Trouble running on high settings with RTX 3080ti! please help!

[magnus28]

hey there, 

was on day 75, and noticed my FPS would drop to mid 20's when near my base..

Did an alt-tab and noticed that 7DTD was using 8gs of ram! Thought I had a memory leak (due to having the  my client-based game sever run for many months) and decided to start a fresh game (random gen alpha 20 b6)...

 

game started out fine, 60fps solid. I just downloaded the Geforce game experience game ready driver that came out 2 days ago, installed it and opted to use 'optimal settings for 7DTD through the Nvidia 3d settings...

 

periodically, my FPS would drop to high 40's, low 50's. right on day 1.

I alt-tabbed out and noticed that now the game was using 9GB of memory! more than before when I was on day 75 with much, much more stuff built.

 

I turned off motion blur, SSAO, sun shafts, set shadows to medium, reflections to low, bloom to low, and everything else to 'ultra'

Still same problem, 80% of the time full FPS of 60, occasionally it would drop to 48-52 with a little bit of stuttering.

 

Now here's some variables,

 

Hosted a client based server, and invited 2 friends to play with me, my wife, who is playing on her laptop (same house), and a friend who lives far away. (we live in Peru, he lives in Texas,)

 

My friend in Texas is using a EVGA 3070, and says he has every setting maxed out, and he is consistently getting 74-75 fps (he is using a gaming monitor with 144hz, while i'm using a LED tv with a max refresh rate of 60hz).

 

I asked him what his specs are, 

 

he has a similar processor AMD 7 series .

he only has 16GB of ram, I have 32GB

he has 3070, I have 3080ti

 

my question is why is he able to run max settings with no problems and I have to lower mine?

He has a crappier video card then me, and LESS ram... I paid $3000 US for my video card and it can't even run this 10 year old game on max settings? I play Hell Let Loose which has far superior graphics on max settings no problem!

 

 

some thoughts:

 

maybe because i'm running a server as well as playing on my dedicated machine and he isn't?

maybe because i'm playing on a 50" TV and he is playing with a high end monitor??

 

I don't know what the variables are to make my frame rate drop so much..

all my drivers are up to date... what else could it be?

 

 

Edited January 26, 2023 by magnus28
typos (see edit history)

[Beelzybub]

8 minutes ago, magnus28 said:

i'm playing on a 50" TV

If you are playing at 4k then that would cause your symptoms. Try 1080p.

8 or 9 Gb of ram use is not unusual.

[magnus28]

2 minutes ago, Beelzybub said:

If you are playing at 4k then that would cause your symptoms. Try 1080p.

8 or 9 Gb of ram use is not unusual.

we are both playing at 4k (3840x2160) and my friend is getting wayyy more fps then me... 4k is not the issue!

[SylenThunder]

Would need a log.

 

Also note that the game is CPU-bound for the most part. Running 4k is probably going to have more of an impact there than on the GPU.  I recall a lot of testing we did with SLI and different resolutions a while back. Probably still a thread on it somewhere. 

[magnus28]

here is the logfile from last night

https://filebin.net/jlszkhe10xht6hp6

Edited January 26, 2023 by magnus28 (see edit history)

[SylenThunder]

1. You have VSYNC enabled. Disable this option. If you need to cap the framerate, you can do that in the Nvidia control panel.

2. Curious about what your base looks like. If this is dropping heavily by your base, that might be the issue. 

3. You appear to be a bit behind on Windows updates. Catch those up, and then do a clean install of the GPU driver afterwards.

4. Reflections have hardly been optimized, if at all. Every option with the word "reflection" in it should be disabled.

5. Un-install GE-Force Experience. Don't re-install it with the new driver. It's just bloatware that will eat up system resources, and the overlay it has tends to tank performance on a large number of games. 

6. When you make a new map, restart the client. Don't jump right into it and start playing.

7. Exclude the client from security software. Why and how is covered in the Pinned Support FAQ thread.

 

And to note.  I play on a R9 3900X, 32GB RAM, and was using a GTX 1070. My average FPS on that was 100-120. Playing with 1440p, and most of the options I mentioned before. If you want more details on it, I have posted a hardware comparison here. Admittedly that is from a19, but not a whole lot has changed. I'm currently running with a 6800XT and have a very similar experience.

