Sonoma resource hog - ended up costing me way more $$$$

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by ElNino, Mar 5, 2015.

  1. ElNino

    ElNino Well-Known Member

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    So i bought the Sonoma track and started practicing for an upcoming race. Turns out, on certain corners, with all the crowd and other assets, my pc was begging for mercy, even with the quality turned down a bit. I run triple monitors, with an r9-290x and an fx6300 CPU, that is good, but this track showed the CPU weakness on my rig.

    So i have an i5 4690K + new Z97 xfire mobo in the mail, for not really all that much coin. Expecting to see at least 20% fps increase based on benchmarks. Looking forward to seeing ETS2 improvement as well.

    Thanks sonoma and sector 3 for pushing me over to the Intel darkside! AMD was just not going to cut it, even with an 8350 - they need to step up their game! I really wanted to stick with AMD to avoid a likely windows reinstall, but they just don't offer anything with this socket that was worth upgrading too. I've always dug AMD for their great value, but i think i've exceeded the capabilities with this rig and what i'm asking of it.

    All that said, the FX6300 has been a good CPU for the short time i have had it - great bang for the buck.
     
  2. theravenousbeast

    theravenousbeast Well-Known Member

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    You bring up a good point actually. I've spent quite a bit of money on R3E and while I love seeing more content getting out, I still would like to see the level of graphic detail be consistent. I can understand that some people will always want better visuals but one of the reasons I chose R3E rather than the other new sims was because I saw that my PC can run it well without it looking like it's from 2003.
     
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  3. ElNino

    ElNino Well-Known Member

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    Yes agreed ravenous. I really didnt intend to be complaining, only to point out that the track does seem to need a bit more PC horsepower than most. Im guessing turning off the track animations would be a big boost. If it does, then i do like having the option to use extra pc power, yet still let more mainstream PC run it ok with anination off. I may do that while waiting on new cpu and board.
     
  4. ::SKRO::

    ::SKRO:: Well-Known Member

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    [​IMG]
     
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  5. rd.king

    rd.king Active Member

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    I bought Sonoma right away and found it runs quite well for me.
    I have my setting turned up, not maxed but high across the board with a few things
    turned down.
    With a full crew of AI I don't see any of the stutter I get on many of the other tracks.
    and the first thing that jumps out at me is Sonoma doesn't have all those pointless
    animated flags in the crowd waving themselves endlessly.
     
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  6. David Slute

    David Slute Well-Known Member

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    For what it's worth.....I have have an i7 2600 with 2 r9 290's, triple screens and Iam struggling on a few tracks. In my case it's not that I needed more power the game needs better optimization for multi core cpus.
    I have 8 cores unparked and on some tracks 1 core is constantly running at 95-99% once it hits 100% it bottlenecks frames drop and the game turns into a slide show, mean while my other 7 cores are using less than 10- 20% each. The other factor is amd gpus drivers have pretty bad performance in modern racing titles. The only 3 I can race with frames above my refresh rate is iracing, gsc and rf2. It's quickly making me consider switching back to nvidia.
     
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  7. GroovyMotion

    GroovyMotion Active Member

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    @ElNino I too have an FX-6300 and I tend to stay away with 2014 AAA titles for that reason. I can't afford a cpu/mobo upgrade at the moment but so far I am quite happy although I haven't gotten Sonoma yet.

    Btw, ElNino, nice name...I wish it could push further North East! :D
     
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  8. ElNino

    ElNino Well-Known Member

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    Haha yeah my first name is Nino and once ElNino weather lingo became mainstream it's all i heard so i rolled with it! Makes for an easy user name lol. Yeah i just got my tax return so it was either new guitar amp or cpu with the spending money portion - cpu was cheaper and already have nice amp...plus with sonoma and a few other titles stuttering so much and seeing the frame rate comparison for the i5 series CPUs, i couldn't help myself!
     
  9. GroovyMotion

    GroovyMotion Active Member

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    lol then pray for hot weather here! :D
    Yeah I hear you, my tax return was good but not enough for a PC upgrade...VISA was first dammit! :oops:
     
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  10. Pr3t3nd3r

    Pr3t3nd3r Member

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    Well it's still in a beta stage so I understand they are putting more efforts in making additional content to ensure their future (and with that ours too). I am sure they will be working on optimization ASAP.

