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Magic GPUs and framerate fibbing

Find any discussion on PC performance, on any Internet/comments section and you won't get far before finding someone with a magic GPU telling the world how their kit is putting out performance way above the expected. Why do this? It's not like people don't know how each card performs or there aren't numerous benchmarks to pull the rug out from under your bullshit claims.

"I'm maxing the Witcher out at 1440p with a rock-solid 60fps on my 680"

"Unity runs at about 100fps on my Voodoo 2"

"Batman Arkham Knight runs like butter at 4K on my onboard Intel"


"Pretty much a locked 60fps" = I never actually checked a fps counter/my tests involved staring at the floor for 10mins/I don't know what good frame-pacing looks like
 
There is always the chance that you'll ens up with those cherry picked ones they used to send out for test sites.
It happens. To a degree
 
There is always the chance that you'll ens up with those cherry picked ones they used to send out for test sites.
It happens. To a degree

They don't run games any better than the normal cards, they're just easier to overclock is all, or at least they have more overclocking headroom.
 
Don't understand that, either. But this seems to be a defensive attitude about on what these people spent their money on.

When the MAG Beta for PS3 started I've stated in their official forums that the framerate goes down to the lower 20s in big fights. Some people eventually jumped on me and said that my PS3 must be broken or gets too hot, since they play the game and it runs at about 40fps for them. Yeah. DigitalFoundry found out that this game can even drop below 20 here and there.

No need to discuss such things with people like that. They just don't want to discuss the facts.
 
There are a lot of variables aside from the GPU model including GPU overclock, CPU, CPU overclock, RAM speed, whether they're using Vsync, their personal definition of "maxing out", etc. which can alter their average frame rate. That said, some people don't know what they're talking about, and/or feel discomfort when other people can have a better experience than them, and therefore they exaggerate.
 
Find any discussion on PC performance, on any Internet/comments section and you won't get far before finding someone with a magic GPU telling the world how their kit is putting out performance way above the expected. Why do this? It's not like people don't know how each card performs or there aren't numerous benchmarks to pull the rug out from under your bullshit claims.

"I'm maxing the Witcher out at 1440p with a rock-solid 60fps on my 680"

"Unity runs at about 100fps on my Voodoo 2"

"Batman Arkham Knight runs like butter at 4K on my onboard Intel"


"Pretty much a locked 60fps" = I never actually checked a fps counter/my tests involved staring at the floor for 10mins/I don't know what good frame-pacing looks like


Interested to know which claim finally pushed you over the edge to make a thread OP?

Of course folk will exaggerate but in those threads most of us are privy enough to know exactly what a 680 or 980ti can do.

The other thing is even with two exact same rigs results may vary so there is always some discrepancy.

Unless they are wild claims like your examples (which I don't see generally) I'm not going to question if someone can push a few more fps compared to my results
 
Every card is different, there's loads of other factors to think about- OCing, RAM,CPU, SSD, etc, etc.
 
Not sure exactly what you're trying to say though. But some subjectivity and exaggerations either way is often involved.

Also, not every GPU is the same even though they are expected to be. Some can be overclocked more than others. It has always been like that. My 970 overclocked is pretty close to than a 980 at stock speed. There's nothing especially controversial about that.
 
Heh, I watched this exact thing play out in /r/arma yesterday. (Conversation is actually CPU focused, because Arma).

https://www.reddit.com/r/arma/comments/40yfoe/apex_preorder_live_today/cyza8od

Summary:

MonkeysOnBalloons said:
I run at 60fps on an amd fx6300.

Everyone else: "lol, no you don't."

Two hours later, his story is getting looser but does promise a screenshot.

MonkeysOnBalloons said:
I promise you I get 40-70fps 100% of the time ... I'll get a screenshot later tonight and post it.

Eleven hours later, with the thread long off the front page, he finally returns with a screenshot. 36fps.
 