[Fox]

What's your CPU specs exactly? Are your ram overclock settings correct in the bios? If you have a 60Hz tv, then cap your fps to 60 to prevent visual screen tearing but don't use v-sync as that often just gets in the way of performance anyway. What resolution are you running the game at, because that matters a lot too?

[magnus28]

- I disabled VSYNC, no difference.

 

- my frame rate drops to 30 when i'm in cities mostly... my base is the most basic of a 8x8.. with nothing in it.. i just started the game, wiped old game, restarted client.

 

- Can't update windows because it's a copy/pirated version because I refuse to pay for an operating system.

 

- all reflections are off/ shadows are low. ssao disabled. bloom disabled.

 

- i'll try uninstalling geforce game experience and put an exception on my antivirus..

 

 

 

 

My specs are:

 

AMD Ryzen 7 5600 @4.2 GHZ 8 cores/16 threads.

EVGA RTX 3080ti

32 GB Ram

2TB SSD

 

I haven't overclocked ANYTHING.

 

 

I tried going down to 1920x1080 settings, max everything - no change in FPS

I tried 1920x1080 low settings - no change in FPS

 

checked my GPU while running in MSI Afterburner - 65 degrees, not struggling at all.

 

 

seems like my GPU can handle the 3840x2160 no problem - as the fps doesn't change no matter if I have the game run in 1080 or 2160!

 

outside the city, game goes back up to 50+fps

 

inside the city average 30FPS, sometimes 24-29FPS

 

so I don't think the card is to blame here guys.....

 

 

keep the suggestions coming... like I said before, I can run Hell Let Loose on ultra settings and the only problem with that is my GPU heats up to 90 degrees while running it, so I have to run my GPU fans on 100% when playing it...  Playing 7DTD - my temps never go past 65 with 50% fan speed..

 

 

 

 

[Fox]

- Windows 10 / 11 / future 12 has all become a service, not a product... therefore it should be safe to update it without issues (just avoid any update relating to Windows 11 as that version is still pretty bad).

- Update your GPU drivers from nvidia website, (do not use Microsoft update drivers as those are junk and will likely reduce performance / features).

- V-sync might still be enabled within Nvidia control panel (not just in the game), so make sure you disable it everywhere. It's an annoying feature... like Microsoft Edge.

- When I asked about your ram overclock settings, I didn't mean to overclock it past the advertised speeds of the ram, what I mean is motherboards all default the ram speeds to 2100MHz to ensure maximum compatibility / stability so you can use the computer with any stick of ram. So if you bought performance ram, then you'd need to go into the BIOS and make sure to set it to the advertised ram speeds in order to get the performance you paid for. Ram speed does matter a bit in gaming. Maybe not as much as this particular issue you're having, but maybe it has some influence. Just trying to narrow the field more.

- If you have a large amount of junk running in the background (Chrome, Antivirus, Firewall, VPN, etc), then that would hinder performance too.

- You have a near identical computer as me, so if you did everything correctly, then you should be seeing 70+ fps on max settings at any given time. Although, I never play with mods, so going back to what I said before, it could just simply be due to the mod(s) not playing nicely with your setup.

Edited January 27, 2023 by Fox (see edit history)

[magnus28]

Fox...

 

I totally forgot that when I built this computer, I did a small or moderate overclock on the RAM and CPU in the bios.

 

Of course the bios downclocks the ram for compatibility purposes..

 

The ram is showing a DRAM frequency of 1600mhz in CpuZ... If I do recall correctly, that means my ram is running at 3200Mhz - which is what it is rate for.

I overclocked my AMD Ryzen 7 5700G from stock 3.9GHZ to 4.4GHZ just by upping the multiplier in the bios.... Cpu has never crashed...

 

updated windows,

uninstalled GEFORCE EXPERIENCE

made sure that Vsync isn't enabled in the nvidia control panel.

 

 

Still running 30fps while in cities in 7dtd...

 

 

i'm convinced the slow fps is due to the fact that i'm hosting my own server and playing at the same time with 2 other players...

 

what else could it be?

[SylenThunder]

Ok if it's only specific to the cities, there is a known issue with the large buildings and the windows that causes FPS to dip. 

 

As for hosting your own server, unless you are running a large overhaul, or have set some pretty extreme settings, your system should be fully capable of handling that. Albeit maybe not so great at 4k graphics. 

