big improvement over both? Also what's the difference between the 1600 and 1600x?

It should beat the i7 you are considering in game perf. It is at the level of a current i5 in gaming titles, with the advantage its utilisation is no where near 100% so it has headroom for the future (unlike any 4 thread i5). Its performance would increase even more if future games do follow the trend of becoming more multithreaded which they are. The added bonus of the 2 more cores means you can multitask better/record/stream whatever. Without seeing stuttering in your games.

 

The platform is also guaranteed for 4 years so you could upgrade again in 4 years time with a new CPU no new motherboard required. The above points + the benefits of DDR4 RAM is why I would go for the R5. However the choice is ofc yours do what you prefer  You could sell your DDR3 btw. RAM is holding its value very well.

 

X model doesn't come with a cooler but has higher stock clocks. Don't buy an X model you can easily OC it to the same perf or above yourself.

[MCManiac52]

1 minute ago, tom_w141 said:

It should beat the i7 you are considering in game perf. It is at the level of a current i5 in gaming titles, with the advantage its utilisation is no where near 100% so it has headroom for the future. Its performance would increase if future games do follow the trend of becoming more multithreaded which they are. The added bonus of the 2 more cores means you can multitask better/record/stream whatever. Without seeing stuttering in your games.

 

The platform is also guaranteed for 4 years so you could upgrade again in 4 years time with a new CPU no motherboard required. The above points + the benefits of DDR4 RAM is why I would go for the R5. However the choice is ofc yours do what you prefer  You could sell your DDR3 btw. RAM is holding its value very well.

I'd be more inclined to go for the i7 just because i already have a motherboard coming that I got for cheap and I use a lot of intel technology in my system, but i'll definitely consider ryzen for when I build a new system.

[tom_w141]

Just now, MCManiac52 said:

intel technology

Which?

1 minute ago, MCManiac52 said:

I'd be more inclined to go for the i7 just because i already have a motherboard coming that I got for cheap

Cool GL resolving your issue  

[MCManiac52]

Just now, tom_w141 said:

Which?

Cool GL resolving your issue  

I use a lot of virtualisation on my pc as well as RST and i'm not sure how well ryzen's virtualisation is and whether or not I could use RST.

[tom_w141]

5 minutes ago, MCManiac52 said:

ryzen's virtualisation is

VMs run fine on my 1700. With 8 cores I can run 4 single core VMs without impacting gaming performance.

 

5 minutes ago, MCManiac52 said:

RST

I've never tried to benchmark the 2 but I certainly don't notice any difference in user experience switching between my 1700 and an Intel machine with RST.