This. I would say that is likely your issue. Overclocking i7's is truly a waste of power. If you must overclock, focus on the GPU. I know that many gamers are all about squeezing insane frame rates out of every title, but the difference between 60 fps and 80 fps is only somewhat noticeable. The difference between 80 and 100 is almost wholly imperceptible. The difference in gameplay between 60 and 100 is nill. I choose to add lifespan to my $700 worth of video card instead.
I'm using almost the same same setup, as you are, OP, no overclocking whatsoever, and I get around 75-80 fps everywhere. Honestly, there's still a lot of optimization left to do with the game, as I get a lot of stutter if I uncap the frame rate. When I leave the in-game vsync ON and frame limiter set to 60, it's perfectly smooth with everything set to ULTRA, Hairworks ON. Random stutters occur after over an hour of play. Exiting the game and restarting clears it up. It's probably just a memory leak or the threading is getting clogged. Should be fixed in future patches.
What many people don't understand about PC players trying to achieve enormously high frame rates is that highest fps doesn't mean shit. You see, when we build powerful systems we want to play @60 fps. I don't care what is the max fps I get. It might be 150+ (like in Bioshock Infinite) or 300 (like I get in CS:GO). The problem is the minimum fps. This should always stay at 60+fps. That's the ultimate goal to play games on 60hz monitors. This is more relevant for most of us who use vsync. Because even slightest drop to 59 fps means stuttering when using vsync. Or it means screen tearing if using Adaptive vsync.
Variable Fps is no-way better than low fps.
What can I recommend OP is to try to downclock your monitor to 50hz. Cap fps to 50 and play on 50hz monitor @50 fps. This should do the trick if you won't drop fps below 50 now. I have some games which drop below 60 fps so I use this trick to play smooth. Those games I drop below 50 fps I cap my fps to 30 and use half-refresh rate sync. That's painful though since 30 fps looks like shit. But I can stand it, since it's locked number and doesn't drop to 20s like consoles do. But I don't recommend playing at 30 fps. Too bad for your eyes.
Some monitors don't overclock/downclock so well, but it's 100% safe to try it yourself:
1. Go to Nvidia control panel.
2. Change resolution.
3. Press customize.
4. Press create custom resolution.
5. Select refresh rate to 50.
6. Click test.
7. If image looks as if nothing has changed, then grats! You can use your new custom refresh rate and play at 50hz! If something goes wrong, don't panic and wait 15 seconds. It will return to default refresh rate.
8. If everything went ok, save your new profile.
Variable Fps is no-way better than low fps.
What can I recommend OP is to try to downclock your monitor to 50hz. Cap fps to 50 and play on 50hz monitor @50 fps. This should do the trick if you won't drop fps below 50 now. I have some games which drop below 60 fps so I use this trick to play smooth. Those games I drop below 50 fps I cap my fps to 30 and use half-refresh rate sync. That's painful though since 30 fps looks like shit. But I can stand it, since it's locked number and doesn't drop to 20s like consoles do. But I don't recommend playing at 30 fps. Too bad for your eyes.
Some monitors don't overclock/downclock so well, but it's 100% safe to try it yourself:
1. Go to Nvidia control panel.
2. Change resolution.
3. Press customize.
4. Press create custom resolution.
5. Select refresh rate to 50.
6. Click test.
7. If image looks as if nothing has changed, then grats! You can use your new custom refresh rate and play at 50hz! If something goes wrong, don't panic and wait 15 seconds. It will return to default refresh rate.
8. If everything went ok, save your new profile.
Kajori's suggestion is also a good one, but you should definitely be able to maintain 60 fps with your rig, OP.
I like what he is saying, though, and it truly brings what "smooth" gameplay actually is to the forefront. We don't really detect "high fps", we detect "steady" fps. It's the sudden drop from 120 fps, down to 63, then a lurch into the 80's, then sudden lag into the 40's, then - wham - back to 120... This is jarring for the human eye, even though most of those numbers were way above "60".
In the above scenario, locking fps to 50 would actually make the game feel much smoother. Only very occasionally would there be a slight dip in an intense scene. To achieve the most stable frame rate possible, find the lowest fps you get in-game, and lock the frame limit to just below that mark. Then, you will never see an fps dip and the game will run smoothly in all areas. This is why consoles play at 30 fps, but sometimes seem so much smoother than what you're getting on your PC.
---------- Updated at 03:26 PM ----------
Anyhoo, your rig should still get 60 without an issue.
I like what he is saying, though, and it truly brings what "smooth" gameplay actually is to the forefront. We don't really detect "high fps", we detect "steady" fps. It's the sudden drop from 120 fps, down to 63, then a lurch into the 80's, then sudden lag into the 40's, then - wham - back to 120... This is jarring for the human eye, even though most of those numbers were way above "60".
In the above scenario, locking fps to 50 would actually make the game feel much smoother. Only very occasionally would there be a slight dip in an intense scene. To achieve the most stable frame rate possible, find the lowest fps you get in-game, and lock the frame limit to just below that mark. Then, you will never see an fps dip and the game will run smoothly in all areas. This is why consoles play at 30 fps, but sometimes seem so much smoother than what you're getting on your PC.
---------- Updated at 03:26 PM ----------
Anyhoo, your rig should still get 60 without an issue.
Man I really pity those who bought series 900 nvidia cards when performance is not par to older ones like series 500. haha
which resolution are you using?
anyway, complaining about 57 fps! ?
i have the same system, but with 970, and i get 20 - 30 fps
just turn shadows to high or medium
hairworks off, foliage densitiy to high or medium and it will be fine
anyway, complaining about 57 fps! ?
i have the same system, but with 970, and i get 20 - 30 fps
just turn shadows to high or medium
hairworks off, foliage densitiy to high or medium and it will be fine
Thank you for your reply. I appreciate it. Does this change the graphic quality of the game though? I am using a 144hz monitor gaming one.
---------- Post merged on 27-06-2015 at 04:03 AM ----------
I think something is bottlenecking my PC. Seriously I can't even get over 60 fps now even with foliage high and shadows high also hairworks off.
No, it does not affect image quality. Refresh rate is the number of times per second the monitor draws a screen, starting from the top of the screen and moving line-by-line to the bottom. This is where screen "tearing" comes from. The video card draws images faster than the monitor can refresh them. The image being drawn at the top of the screen winds up changing before the monitor can draw to the bottom of the screen. Higher refresh rates prevent this, but only at stable fps.
If you're getting lower fps, the monitor's high refresh rate can actually wind up drawing the same images repeatedly on refresh and can introduce a very slight jitter or ghosting effect to the image. Ideally, you want your refresh as close as possible to your in-game fps for a nice, solid image.
Something is certainly bottlenecking your performance. This could a be any number of different things, though -- bios settings, OC overheating, inefficient bus on your mobo, less than optimal drivers, virus or malware, bad/inefficient RAM, paging file set incorrectly, processor cores not unlocking...who knows? The only way to definitely narrow down the culprit is to very systematically change one thing at a time and test the game after each change. If there is no improvement, change that thing back, then move on to the next one thing that it could be. Bubble-rinse-repeat until you have it.
This requires hours upon hours the first time you do it, but the up-side is that you'll learn a bleep-ton about your system and computers in general. Next time a problem surfaces, it'll much easier to troubleshoot.