Frame Rate Limiters?

[rditto48801]

I have a question about Frame Rate/FPS limiters, BlindNero.
Do you know much about FPS Limiters?
Are they safe/reliable?

If so, I might need to get one.

Why, you might ask?
To many topics popping up about The Sims 3 spiking FPS rates to absurd levels (200-300, even on video cards that can only handle 30-60 FPS normally with the game), and overheating/frying video cards as a result.

[Blín D'ñero]

Why not just enable VSync? That limits the fps to the refresh rate (60 Hz or 85 Hz, whatever you have).

To your question: i'm sorry no, i don't know much about "FPS Limiters", i never used such tool.

[rditto48801]

So vsync will do the trick?
I did run across mention of just doing that when I was looking for other info after posting here.

I am guessing that vsync is the 'missing graphics option' people mentioned about The Sims 3.

I will have to remember to go into the CCC and set vsync to 'always on' when I play Sims 3.

[Blín D'ñero]

You can set a profile in CCC.

First do your desired settings for Sims (set vsync on, and whatever you want). Then:
Top right > Options > Profiles > Profiles Manager.
Set profile name: Sims
profile description: vsync on
Tab composition > the foillowing settings: > tick "3D"
Tab activation: also tick on "Desktop shortcut"
Tab application: you could make it launch Sims automatically with the same shortcut, then browse for the sims exe.
When finished with the settings, click Save button (next to "profile name")

Click button Activate & Close to test it,
Or if you don't want to test, just click button Close,
But don't forget to bring back CCC settings to your normal state before doing your normal stuff.

[rditto48801]

ok, I will have to try that out.
The tricky bit is the desktop shortcut is for a launcher, not the game itself, but I think I located the main game exe to use with the CCC profile.

I was poking around the official SIms 3 forums (tech help part) and dug up a little more info on the matter.


One person said that The Sims 3 does actually lack its own v-sync capabilities.
I guess that is why many people need a framerate limiter for Sims 3, probably because of not knowing other ways to get v-sync to be active with The Sims 3.
One person has gone as far as to say lag problems many people have had, even on 'high end' systems, is likely due to Sims 3 trying to handle framerates far higher than is needed.
It seems one person lost an Nvidia 9800 GT due to The Sims 3.
For reference, Sims 3 needs the minimum of a GeForce FX 5900 or Radeon 9500.

Since I have noticed the odd bit of lag on occasion with Sims 3, having CCC force v-sync to be on with it should solve that problem for me.

[Blín D'ñero]

This seems to work. http://rapidshare.com/files/160642187/F ... er_0.2.rar
explanation from 4th post on this page 2 of thread. I hope it helps.

I think it's about another game, but as an indication, one person on page 1 says:

Thanks for this!

With vsynch off = 210+ fps average / GPU = 97°C (fan on silent mode)
With vsynch on = 60fps / GPU = 67°C
With the FPS Limiter tool = 42fps / GPU = 52°C

And this seems to work too (not only Oblivion) but is maybe more complicated to learn before using, thread.

[rditto48801]

Holy crap...
I was testing out The Sims 3 with certain CCC settings, and found something possibly unsettling.
They are not kidding when they say The SIms 3 lacks v-sync, it is more like it is not even compatible with it in terms of limiting frame rates.

Monitor/desktop is set at a refresh rate of 60
Ingame display refresh is set to 60
Also tried to have CCC override the 3D refresh rate (set at 60).
Tried CCC has v-sync set for always on, and with on unless the application says otherwise.
Also tried with the CCC profile thing you suggested.
In all cases, I am still seeing sudden fps spikes up to 120-130, with an average of 80-90, sometimes hovering at 100, then the game lagging like hell and fps dropping down to 10-20 or less for no real reason then goes back up to 80+ without anything apparently changing.

I know of the site you linked to.
It is the home of "awesome mod", a sort of mega mod for The Sims 3.
They added useful and otherwise 'important' features and functions to The Sims 3 before EA did, a few features in the early versions of the mod were officially added to the game with one of the early official patches.

The frame rate limiter mentioned in the link is the very reason I originally made this thread.
Since other options seem to have failed, I think I will have to give the frame rate limiter a try.

On a related question, how do I check to see what my video card temp is?