As for the OC, on your CPU and the RAM timings, that seems to be just fine.

 

Also, I will disagree with Fox a bit on Windows 11. Since 20H2 10 and 11 are basically on the same patch cadence, and 11 has been showing noticeably better performance overall than 10. The only real concerns are privacy-related with the number of ways that the OS phones home. In today's world that isn't really unexpected though, and it is pretty easy to disable. Even your home modem is likely sending data about your activity to the manufacturer or ISP. That is the world we live in now. (It seems that every day we advance, the movie "Idiocracy" is less satire and more reflecting of reality.)

[Fox]

7 hours ago, SylenThunder said:

(It seems that every day we advance, the movie "Idiocracy" is less satire and more reflecting of reality.)

100% agree with that. Although I still stand by what I said about Win11. According to some tech channels, there's still some bugs to be worked out and broken / missing features, and the overhaul of everything familiar is always annoying to relearn in my opinion, and ya, the continued worsening of privacy is irritating (you're only capable of disabling so much and it's becoming less and less every time).

 

Oh, I should probably add that while doing updates, it's probably best that you don't attach your Microsoft email account to your OS (even when it tries to force you into it... there's always a way around it, at least until you get Win11).

Edited January 28, 2023 by Fox (see edit history)

[magnus28]

Sylen, the issue lies within the scope that i've already posted;

 

my buddy that plays on the server is getting 70+ frames per second and only drops down to mid 50's while in the city , and he's using a 3070 stock with only 16gb of ram... 

[Fox]

GPU and ram don't make much difference in terms of performance with this game (at least not when it's high end like that). This game is heavily CPU bound and more importantly only benefits from 4 core threads.

 

Hosting the game on the same PC you're playing on does hinder the game's performance since the cpu is being used to play and host at the same time (and on the same core threads). I'm curious if hosting a dedicated server on the same PC you play on would give better performance (aka separate process, so the cores being used would also be different). I imagine the results would be random, but on average better performing.

 

Or you could just do what I do which is find a retired clunker of a PC and use that to host the game. Anything with 4 cores should do the trick for just 2 players (ssd still highly recommended). GPU not needed for hosting.

[joshwa0816]

I hosted with an i7 10700(65w) and played off the same computer just fine. Try limiting the game to use the real cores. Fastest way to check this is to launch the game without EAC and open task manager. Right click on 7days and change affinity. Uncheck 1,3,5 all the odd numbers. I did read a few times some people have better performance with AMD CPUs with that trick on this game. You can also try unchecking 0 so the main thread isn't the one that windows also uses.

Edited January 28, 2023 by joshwa0816
I meant odd numbers not even. (see edit history)

[Fox]

30 minutes ago, joshwa0816 said:

I hosted with an i7 10700(65w) and played off the same computer just fine. Try limiting the game to use the real cores. Fastest way to check this is to launch the game without EAC and open task manager. Right click on 7days and change affinity. Uncheck 2, 4, 6, all even numbers. I did read a few times some people have better performance with AMD CPUs with that trick on this game. You can also try unchecking 0 so the main thread isn't the one that windows also uses.

Or just disabled Hyperthreading in the bios (or whatever AMD calls it). That way you can still use EAC and don't have to fuss with Task Manager and hope that works.

 

But I always thought that this game benefitted from 2 cores + 2 hyperthreads. I never experimented with that too much, but for many years, that's what I thought was happening. And it would make sense since it's common knowledge that most games out there only benefit from 1 or 2 physical cores.

[Gamida]

Just spitballing here but I don't recall seeing if you have tried joining any other servers to see how the game plays. Would that help with narrowing things down? (Asking the techies as I don't have a clue)

[Star69]

Here’s another thought…..what if the cores he is using for 7 Days, one or two of the cores are not good? Having subpar performance on some cores is a possibility. I think we can all agree that this game is mainly cpu-dependent so if a core or two isn’t working optimally then this could be a part of the problem. Running diagnostics to check core performance wouldn’t be a bad idea. Or I’m talking out of my @ss lol.

