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2a799fb82e6e10d's avatar
2a799fb82e6e10d
7 years ago
Solved

FPS below 10 with i7 and gtx 960m

I installed the game on my laptop thinking it would run smoothly, since I have an i7 4720HQ and a gtx 960m. Imagine my surprise when I saw the FPS locked at 17 in full screen and 7 (7!) in boderless...
pc
  • 2a799fb82e6e10d's avatar
    2a799fb82e6e10d
    7 years ago
    Oh. My. God.

    Since I had already turned off all the "online features" in the game options to no avail, I decided to go route one and turn on airplane mode.

    40 FPS on ultra settings. cpu 30% gpu 60%.

    I am speechless. Still, both the cpu and gpu are underloaded and a normal, decently coded game should push at least 60fps, but I can live with 40 after all this hassle.

    Thanks a lot to everyone who helped guys
2a799fb82e6e10d's avatar
2a799fb82e6e10d
7 years ago

In the screenshot I attached you can see I have 20% cpu usage, 50% nvidia gpu usage (integrated gpu is idling), 3 GB of ram available, yet the game is running at 9 FPS.
It is definitely not a hardware issue. In the last few days I have played Madden 19, Stellaris, Cities skylines, Kingdom come deliverance... all titles that are way more demanding, with normal 30-60 FPS.

olchaos's avatar
olchaos
Rising Scout
7 years ago
try repair option on origin. meanwhile, please double check ts4.exe and ts4_64.exe is added to the NVIDIA control panel as the link provided by @Phantomlover1717 provides. the game is installed into the SSD or in a separate drive?
  • 2a799fb82e6e10d's avatar
    2a799fb82e6e10d
    7 years ago
    I have repaired the game twice already, uninstalled and reinstalled once in the SSD, then on the mechanical drive, then back on the SSD.

    Both the .exes are in nvidia control panel and set to use the nvidia card. I have tried running in both 32 and 64 bit.

    Absolutely no difference at all. Never ever got it to go over 20 FPS, even in the loading menu on 1024x768. This has to be either a driver issue or a directx issue, it's like the game is not using the cpu and gpu correctly.
  • olchaos's avatar
    olchaos
    Rising Scout
    7 years ago
    please check ingame in the graphics option, if the laptop option is turn on. that is usually turn on to reduce ingame graphical usage to reduce battery usage.
    also check in the NVIDIA control panel to both ts4 exe's to have all options into high performance or app managed.
    if that does not work, go ingame and set all graphical options to low, to see if that changes anything.
    also check the onboard graphics card, if it has some option to make sure .exe files or programs can be disabled to make sure even the game wont force some sort of processing.
  • 2a799fb82e6e10d's avatar
    2a799fb82e6e10d
    7 years ago
    I have checked everything believe me, reinstalled everything multiple times and so on.
    Changing the graphics settings doesn't do anything, I get less than 20 FPS on ultra settings 1920x1080 and in lowest settings 1024x768.
    Even EA tech support couldn't help other than the usual "clear origin cache" stuff (which oviously isn't the problem here).
  • olchaos's avatar
    olchaos
    Rising Scout
    7 years ago
    reinstalling the game and files, will only kill faster your SSD. the SSD's are made to be installed, then try not to ever touch them again (install/unistall) every write and read of a file wears off the cluster/s where the file is located untill burning it down.
    i still believe there is some sort of bug in the game that sets the graphics for your onboard chipset rather than the NVIDIA one.
    if you are able to, boot into your BIOS/firmware and try to disable or set as MAIN card the NVIDIA one, on windows try to fully unistall the NVIDIA driver, reboot and reinstall the latest driver.
    the game more than a repair nothing else can be done since as you said you reinstalled it several times.
  • holger1405's avatar
    holger1405
    Hero+
    7 years ago

    @Player_qe38v2wp

    Player_qe38v2wp  schrieb:
    reinstalling the game and files, will only kill faster your SSD. the SSD's are made to be installed, then try not to ever touch them again (install/unistall) every write and read of a file wears off the cluster/s where the file is located untill burning it down.

    By all do respect, if you don't know what you are talking about, don't talk about it.

    SSD's are made for high write/read cycles. (Read btw will not reduce lifetime at all)

    The calculated life-cycle of modern SSD is higher than that of a "normal" hdd. The 840 Evo for example has a theoretical endurance of 7.91 years if you write 100 GiB per day (every day) to it.   On an end user system 100 GiB per day will almost never happen, let alone 100 GiB every day.

    @2a799fb82e6e10d5

    8GB on the system drive is indeed not ideal, neither Windows 10 nor an 840 Evo like so little storage space.

    You really should make more room here.

    Is "Trim" enabled? (Check with the Samsung Magician software if you don't know.)