There are a lot of variables aside from the GPU model including GPU overclock, CPU, CPU overclock, RAM speed, whether you're using Vsync, etc. which can alter your average frame rate. That said, some people don't know what they're talking about, and/or feel discomfort when other people can have a better experience than them, and therefore they exaggerate.


Pretty much this. You can't just look at their GPU, you have to take a look at their whole system. Let's take Witcher 3, an i5 @3,6ghz will get a different fps then an i5 @ 4.5ghz when paired with the same GPU in certain locations.
And an i5 @ 4.5ghz paired with 2400 ddr3 ram will get even higher fps (in certain areas), when compared to an i5 @ 4.5ghz with 'just' 1600 ddr3 ram.


1600 ddr3 ram on an i5@4.3/970:
ddr31600150vnjuw3.jpg
2400 ddr3 ram on an i5@4.3/970:
ddr32400165vlnusp.jpg
 
Find any discussion on PC performance, on any Internet/comments section and you won't get far before finding someone with a magic GPU telling the world how their kit is putting out performance way above the expected. Why do this? It's not like people don't know how each card performs or there aren't numerous benchmarks to pull the rug out from under your bullshit claims.

"I'm maxing the Witcher out at 1440p with a rock-solid 60fps on my 680"

"Unity runs at about 100fps on my Voodoo 2"

"Batman Arkham Knight runs like butter at 4K on my onboard Intel"


"Pretty much a locked 60fps" = I never actually checked a fps counter/my tests involved staring at the floor for 10mins/I don't know what good frame-pacing looks like

Different vendors of GPU have different deature sets. Blower or reference style coooling, custom fans/casing, some gets pre-overclocked.

Take i7 970- you can get so many variations of the card. It took me a while to settle on the MSi one I got, but's fantastic, silent and has great performance. Same card from another vendor might have give me more overclock(higher performance) but also higher temps and noise levels.


So it's about what you want. I dont pay much attention to that sort of thing as you mentioned. Saying you get 60 FPS in Battlefield 4 doesn't mean much. the framerate you get when you play single player and the one you get during firefights on a 64 player multiplayer server (the core of the game) is a completely different thing. My estimates would be that you probably need a FPS of 80-90 in single player to realistically never see dips below 60 in that kind of multiplayer on the same hardware.

Thats just a formality and failure to accurately report performance. AngryCentaur, Linus and TotalBiscuit are all pretty good at technical game reporting (in their own way) and make long videos about it too.
 
I've never really noticed hyperbole to that extreme but the exact same thing happens with console games. Claiming that there are no framerate issues in games like Fallout 4 and the like when it's blatantly not true and can be easily replicated.

What's the real issue with it anyway? There are real benchmarks out there so if you want to know if you're machine can run a game it's easy to find out. Taking anecdotal evidence for this sort of thing seems a bad way to go no matter what.
 
Most of it is just people having some wide definitions of "maxed out" graphics and "solid" frame rate. Of course there's also the overclocking community and all the "stable" 5+ Ghz or 1500+ MHz overclocks on their CPUs and GPUs. Usually it means they've barely managed to pull through 3DMark with it.

Personally though I don't like the mentality of needing to max out all settings. Usually it's a waste of performance over insignificant details.
 
Frame rate counter is at 60 fps roughly 20% of the time = glorious 60 fps gaming.
Maxed out = the options that my PC can't handle are turned off or reduced, because they're unoptimized.
 
Heh, I watched this exact thing play out in /r/arma yesterday. (Conversation is actually CPU focused, because Arma).

https://www.reddit.com/r/arma/comments/40yfoe/apex_preorder_live_today/cyza8od

Summary:



Everyone else: "lol, no you don't."

Two hours later, his story is getting looser but does promise a screenshot.



Eleven hours later, with the thread long off the front page, he finally returns with a screenshot. 36fps.

.. and when Arma is paused like that the fps is much higher than ingame with AI.
 
