SC2 new computer build fps lag

Hi i have just built a new computer for gaming, primarily starcraft 2, and it has decieved my expectations for it has very bad performances with the game. Everything is new installed correctly and in other games such as steam games cs, cs:source, crysis, wow, l4d, etc. runs flawless. But in starcraft 2 i have major fps drops in large battles. I am pretty sure this is a cpu problem because even with my settings set at low i still get low fps. Playing on 1920x1080 ultra settings i get nearly the same fps just in large battles i get that major fps drop to around 20 and under fps. The temps on the gpu and cpu are fine with about around 40-50c under load. I looked at the cpu performance usage and it shows that mostly 1 core is being utilized and 70-80% and the rest around 20%.
Gpu usage showed to be at only aroudn 40-50%. If you guys can help at all that would be great.

my build consists of
Asus M4a88td evo
AMD phenom x4 965 3.4 ghz
evga gtx 460 superclocked
2 x 2gb g skill gddr3 ram 9-9-9-24

 

Post a dxdiag to get started. The 460 GTX has some issues remaining in SC2, even with the newest driver.

To run dxdiag=> Windows_logo_key+r, dxdiag. If you have 64-bit windows, click the button at the button that says "Run 64-bit DxDiag," Then save all the data by clicking "Save All Information..." zip/rar the text file and attach it to the post. Instructions on how to zip here. To create a rar file, first download and install winRAR then read this guide here.

 

alright i have uploaded the dxdiag text.

 

I found someone online with a similar issue in WoW. I will wager this poor guy has the same problem I think you do: No chipset drivers installed. What is happening is that your SATA devices are running via the BIOS as legacy ATA devices. We need to get the chipset software installed so your SATA devices can run at proper SATA speeds!

That means, driver updates...

Since the motherboard model isn't shown in the BIOS, you can either tell me what it is, or if you know what AMD chipset it is running, go here and download the AMD chipset software.

Newest Realtek sound card driver.

If you want to post another dxdiag after you've installed this software, please do, but run it in 64-bit mode as per my original instructions!

*edit* I was feeling generous to the other guy on the EVGA forum.. so I logged into my old EVGA account and let him know about this possible (and very likely) solution too. :/

 

there isnt any drivers for amd 880g chipset. and my motherboard is the asus m4a88td-v evo/usb3
i uploaded the dxdiag for 64 bit also. it seems like the problem isnt the graphic card because if i switch the sc2 settings to low everything i still get lag in large battles. the fps is the same whether i select my graphic settings on ultra or low.

 

I will assume that you mean the M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3. I would download and flash the 1404 BIOS for your machine. It was released a few weeks ago, and like other BIOS releases, it says it improves system stability. The BIOS and other goodies can be found here at your motherboards webpage.

I would also enter the BIOS and make sure your primary graphics card is set to "PCIE." I would only bother with this after flashing the 1404 BIOS though. I'd first reset the BIOS to default settings, THEN make sure that PCIE option is set! Making sure this is set properly has fixed a lot of issues other people have had with various integrated graphics based motherboards!!!

Chipset drivers are available on the Asus website as well, but you can find the newest for your Radeon Integrated HD series chipset here. I highly suggest you install them to get SATA full speed functionality. Skip installing the display driver/CCC if it lets you, and only install the rest of the package. You may have to restart your computer twice, once for installation of the chipset drivers, again after your hardware is reconfigured in SATA mode.

This motherboard would have been better with an ATI card, but I think these changes will make you see your machine in a new light.

After doing this, please post your dxdiag in a NEW post so its easier to tell the difference. No need to amend them to your old post! (just add a number at the end of the file name or something).

 

okay the fps improved a little but still the same kinda
heres my dxdiag

 

Okay, so you flashed the 1401 bios instead of 1404. Not a huge deal but I'd have flashed the newest one since it contains all of the fixes.

Questions I want to ask you:
1. Did you reset your BIOS to defaults, then set your "Primary Graphics Card" setting to "PCIE"?
2. Are you sure you installed the chipset software?

WTF, for some reason you still don't have SATA drivers! You know what, go into your BIOS and make sure your SATA controller is set to SATA and not legacy ATA mode. If I was on high speed right now, I would download your motherboard manual and find out the exact menu that setting would be in, but you can probably poke around and find it yourself. Make sure everything is is reset to default first before making any of the BIOS setting changes I've pointed out.

After reading more you should download the chipset drivers off of Asus's website instead. -_- My bad.

Your USB drivers don't appear to be installed either, this could cause problems down the road. Make sure to download and install the USB drivers on Asus's website.

Also for some reason, your sound driver isn't installed now. ; It's defaulted to generic. Might have something to do with the BIOS update.

