Terrible performance in Crysis compared to Skyrim/Battlefield 3

[Dhakos]

I upgraded my graphics card a few months ago from a Nvidia 8600GT to a Nvidia GTX460 and saw an incredible improvement in graphics performance, I got it so I could play games like Skyrim, BF3, Sonic Generations etc.
Skyrim = 60fps indoors, between 35-50 outdoors
Battlefield 3 = 30-45 fps (rarely drops below 30)
Sonic Generations = 40-60 fps (occasionally it'll drop to 20 or so, but only during VERY physics intense moments)
Portal 2 = 50-60fps constantly

I play all these games at 1680x1050 on high settings with 4x AA on, Vsync on (can't stand tearing ) and am pleased with their performance.

But when I play crysis, it runs at 20-30 fps, stutters occasionally, and even drops down to 15 fps sometimes! that's ridiculous considering the graphics (from what I can see) are nowhere NEAR as good as the other games I mentioned which I get much higher framerates from.
The wierdest part is, although I get 20-30fps with high settings and 4xaa, at a resolution of 1680x1050, if I change the graphics settings to low, with no aa and at a res of 800x600, I still get the same terrible fps of 20-30 dropping to 15 occasionally!

Does anyone have any ideas as to why Crysis runs so terribly compared to my other much more visually pleasing games? (I thought it may be a cpu bottleneck, but my cpu runs at only around 40-50%)

My system specs are as follows:
Windows Vista Home Premium 32-Bit
Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.4GHz
4GB RAM
Nvidia GTX460
500GB HD (over 60% free space)
500W PSU

Many Thanks

 

[slh28]

The original Crysis is a terribly coded game, wouldn't worry about it woo much if I were you.

By the way you only get screen tearing if your fps is above the refresh rate of your monitor (probably 60Hz). You should really switch v-sync off if you're not getting above 60fps because otherwise you're dropping down to 30fps or 20fps.

 

[LNCPapa]

You should really switch v-sync off if you're not getting above 60fps because otherwise you're dropping down to 30fps or 20fps.

Not if he's using one of the new 300+ nVidia drivers slh - they do the adaptive vsync tech now. This of course assumes the OP is okay with running beta drivers.

 

[oscar1987]

ive got the same processor as you, ati 4890oc which is about a bit faster than the gtx460 and i can run in with 45-50 fps. i have 8 gigs of ram tho... memory is so cheap, you can get 4 more gigs at newegg for 18 bucks.

now these benchmarks show that your card cant push that game to run smoothly

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-460-gf104-fermi,2684-8.html

my 4890
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-4890,2262-7.html

 

[LNCPapa]

I was always under the impression that the GTX 460 was a slight tad faster than the 4890. Are you sure those tests were performed under similar circumstances?

edit: In fact, I think I'd go with this benchmark since it's on the same chart and you can feel a little bit more confident that the tests were performed similarly. Based on this second chart you see that the Op should be able to get some decent performance with his config if he lowers or disables AA. Also, more RAM isn't going to help him out with a 32-bit OS.

 

[Buckshot420]

run win update (actually check for updates) and d/l the missing DirectX, Physx or VC++ files

 

[Dhakos]

Woh wasn't expecting so many replies so soon, sorry guys I've been very busy lately, haven't managed to get on to check this thread, I'll reply to each post in order:
1 - slh28 - ah, glad to hear its the games fault not my hardwares haha thanks for the info about vsync, I've turned that off now
2 - LNCPapa - I don't believe I have any beta drivers, though my drivers are up to date as of the nvidia site
3/4 - oscar1987/LNCPapa - Ah.. my card doesn't look too promising there does it haha Yeah shame I can't upgrade my RAM with my 32bit OS, would be nice, and I have tried lowering/turning AA off, because when I tested on low settings 800x600 AA was turned off completely, (Still the same terrible performance)
5 - Did so, and there are no new updates as of present, I'm all up to date Vista says is there anywhere else I can check for updates of things I might need other than winupdate or the nvidia site?

Many thanks for all the help so far, I'd really like to be able to play Crysis at an acceptable level, it's an awesome game so far

 

[slh28]

I remember playing Crysis with a 4850 at high settings and getting around 30fps (at the time even the most expensive SLI/CF setups couldn't max it out), so your GTX 460 should be able to get a lot more than that.

Check your CPU and GPU usage during gameplay to see if they are being properly utilised. You can see CPU usage in the Windows task manager and you can download MSI afterburner to see GPU usage (and do a lot of other stuff). You can also try overclocking your GTX 460 to see if that improves performance, should be able to get to 800Mhz without too much trouble.

Many thanks for all the help so far, I'd really like to be able to play Crysis at an acceptable level, it's an awesome game so far

Yeah it was great at the start, but it becomes a bit too linear as you go on though...