Hyperbole is easy to detect and easier to ignore.

I don't find this attitude helpful at all but that's not something we can avoid, some will always try to paint a prettier picture.

That's why frametimes graphs were invented. I never tried to say Batman AK for instance is a game which can run at 60fps consistently, I merely made the claim that it could run very well by my standards, sticking very close to 60fps the overwhelming majority of the time and I backed up my statements with objective data.

I've never really noticed hyperbole to that extreme but the exact same thing happens with console games. Claiming that there are no framerate issues in games like Fallout 4 and the like when it's blatantly not true and can be easily replicated.
Yes, absolutely valid. PC gamers are far from being the only group doing what the OP is rambling about, it's not rare at all to find console gamers desperately trying to cast console performance in a false light.
 
"Pretty much a locked 60fps" = I never actually checked a fps counter/my tests involved staring at the floor for 10mins/I don't know what good frame-pacing looks like

Yeah, people saying a game looks "fluid" or "looked 60" is pretty unhjelpful. This happens all the time in the first couple pages of an OT or from preview events for games.
 
There can be a couple of reasons. Overclocking or a lucky well performing component usually cannot account for some of the claims that people make.

- ON MAX (well, except that super high demanding thing)

- Usually does not mention AA, which can be very intensive.

- People don't use a framerate counter and estimate the framerate wrong.

- People do use a framerate counter but there still might be stuttering or they only look at max framerates.

Heh, I watched this exact thing play out in /r/arma yesterday. (Conversation is actually CPU focused, because Arma).

https://www.reddit.com/r/arma/comments/40yfoe/apex_preorder_live_today/cyza8od

Summary:



Everyone else: "lol, no you don't."

Two hours later, his story is getting looser but does promise a screenshot.



Eleven hours later, with the thread long off the front page, he finally returns with a screenshot. 36fps.

Hahaha, oh my God.
 
Most of it is just people having some wide definitions of "maxed out" graphics and "solid" frame rate. Of course there's also the overclocking community and all the "stable" 5+ Ghz or 1500+ MHz overclocks on their CPUs and GPUs. Usually it means they've barely managed to pull through 3DMark with it.

Personally though I don't like the mentality of needing to max out all settings. Usually it's a waste of performance over insignificant details.

Yes, the amount of stable 970s @ 1500mhz core clock and 8000mhz memory clock (magic ~ 980 performancepoint) is quite ridiculous.
 
I only question when people claiming max settings xx fps @ Z resolution which are are so much better than similar benchmarked / reviewed data. When asking for clarification, they aren't running at "max" settings, getting xx fps and/or Z resolution.
 
This shit is the most annoying thing about PC gaming. I've decided its mostly people who simply just don't notice framerate dips. Maybe they're primarily console gamers.

Fallout 4 is the most recent offender; the amount of people who claim to get 60fps 'locked' is bullshit.
 
"Maxed out" is so subjective, especially in a world where many anti-aliasing and SSAO methods look awful in certain games, yet still come with massive performance hits.

For example, you'd have to be crazy to enable SSAO in Metro 2033. Absolutely gross-looking.
 
My N64 played Crysis in 1998 with 60 fps so I have no idea why you can't run it at 120 FPS with 4k resolution with a GTX 8800.

I feel like this is the old playground mentality where everyone feels compelled to lie because then they have "secret" knowledge and can feel smug about themselves. Even if everyone knows they're full of crap. It is probably the same reason Gamestop employees feel compelled to lie.

I guess humans just feel an innate urge to have the philosopher's stone.
 
"Maxed out" is so subjective, especially in a world where many anti-aliasing and SSAO methods look awful in certain games, yet still come with massive performance hits.

For example, you'd have to be crazy to enable SSAO in Metro 2033. Absolutely gross-looking.
"Max out" should mean turning all settings to highest. If you turn down or turn off any setting(s), you are not "Max out" anymore. And, that's where many people get it wrong.
 