    Furthermore, your Notebook uses Nvidias Oprimus technology. So try this:

    Download the driver for your GPU from Asus. (Both the NVIDIA and the INTEL driver)
    (I know they are old, do it anyway please.)

    Download DDU:

    Install the graphic driver this way:

    •  Go offline. (Disable the network adapters or pull the plug)
    • Run DDU > save mode >  NVIDIA Software and Drivers > Clean and Restart.
    • Run DDU > save mode >  Intel Software and Drivers > Clean and Restart.
    • Shut down any not necessary programs in the background including the real time scanner of your anti-virus software.
    • Shut down any and all system monitoring programs and any overlooking tools you might have.
    • Run the installation EXE of the Intel driver. > Reboot.
    • Run the installation EXE if the NVIDIA driver > install only the GPU Driver and the PHYSX software.
      (don't deselect components you need even if the have the same version number, the installation program will uninstall them if you do)
    • Reboot > Test.
  • 2a799fb82e6e10d's avatar
    2a799fb82e6e10d
    7 years ago
    I couldn't try this today but I will definitely do tomorrow. Thanks for your help, you have gone much more in depth than the actual EA customer service, truth be told. Driver issues is what I was suspecting as well.

    In regards to the free space on the C: drive, I understand it isn't ideal (there's now 9GB free space) but I doubt that's the problem here, I have encountered difficulties in te past when some other apps or games (much more hardware-demanding than the sims tbh) would actually fill it up with temp files as time went by, but this doesn't happen in this case.
    What happens is I get FPS locked at 15 max right from the logo screen, and no matter the graphic quality or resolution, no matter if I use integrated or dedicated GPU, the FPS stays the same (15 in menus, 9 in live mode). And this happened from the very first moment I installed the game.

    I will try your solution asap and get back to you. I hope solving this will help others too, even if after looking everywhere on the web I seem to be the only one having this problem, which is doubly weird since I can literally use any other app or play any other game perfectly fine, so one would guess my pc is working fine.
  • 2a799fb82e6e10d's avatar
    2a799fb82e6e10d
    7 years ago
    Nope, game still unplayable and fps locked below 20 with minimal gpu and cpu usage
  • holger1405's avatar
    holger1405
    Hero+
    7 years ago

    @2a799fb82e6e10d5

    You rechecked if the NVIDIA GPU is still set to use for both exes?

    You restarted the notebook? (A real restart, not just shutdown and new start)

    Is "Trim" enabled?

    Please disable all energy saving features in Windows and the NVIDIA control panel (Set everything to high performance.)

    Also clear your temp files: (this might give you more space on your system drive.)

    • Press the Windows key and "R" at the same time
    • Into the new window, type or copy & paste:  "%temp%"   (Without the quotes.) > hit "ENTER"
    • Now your Windows Explorer should have brought you to the "C:\Users\>your user name<\AppData\Local\Temp" folder. > Delete all files and folders in it.
      (If some files or folders can't be deleted, reboot and try again.)
  • 2a799fb82e6e10d's avatar
    2a799fb82e6e10d
    7 years ago

    Nvidia gpu is being used, Trim is enabled, everything set on high performance. I also cleared up temp files.

    I can't stress this enough: everything else on the computer is working perfectly and has been for years.
    The craziest thing is that I get the same fps no matter the settings, no matter the resolution, and on top of that my cpu usage is at 22% and the gpu is at 12%. I have never, ever, encountered a behaviour of this kind.

    To put it simply, it feels like the pc is just getting the message "we need to get about 15 fps for the sims 4" and it's going "all right, we can easily do that at 20% usage". There is no throttling, no bottleneck, nothing.

  • holger1405's avatar
    holger1405
    Hero+
    7 years ago

    @2a799fb82e6e10d5

    Yes, your NVIDIA GPU is not utilized by the game.

    The question is indeed why.

    How much space is now available on your drive?

    Disable "Origin in game" > Test

    Shut your laptop down > disconnect the second Monitor > restart > Test.

    If that don't works, preform a clean boot and test the Game in clean boot mode.

  • 2a799fb82e6e10d's avatar
    2a799fb82e6e10d
    7 years ago
    Oh. My. God.

    Since I had already turned off all the "online features" in the game options to no avail, I decided to go route one and turn on airplane mode.

    40 FPS on ultra settings. cpu 30% gpu 60%.

    I am speechless. Still, both the cpu and gpu are underloaded and a normal, decently coded game should push at least 60fps, but I can live with 40 after all this hassle.

    Thanks a lot to everyone who helped guys
  • holger1405's avatar
    holger1405
    Hero+
    7 years ago

    @2a799fb82e6e10d5

    Good to hear!

    You might want to update your driver again and test without the second monitor regardless. 😉

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