[Blín D'ñero]

On a related question, how do I check to see what my video card temp is?

Yes, the best tool for that is MSI Afterburner. It is based on the good old RivaTuner, the same programmer now works for MSI.
Don't have to use any of the other options, just the monitoring. Stretch the monitoring screen, keep open on desktop. Play game. End game, and see the history of temperature, GPU usage, etcetera everything you ticked on to be displayed. It can also monitor frames per second (only supported in DX9).

The fps limiter, i haven't tried it myself. If you need help maybe i could install it just to see.

[rditto48801]

I have a bit of an update.

After a little experimenting, I think I might have found something of interest.

Using the fps limiter, I have seen the fps at more manageable levels, but still with the occasional bit of lag.
My settings may have been to high, with the issue of absurdly high frame rates hiding that little detail. Normally, I expect constant lag and jerky graphics if settings are to high, and not things being mostly smooth with the occasional bit of lag for no apparent reason.

I have also stumbled upon one other tid bit of info that probably does not help much.
Since my video card is well above the minimal requirements, I did not really pay much attention, but I was looking up info and found this little bit of ATI Radeon cards that are apparently supported.

Radeon cards listed on the official Sims 3 site

ATI Radeon™ series

9500, 9600, 9800
X300, X600, X700, X800, X850
X1300, X1600, X1800, X1900, X1950
2400, 2600, 2900
3450, 3650, 3850, 3870
4850, 4870

That's an interesting gap they have there.

And then we toss in this nice video card list from Mod The Sims which shows stuff related on user input of assorted video cards performance with The SIms 3.
It happens to show that a few of the above cards from the official site are not even suggested by a major community of Sims gamers.
My card is listed as 'maybe', with 'unknown or reduced performance'.
That right there bothers me, because if 'reduced performance' = an framerate topping out at 120-130, then wtf is the game putting my video card through?

Sad thing is that the game ran nicely when I first got it, and it wasn't until earlier patches that I noticed the lagging problems, and that others, even with high end systems, also had lag problems pop up, so I did not think to much of it at times.

On the up side, at least I still have a Dual Core CPU, because it seems The Sims 3 is not fully compatible with Quad Core CPUs (will only recognize 2 of the 4 cores).

It is a little bothersome but also a relief to dig through some of this stuff to find out just what all is likely going on.
Thank goodness for my video card being dual slot with the dedicated cooling fan, otherwise The Sims 3 might have fried it without me even knowing my settings were to high in the first place.

At least now I have another good reason to be saving up for a newer video card.
Heck, I should probably be suspicious if I ever notice any drops in video performance in other games indicating my video card might already be on its way to croaking.

For now, I will face palm for not really noticing some of this stuff sooner.
Hard to diagnose problems when they have the same symptoms as other known issues...

[Blín D'ñero]

Their list is curious. A Radeon 4600 does not exist. Just like others do not: a 4800X2 for instance. I guess they meant to shorten the list somewhat by naming the 46xx series. (and 4800X2 as it is shorter than specifically naming the 4850X2 and 4870X2 on a new line.
What does exist is the 4630, 4650, 4670. I suppose they consider it a "Maybe, but it depends": Depends on the class within the family.
And without explanation say:

Note: The official list no longer includes the anything below the 4850 from the Radeon 4000 Series graphics cards. However, we have expanded the list to include some these cards which should work just fine.

Btw, i just realised for the first time that "TS3" means The Sims 3. I thought TS3 is some obscure game i never heard about!


Here: The Sims 3 Graphics Performance Guide even the 4650 even runs great! :thumbup:
(neoseeker.com)

And indeed good you have the dual slot blow-out cooler model.

Lag, while running on that card the Sims you say? Just test a game with higher requirements. Do you get lag? Like: Dark Messiah. Got any lag there? Yes/No?
Lag can be caused by other reasons than the videocard. Monitor the CPU usage, you can do that with MSI Afterburner too, just tick it on (right-click on the monitoring graph > Setup). Or maybe you are letting the virusscanner run while gaming? etcetera.

Ah wait, now i see in the neoseeker article what kind of game it is. There is much advanced rendering going on, different lightsources, animation smoothing... hmm, ok, maybe unless you lower some settings you might expect the occasional lag then, yes.