"Maxed out" is so subjective, especially in a world where many anti-aliasing and SSAO methods look awful in certain games, yet still come with massive performance hits.

For example, you'd have to be crazy to enable SSAO in Metro 2033. Absolutely gross-looking.

How expensive is Metro 2033's SSAO ?
I don't think you can toggle it separately, so how can you gauge its performance/visual return ratio ?
I don't think it must be costly at all on modern hardware, it looks bad by today's standards but at the time it was alright and definitely added to the scene.
 
How expensive is Metro 2033's SSAO ?
I don't think you can toggle it separately, so how can you gauge its performance/visual return ratio ?
I don't think it must be costly at all on modern hardware, it looks bad by today's standards but at the time it was alright and definitely added to the scene.

The original Metro 2033 can have its SSAO turned off in the config I believe. How expensive was it? No idea.
For example, you'd have to be crazy to enable SSAO in Metro 2033. Absolutely gross-looking.

I think you are thinking of the "advanced DOF" option (which adds 50% GPU load usually for little if any visual gain in most scenes). The SSAO was not toggleable in menu, and in general, looks pretty good for a 2010 release.
 
There is a lot of exaggeration in the other end too. Uninformed people claiming a "unoptimized" game is raping their pristine computers and then badmouthing the devs and their mothers. Usually the general situation is very different from those extremities.
 
Fallout 4 is the most recent offender; the amount of people who claim to get 60fps 'locked' is bullshit.

I don't think it's bullshit--you just don't know the circumstances. Are those people playing on lower resolutions than you? Have they installed FO4 to an SSD? FO4's engine is heavily reliant on content streaming, so a fast drive or fast RAM will often be more valuable than your CPU or GPU.

FO4's engine is also poor at object handling, so the CPU load will get more intensive the more hours you have in your save file. Players who decide to work on every settlement in the game, for example, will spawn many more NPCs than those who don't--and each of those NPCs has its own script to follow. It all adds up eventually. It's even worse if you're an item hoarder, as the game is never allowed to dump item values.

I think this thread has mistaken poor communication and ignorance with malice.
 
"Max out" should mean turning all settings to highest. If you turn down or turn off any setting(s), you are not "Max out" anymore. And, that's where many people get it wrong.

And what about when video settings, such as anisotropic filtering, perform and look better when forced via the graphics card instead of allowing the game to handle it?

The original Metro 2033 can have its SSAO turned off in the config I believe. How expensive was it? No idea.


I think you are thinking of the "advanced DOF" option (which adds 50% GPU load usually for little if any visual gain in most scenes). The SSAO was not toggleable in menu, and in general, looks pretty good for a 2010 release.

I think they added SSAO in Redux.
 
I learned to ignore those comments long ago. I always expect less, and if I get more I am happy.

Hitting 60fps for a few seconds or when looking at a wall doesn't mean it runs at 60fps, etc, etc...
 
And what about when video settings, such as anisotropic filtering, perform and look better when forced via the graphics card instead of allowing the game to handle it?
Doesn't matter if you think it looks better doing it some other way. For everyone to know exactly what "max" setting means, turning down or off any settings in-game means "NO LONGER MAX" setting. Otherwise, you should be saying "With my settings, I get..." With me, I hate and turn off every blur settings during gaming, but for stating performance numbers, I always have them turn on to max.
 
Your first three examples are like that kid in elementary school who claimed to have Sonic for his SNES. He's obviously lying - just ignore it and move on. No need to get worked up over it.

However, your last example..
Some people simply aren't anal about frame pacing unless it's especially egregious (Witcher 3 at launch and Arkham Knight batmobile come to mind). So it was indeed "pretty much a solid 60" for them and they likely enjoyed it. Who cares?
 
