I think I know what's causing poor FPS for some users (no fix yet)

Heh I was just editing my post as I'd re-read yours and seen that. Very odd indeed. I've been racking my brains for how this could change things up and make TOR work but I just can't think of anything. FPS is nothing more than the ability of the card to present one frame after another; it should be determined by load; things like heat, amount of textures, free RAM, speed of pathways - beyond a re-seat somehow making a given pathway into the card much more reliable or fast, I'm stumped.

It feels like there should be another factor. Far be it from me to spread doom & gloom but how long has it been working well? How often between issues before when it was bad? I just want to eliminate any chance of it being a random problem that just needs to turn up after a while (doesn't feel that likely, I admit).

Has she checked any settings to see if the reinstall of the card reset them to default? Power settings? GPU settings? TOR settings? Clutching at straws really...

Interesting

Reminds me of older days, when there would be IRQ conflicts and such with hardware.

Could this be some sort of conflict or shared resource that was being used prior, that got reset or reassigned when the card was removed and placed back in?

Just a quick question

How many here with issues in warzones (specifically), have the game installed on a drive OTHER than the C drive? (ie: you selected a different install path from the default one the installer tries to install to.)


I ask this because out of the handful of people ive asked with NO problems, all of them have the game installed on the default path. There have been games in the past that have issues when you installed it a different location than the default directory.

And its a simple and silly enough cause that it could easily be overlooked and not considered as to the cause for something like low performance.

same disk, different partition for me.

Gad,

I have my game installed on my E: partition and have had no issues with framerates dropping. My guildmate, on the other hand, has hers installed on her D:

Thats why you only should disable your pagefile when you have 16GB RAM or more, its bulletproof when you run 32-bit programs like SWTOR. It's not even close to build up that much in your RAM.

Assuming the normal gamer or enthusiast doesnt use ECC RAM, and if you have errors in your disks it would be found fast by Intel Rapid Storeagetechnology that you should be using if you have raided your SSD's.
The pagefile do get corrupt, and turning the pagefile off made my client able to go from always crashing 100% at 1.97GB allocated RAM, to 3.8GB allocated RAM.

Reseating the Graphics Card falls under General Maintenance in my head, in other words, every so often you should run a basic routine of cleaning your PC, this should include removing your Graphics Card and giving it a damn good clean, this then reseats it.

It's a big problem in the MMO games market, people have a bad habit of falling in love with their favourite MMO, and then they just play it, for years and years, without doing any basic maintenance to their PC's.

A few years ago WoW got a reputation for being a PC killer, that in itself is laughable when you think about it, WoW, ie the Game is not killing the PC, the USER is killing the PC, by simply playing the game for long periods of time, over many years, without doing any basic maintenance.

It's not a problem in the PC Enthusiast sector because they tend to be upgrading and building on a regular basis, this then forces cleaning and maintenance, parts like Graphics Cards tend to be replaced fairly often, and therefore dont get a chance to become clogged with dust.

If your having performance problems with your PC and you have already done all the basic driver update, software update stuff, then your second port of call should be to just rip your PC apart and clean it, from top to bottom, everything, if you dont know how to do this, then find someone who does.

Your cleaning priority consists of a basic 3, CPU, GPU, PSU

CPU, your CPU Cooler should be removed, and cleaned, if its a basic intel cooler then it will be a motherboard blower, ie it will take air and push it through the cooler in the direction of the motherboard.

This will clog up the cooler itself with dust, and it will clog up the CPU socket area with dust as well, this all needs to be cleaned out, the fins on the cooler will be clogged with dust, and the fan blades will be covered in dust, all needs cleaning.

If your CPU cooler is an aftermarket job, then chances are it will be a stand off cooler, probably blowing front to back, ie pushing air out the back of the case, your CPU socket area will be fairly clean, but the cooler itself with be clogged with dust, you need to remove the fan/fans and clean it, till it looks like new.

If your running water cooling, your an Enthusiast, and not even reading this.

Once all that is done, the Cooler needs to be reseated on the CPU with some fresh, new thermal compound, and it needs to be done properly, if your unsure then find someone who knows how to do it.

GPU, your Graphics Card should be removed and cleaned, ALL Graphics Cards are badly designed in terms of airflow and dust, thats not going to change anytime soon, so just live with it and clean the damn thing.

The plastic housing that covers the cooler block and fins needs to be removed, this then lets you remove the fan, which should be removed, and then clean it all, a small plastic toothbrush is ideal.

If your feeling brave, you can remove the cooler block from the PCB and reseat it using some nice new thermal compound, but you will need some new thermal pads, if you havnt got any, dont bother.

PSU, Power Supply, yep the one thing everyone forgets, and its critical to system stability, these things clog up with dust just like everything else, and the PSU guys have a bad habbit of using cheap and nasty fans.

You need to check that the fan or fans are working, you need to check that the power supply can in fact draw cool fresh air, ie if its placed in a posistion where its drawing air through a filtered section of case, that filter needs to be clean.

Now, the PSU guys dont like you taking things apart, it will instantly void any warrenty, so make a choice -

1. Clean it with a can of compressed air, hold the fan still, and just blast the air through, blowing out all the dust.

2. Look at it and say "it's beyond all hope, it's old, it's knackered", buy a new one.

3. Leave it overnight to discharge, then take it apart, remove the top cover, this will give you access to the fan, you can clean it, replace it, do whatever you want, but your warrenty is now void.

PSU's (Power Supply) are critical, pritty much all system instability is caused by a bad power supply, if your in ANY doubt regarding your power supply, simply buy a new one.

Thats the main 3 done, then you need to clean out your case, dust gets everywhere, you need to check all your fans, clean them, the fan blades get covered in dust (mainly on the edges), it makes them noisey, and it reduces airflow.

Put it all back together, check all connections, job done.

That's my best guess, reseating the Graphics Card forced a settings reset, and it was the settings reset that cured the problem, not the actual reseating of the card.

Seems like this thread is going to die. A good portion of the people, including the OP, who put a lot of hard work and skill into finding a lot of the info here, have run out of time on their subscriptions (canceled).

Shame on you bioware for allowing such a good resource go to waste. One that was costing you NOTHING. One that was actually PAYING you to fix YOUR problem.

The more good people that unsub, the more things seem like the first film


Lost Hope.


(on a side note: The new very low shader settings do NOTHING to improve performance in warzones or ilum. Just another sign that Bioware is looking in all the wrong places to try and fix this issue)

Has anyone else tried reseating their gpu/doing a general cleaning of cpu, gpu, etc? want to know if it does anything for anybody