Hello, i would like to tell you about a common issue on SWTOR.SLI or Crossfire bring stuttering, less smoth game than 1 card. Is it normal? Is it normal also that this game use about 50% of the gpu power event with v-sync and all g-sync stuff disabled?Disable upscaling, set maximize power for this game, i tried every settings it's possible, i tried a lot of gpu's (i'm a reviewer) but still the same....Maybe it's time to bring power to your graphic engine.Best regards.

Yes it's normal.And you don't need SLI/Crossfire unless you want to build a multimonitor 4k setup for this game.With a 980Ti or Titan X even on max settings the CPU will be the bottleneck most of the time.

@Ptiwhisky wrote:I already tried it's an old problem unsolved by bioware AND nvidia.I tried on 780 sli's actually 2x 980Ti kingpin.Game is working better on 1 card than two but maybe it's time (it's a recommendation) to put more power to this game ^^.Even with 1 card fps are dropping down when there is more people, more lightning effects etc....And i'm still impress that the game don't want to use all horse power! Even on little cards like GTX 960 R9 370 etc this game don't want to use 100% of the power.I don't think that i am bottleneck with a 4930K at 4.8Ghz.Tried on a 5960X at 4.6Ghz still the same 😉The CPU is the bottleneck.5960X for SWTOR is a complete waste of money.SWTOR is CPU-Bound and uses only one core (actually two because it has two separate processes).You can test it yourself: press CTRL + SHIFT + F ingame. This will show you your current FPS in the bottom left corner. If the number is green the the GPU is the bottleneck, if it's red then the CPU is the bottleneck, if it's yellow then both CPU and GPU are at max.Then look into the Task Manager/whatever you use to monitor CPU usage. In case of the 5960X (8 Cores 16 Threads) you will see that both swtor.exe*32 use a maximum of 6.25% of the CPU each. That's because SWTOR can only use one (virtual because of hyperthreading) core.Spoiler (Highlight to read)Because my current CPU is broken I have to use an old AMD FX-4100 (4 cores). Other specs are MSI GTX 980Ti GAMING 6G, 24Gig DDR3-1600, SSD, Win10.I have two processes in my task manager:Star Wars: The Old Republic (32 bit), using up to 24.4% CPU and 1244.6MB RAMStar Wars: The Old Republic (32 bit), using up to 19.2% CPU and 311.2 MB RAMThis is standing on my Yavin 4 SH, 1080p, average 60FPS, "Very Low" graphics preset.When changing to "Ultra" graphics preset I get an average of 30 FPS. No increase in CPU usage, both processes use 20MB more RAM.Because my current CPU is broken I have to use an old AMD FX-4100 (4 cores). Other specs are MSI GTX 980Ti GAMING 6G, 24Gig DDR3-1600, SSD, Win10.I have two processes in my task manager:Star Wars: The Old Republic (32 bit), using up to 24.4% CPU and 1244.6MB RAMStar Wars: The Old Republic (32 bit), using up to 19.2% CPU and 311.2 MB RAMThis is standing on my Yavin 4 SH, 1080p, average 60FPS, "Very Low" graphics preset.When changing to "Ultra" graphics preset I get an average of 30 FPS. No increase in CPU usage, both processes use 20MB more RAM.

@Ptiwhisky wrote:The test you've just show that the engine is not using properly a CPU. Even at low settings, an i7 4930K or 5960X with overclock on it will always have more instructions power than an FX4100.That's the problem, the game don't use all components power, CPU and GPU and with multiple cards it 's worse.Exactly. The game is not using the CPU properly. And that's why the CPU is the bottleneck.Ofc those i7s are far better than the crappy FX. I was just giving an example with my current build.Why would you want to use SLI anyway when a single GPU is more than enough and SLI is unable to further increase FPS?Yes the game doesn't use everything that a modern PC can offer and the things that it actually uses are not used perfectly well.Problem with that is that BW would have to rewrite most of the games code to make it 64bit, multi-threaded, SLI-optimised and what not and currently it's not worth the effort for them.

I already tried it's an old problem unsolved by bioware AND nvidia.I tried on 780 sli's actually 2x 980Ti kingpin.Game is working better on 1 card than two but maybe it's time (it's a recommendation) to put more power to this game ^^.Even with 1 card fps are dropping down when there is more people, more lightning effects etc....And i'm still impress that the game don't want to use all horse power! Even on little cards like GTX 960 R9 370 etc this game don't want to use 100% of the power.I don't think that i am bottleneck with a 4930K at 4.8Ghz.Tried on a 5960X at 4.6Ghz still the same 😉

Improvement is always good 🙂 they have been looking and still are apparently The Lead Game Play Engineer posted this 2 weeks ago - http://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=8454759&postcount=263 So there is hope Edit - The UI does have an impact on the FPS and turning it off is evident. The UI uses Scaleform

SLI/Crossfire | EA Forums

30 Replies

cheaterll
10 years ago
Yes it's normal.