 

okay i installed the drivers you told me to. The graphic card is installed and running because i can check gpu-z and msi afterburner of its performance while gaming. As for SATA i do not see any ata legacy all of it says sata configurations. i did everything i could still no changes i guess its really sc2 is really cpu intensive running on only 2 cores. maybe i should try to overclock

 

What hard drive driver did you try to install, you mean the chipset driver?

Do you mean the ATI onboard is setup and running? If yes, then disable the onboard video in the BIOS and use the duel outputs on the 460GT instead for multimonitor (It doesn't look right).

It's driving me nuts that the IDE is using a generic driver but the more I look.. the more common it seems WTF.

I'm googling around, and someone suggested checking the power profile settings. To do that in Windows 7, just hit start and type in "Power Options" into the search bar and make sure that is set to high performance.

Also, you can check the stickied thread I have on 9800GTX/GT250 optimization and see if switching any of your video options helps with StarCraft II. I mean.. @#$% that setup runs the game on all Ultra settings with High textures at 1680x1050 on that much older card.

I know I'm all over the place right now, but this problem has to be solvable. I just can't imagine its not.




AH HA, I found the SATA and RAID drivers!!! Install them. Asus's website organization is really going down hill. Look at your motherboard's page again, go do downloads, then + next to "utilities." Go down near the bottom and find "AMD SATA RAID/AHCI Driver files for Windows 32/64bit XP & 32/64bit Vista& 32/64bit 7."

There is a RAID tool just below it, don't worry about that unless you plan on setting up a RAID array of some kind.

Also install "ATK0110 driver for WindowsXP/Vista/Win7 32&64-bit" driver since its prob not installed. Its in that same category. Seriously, someone needs to contact Asus and tell them to reorganize this ****.

Shame on AMD for having such fragmented drivers!! nVidia and Intel got them beat as far as "all-in-one" goes.

Also in that category, get "ASUS Update V7.18.03 for Windows XP 32bit/XP 64bit/Vista 32bit/Vista 64bit/7 32bit/7 64bit." This should help you keep software up-to-date, and I'd PRAY it would tell you if your missing anything.


*edit*The thing that REALLY ticks me off, is I looked at the AMD driver page again (which is a mess too) and the RAID and AHCI drivers are there, but they are separate and they are not a part of the so called "Complete package." People are going to be looking for an SATA driver, not an AHCI driver

 

sigh i actually came across this artice
http://www.techspot.com/review/305-starcraft2-performance/page13.html
seems like a high end dual core is what sc2 needs

 

But did you try the SATA driver? I mean, there are people running on P4 3.0Ghz with smooth gameplay. There are people without these drivers installed that are complaining about the same thing (even with ATI cards) even with the newest 6X core CPUs from AMD! My buddy is playing on an Opteron 170, which is a lot older CPU.. it runs smooth as butter.

To make up SC2 only really using 2 cores, try using the custom 9800GTX settings I posted in the sticky, forcing the drivers into multithreading mode.... Still, if the drivers aren't all installed, you will have bottle necks.

Its not your fault AMD did a crappy job packaging the chipset drivers. :/

gndiego is having very similar problems with Intel hardware. What does his dxdiag say? He too doesn't have SATA drivers installed atm. I don't think that is a coincidence. The hard drive controller can't be used at its full potential until the driver is correctly installed. That also means games other then StarCraft 2 will have issues down the line.

 

the driver doesnt even have a exe file they just give me .inf and .sys files

 

Okay, if its zip, its just too much work to explain how to install it. We'll download the .exe's off AMD's website. First go back this site that you've already been too.

At the VERY bottom of that list is "AHCI for Windows 7" download that file, install.
Next, find "Raid Driver for Windows 7" and download that, its near the bottom too.

Freakn' EXE's will work... I hope.

Urge to never buy AMD again rising...

 

heres the updated dxdiag after the install.

 

Okay, I've been spending this time downloading the inf drivers you just did. After viewing the inf's, it is clear as day to me that these drivers will not install on your hardware.

The Hardware ID strings do not match up. I would contact Asus tech support and ask them where in the heck you can get SATA drivers for your hardware (providing the last dxdiag you posted here).

This is seriously bull****.

This is a home built computer, right? I highly doubt this was store bought. -_-

 

Yeah he's got a home computer, he stated that. Maybe you shoulda used MY build!

 

Whatever happened to nVidia AMD chipsets with ATI cards? ~_~ Oh how I long for those days~

 

i have the same video card as u
i don't have any problems
it performs better all around than my former 250GTS and i play on ultra

 

well the thing is that i thought my system would perform really good in large battles but i guess not. Maps like evolves and income wars bring my fps down to 10-15. In 1v1 i get a constant 50-60 fps but yeah its mainly the large battles.
im actually planning to overclock the hell out of the cpu to get it to around 4 ghz. im gonna buy a heatsink and test if i get any improvements on that.