    But if it is possible for devs to answer if they will stay on DX9 or they will go higher? :D
     
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  11. FuzzyFassbender

    FuzzyFassbender Member

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    I didn't notice any performance issues with Sonoma, runs very well on close to max settings.

    5800x1080 (triples), i7 4Ghz, single GTX 780 OC Ed., 16GB ram.
     
  12. ElNino

    ElNino Well-Known Member

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    I think the key is the i7 there (along with good graphics card of course), vs my stock clocked 6300. I expect to see significant improvement with the incoming i5 4690k
     
  13. ElNino

    ElNino Well-Known Member

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    I threw my VISA a bone, but didn't go all out like i should have. First tax return in years for me, as I owed uncle sam for a long time previously! No way I wasn't getting a few goodies!
     
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  14. ElNino

    ElNino Well-Known Member

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    UPDATE: Just got my i5 4960k and mobo today. Decided to do a clean windows install per advice on win 8. Sonoma runs WAY better. No stuttering at all on the same settings...so much smooother, feels like i can even drive better.

    However, the CPU will not perform miracles. When i first tried R3E, i set everything on high settings (of course!! new gear!). I was getting a total slideshow lol!!! We're talking 2-3 FPS at some points, but smooth in other areas (still talking sonoma, other tracks were decent FPS like this). Granted this is 1080 x5700 triple monitors. At first i thought something was wrong, but on medium it's silky smooth. Was asking too much of my R9 290x AND the CPU at that point.

    Anyhow, loving this CPU so far, big improvement over the FX6350. Also, I added a solid state drive - defintiely helps with those R3E load times but still not "short". Windows, however, boots seemingly instantly.

    Thanks for reading my pc update rant :D
     
  15. GroovyMotion

    GroovyMotion Active Member

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    Nice! Yeah 3 monitors will tax your system quite a lot!
     
  16. ElNino

    ElNino Well-Known Member

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    No doubt Groovy! After some more time with it, I should not neglect to mention there are certain times the fx6300 performed better even in gaming, but rare so far. For instance, in ETS2, when a loan installment hit, the i5 choked for a few seconds. The fx6300 never did this...maybe due to an extra core available for transactional data...pure speculation of course.
     
  17. GroovyMotion

    GroovyMotion Active Member

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    Yeah I am surprised to see that the FX-6300 is still listed in the bang for the buck among CPU's!
     
  18. Bailey Lagstrum

    Bailey Lagstrum Well-Known Member

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    @ElNino Sonoma is also one of the few tracks that are giving me issues as well. Since I haven't had issues at other tracks yet I chalked it up to optimization.

    Turn 6 on the WTCC version seems to always wreak havoc and sometimes the uphill to turn 2 (that's off the top of me head):).
    Even though I can see a drop in FPS it isn't falling to a ridiculously low number, still above 60fps.
    But slideshow still describes what I'm seeing.
    My specs are similar (i7 2600k OC'd 4.0, GTX780 OC'd 200/100mem). I've always monitored temps, no issues there. I turned the shadows and reflections off as they always seem to be resource intensive in other titles.
    Hopeful it's merely a glitch or will improve with optimization.
    Bailey
    [​IMG]
     
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  19. ElNino

    ElNino Well-Known Member

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    @Bailey Lagstrum Yes the top of turn 2 was definitely one of the major culprits. I think there is a big grandstand and other track eye candy around there. I've got it sorted now, but still benefit from lowering my settings if i'm going to play Sonoma. But overall, the game looks GREAT on my upgraded rig, especially with the triple monitors. Gives AC a run for its money for sure. but yeah, like i said if I jack up the settings it's painfully obvious where the optimization issues are. it goes from like 60fps to 5fps or something right in the middle of the race. Sector 3 should have no problem finding where the issues are!
     
  20. GroovyMotion

    GroovyMotion Active Member

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    I will have a look tonight on my good 'ol 6300 and 750Ti! :)
     
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