And you don't need SLI/Crossfire unless you want to build a multimonitor 4k setup for this game.
With a 980Ti or Titan X even on max settings the CPU will be the bottleneck most of the time.
proxos666
Hero+
10 years ago
SLI and Crossfire is pretty much Video driver driven , swtor is a DirectX 9 game

If your getting stuttering have you tried creating a swtor.exe profile in the NVidia Control Panel and set Pre-Rendered frames to 1 or 2 and see if that eliminates any stutter ?
Ptiwhisky
10 years ago
I already tried it's an old problem unsolved by bioware AND nvidia.
I tried on 780 sli's actually 2x 980Ti kingpin.
Game is working better on 1 card than two but maybe it's time (it's a recommendation) to put more power to this game ^^.
Even with 1 card fps are dropping down when there is more people, more lightning effects etc....
And i'm still impress that the game don't want to use all horse power! Even on little cards like GTX 960 R9 370 etc this game don't want to use 100% of the power.
I don't think that i am bottleneck with a 4930K at 4.8Ghz.
Tried on a 5960X at 4.6Ghz still the same 😉
proxos666
Hero+
10 years ago
We all know the game engine could be better and being Directx 9

It is always worthwhile installing this redist for 9Ex files -

http://www.microsoft.com/en-au/download/details.aspx?id=8109

I run a i7 3930K / x79 Sabretooth with a GTX970 @ 2560 x 1440 , no game play issues on ultra , average combat frames is around 70 fps.

This video for example was done on 3.0 release when I was dabbling in videos -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cT0kZJ9OdY

There are some areas for sure that bring me down to around 45 fps on Rishi for example but doesn't affect gameplay.

I am aware that lots have issues in Warzones and only the devs can improve that.
Ptiwhisky
10 years ago
Yes i know that this is a dev problem but i wanted to recall it on this forum.
With 4.0 coming soon maybe it's an improvement to work on.
(Sorry for my bad english).
Game is fine on ultra actually with 1 card but it might be better with some optimization.
proxos666
Hero+
10 years ago
Improvement is always good 🙂 they have been looking and still are apparently

The Lead Game Play Engineer posted this 2 weeks ago -

http://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=8454759&postcount=263

So there is hope

Edit - The UI does have an impact on the FPS and turning it off is evident. The UI uses Scaleform
cheaterll
10 years ago
@Ptiwhisky wrote:
I already tried it's an old problem unsolved by bioware AND nvidia.
I tried on 780 sli's actually 2x 980Ti kingpin.
Game is working better on 1 card than two but maybe it's time (it's a recommendation) to put more power to this game ^^.
Even with 1 card fps are dropping down when there is more people, more lightning effects etc....
And i'm still impress that the game don't want to use all horse power! Even on little cards like GTX 960 R9 370 etc this game don't want to use 100% of the power.
I don't think that i am bottleneck with a 4930K at 4.8Ghz.
Tried on a 5960X at 4.6Ghz still the same 😉
The CPU is the bottleneck.
5960X for SWTOR is a complete waste of money.
SWTOR is CPU-Bound and uses only one core (actually two because it has two separate processes).
You can test it yourself: press CTRL + SHIFT + F ingame. This will show you your current FPS in the bottom left corner. If the number is green the the GPU is the bottleneck, if it's red then the CPU is the bottleneck, if it's yellow then both CPU and GPU are at max.
Then look into the Task Manager/whatever you use to monitor CPU usage. In case of the 5960X (8 Cores 16 Threads) you will see that both swtor.exe*32 use a maximum of 6.25% of the CPU each. That's because SWTOR can only use one (virtual because of hyperthreading) core.
Spoiler
Because my current CPU is broken I have to use an old AMD FX-4100 (4 cores). Other specs are MSI GTX 980Ti GAMING 6G, 24Gig DDR3-1600, SSD, Win10.
I have two processes in my task manager:
Star Wars: The Old Republic (32 bit), using up to 24.4% CPU and 1244.6MB RAM
Star Wars: The Old Republic (32 bit), using up to 19.2% CPU and 311.2 MB RAM
This is standing on my Yavin 4 SH, 1080p, average 60FPS, "Very Low" graphics preset.
When changing to "Ultra" graphics preset I get an average of 30 FPS. No increase in CPU usage, both processes use 20MB more RAM.
Ptiwhisky
10 years ago
I tell you again the cpu is not bottleneck 😉
If it was all cpus will be.
4930k at 4.8Ghz is fine.
ThatFatOldFart
10 years ago
Tempted to say ofc u don't have issues with that i7.
ThatFatOldFart
10 years ago
Save the obvious obnoxious meaningless replies and try being constructive.
All cpus are not the same. And in the absolute most cases it'd related to a multicore CPU that handles swtor threads badly. The rest cases are usually due to wrong power settings.
So yes the problem is very much cpu related. Ive tried absolutely everything with all kinds of third-party software and to absolute minimum gain.
I play fps games like battlefield 4 and hardline. In eyefinity 120fps+ easy.
2x 7970 in crossfire. 32 GB ram. And a fx8350 @4.5 GHz. Dual ssd in raid0. So yeah, ofc I get 120+ fps in those games.
So strange then I get 15 fps in voidstar. Or the entire game freeze on makeb Mesa arena on bridge.
... No mate.