[Fox]

2 hours ago, Gamida said:

Just spitballing here but I don't recall seeing if you have tried joining any other servers to see how the game plays. Would that help with narrowing things down? (Asking the techies as I don't have a clue)

Joining a server is the same as playing solo (hardware usage wise, with the exception of internet bandwidth use / latency, etc). Hosting is kind of like running 2 games on the same CPU, ram and hdd + the internet bandwidth.

 

So ya, joining a server wouldn't say anything other than whether or not his computer can play the mod at all at decent fps.

[Fox]

2 hours ago, Star69 said:

Here’s another thought…..what if the cores he is using for 7 Days, one or two of the cores are not good? Having subpar performance on some cores is a possibility. I think we can all agree that this game is mainly cpu-dependent so if a core or two isn’t working optimally then this could be a part of the problem. Running diagnostics to check core performance wouldn’t be a bad idea. Or I’m talking out of my @ss lol.

I could be wrong, but it does actually sound like you're talking out of your butt, lol. From my understanding, CPUs either work or they don't. If there's a major fault in the cores, then the computer would crash a lot or not run at all. Yes, some cores have the capability of being marginally faster than others (silicon lottery), but unless you're heavy into overclocking, the likely-hood of being able to see a difference between individual core performance is like being able to visually see the difference between 120Hz and 144Hz on a monitor. The difference is so tiny, you would only know it's there based on benchmark scores.

 

PS: I hate how this forum no longer has an auto merge feature and doesn't allow me to edit an existing post to include an additional quote. I thought this new forum was supposed to be better... sure feels like a downgrade to me.

Edited January 28, 2023 by Fox (see edit history)

[joshwa0816]

5 hours ago, Fox said:

Or just disabled Hyperthreading in the bios (or whatever AMD calls it). That way you can still use EAC and don't have to fuss with Task Manager and hope that works.

 

But I always thought that this game benefitted from 2 cores + 2 hyperthreads. I never experimented with that too much, but for many years, that's what I thought was happening. And it would make sense since it's common knowledge that most games out there only benefit from 1 or 2 physical cores.

That's why I said the fastest way! If it doesn't make a difference, simply quitting the game reverts the setting. I'm going off a friend that has a laptop with an AMD CPU that made a difference in his eyes during horde night, when he gave this a try. (Disabling 0 for the game and using 4 of the real cores) 

 

Launching without EAC isn't permanent either it's only to be able to change the task manager affinity. It's not for playing but checking if this helps. If he's alone on his own world, eac isn't needed either way but I haven't recommended playing without it

Edited January 28, 2023 by joshwa0816
Response (see edit history)

[Gamida]

13 hours ago, Fox said:

Joining a server is the same as playing solo (hardware usage wise, with the exception of internet bandwidth use / latency, etc). Hosting is kind of like running 2 games on the same CPU, ram and hdd + the internet bandwidth.

 

So ya, joining a server wouldn't say anything other than whether or not his computer can play the mod at all at decent fps.

That is sort of what I was trying to get at. It would show that the game runs fine solo on another server. So was thinking that would show it definitely had something to do with him hosting.

Anyway will leave you knowhow guys to figure it out.

[Star69]

On 1/28/2023 at 12:01 AM, Fox said:

I could be wrong, but it does actually sound like you're talking out of your butt, lol. From my understanding, CPUs either work or they don't. 

I’m extremely new to overclocking but lurking on some oc forums trying to educate myself, they tend to make a big deal on the values of individual cores and how important they are. I haven’t done any testing with games with/without oc but I’ve always wondered if there were noticeable game performance changes with a low performing core. Sounds like that answer might be no. 

[Fox]

1 hour ago, Star69 said:

I’m extremely new to overclocking but lurking on some oc forums trying to educate myself, they tend to make a big deal on the values of individual cores and how important they are. I haven’t done any testing with games with/without oc but I’ve always wondered if there were noticeable game performance changes with a low performing core. Sounds like that answer might be no. 

That's different. What it is is that most games only benefit from 1 or 2 physical cores (and occasionally 2 virtual / hyperthreads). So essentially, gamers want the latest generation of CPU with the highest GHz. Physical core quantity usually comes second in priority, hence why most of us are happy with 4 - 6 physical cores. Streamers want the extra cores for recording / streaming, hence why they go with 8 cores. Of course, there are those who get max core count because they do more than just gaming... like editing / rendering, work stuff, etc...

 

But comparing the cores to each other, they all pretty much perform the same ±1%