On the night when I first got a decent computer I actually did once say that I was getting 60 fps in the game (Stalker Complete) because I had been looking at the sky when getting it.. I wasn't doing it to brag, I was just really dumb and didn't know that it mattered that I had been looking at the sky the whole time :(
 
I think they added SSAO in Redux.
Not as a separated toggleable option in the menu. Redux and Metro 2033 (OG)both have SSAO on by default with no toggle. It was never added to the engine, as it always had it: if anything it probably got better looking and more performant between versions.
You sure you are not thinking of another game or a different option in general?
 
I find this about 500% less annoying than "max settings or bust" asshats.

However, your last example..
Some people simply aren't anal about frame pacing unless it's especially egregious (Witcher 3 at launch and Arkham Knight batmobile come to mind). So it was indeed "pretty much a solid 60" for them and they likely enjoyed it. Who cares?
Witcher 3 at launch was actually perfectly fine for me. (With external frame limiting of course)
 
Sorry, busy cleaning.

They don't run games any better than the normal cards, they're just easier to overclock is all, or at least they have more overclocking headroom.


uhm, yes they do. Like everything else it has the ability to work less stellar or more stellar out of the box. Without fiddling you can have up to 20% synthetic performance from just a single card, this can and usually effects your "FPS" for these tests and gaming. Not saying your wrong but you are wrong.
Think AMD was the latest offender, I heard of, with their golden samples they had sent Tomshardware 3-4 years ago. Natural variations will always occur though. Sweclockers*, a Swedish site, did test and tried 2 retail samples and 2 press samples of the same card. They ended up with a 30% variation between the fastest and slowest card.

For the topic at hand though, most is bullshit or a lot of "self optimisation" going on in your environment. Switching the stock cooler, removing and cleaning everything so it can stay cool etc etc. Me myself don't really care. It isn't needed, well except the cleaning. I played in windowed fullscreen and have 100-150 tabs in Firefox open nearly at all times. when I play in Windows the only thing I myself actually do is check if any program is heavily romancing my cpu.


* Sweclockers. In Swedish though.

I find this about 500% less annoying than "max settings or bust" asshats.

Wonder how many of them actually play at max settings.
 
The worst is when the developers admit there is an issue with performance, but you have "fans" claim they have 60fps, and that the issues don't exist, despite the fact that the developers themselves state otherwise. I've seen this with performance, bugs, glitches. Some customers are more defensive than the creators.

the best recent example are the people claiming they get 60 fps maxed out on their xxx midrange gpu in ark
I witnessed a friend's PC running ark in sub 20fps, despite him claiming over voicechat while were playing that he was getting over 50, and it was buttery smooth.
 
I get 60fps with most of my games (not Witcher 3) at 4k with my 980ti and my FX8350 but not many seem to believe it because it's an AMD processor :/

Magic CPUs!
 
Don't forget also that some setups simply do not run some games as well as others due to drivers/architecture/etc. despite being more powerful on paper.
 
Sorry, busy cleaning.




uhm, yes they do. Like everything else it has the ability to work less stellar or more stellar out of the box. Without fiddling you can have up to 20% synthetic performance from just a single card, this can and usually effects your "FPS" for these tests and gaming. Not saying your wrong but you are wrong.
Think AMD was the latest offender, I heard of, with their golden samples they had sent Tomshardware 3-4 years ago. Natural variations will always occur though. Sweclockers*, a Swedish site, did test and tried 2 retail samples and 2 press samples of the same card. They ended up with a 30% variation between the fastest and slowest card.

For the topic at hand though, most is bullshit or a lot of "self optimisation" going on in your environment. Switching the stock cooler, removing and cleaning everything so it can stay cool etc etc. Me myself don't really care. It isn't needed, well except the cleaning. I played in windowed fullscreen and have 100-150 tabs in Firefox open nearly at all times. when I play in Windows the only thing I myself actually do is check if any program is heavily romancing my cpu.


* Sweclockers. In Swedish though.



Wonder how many of them actually play at max settings.

you are misunderstanding the situation. the only difference was the required fan speed to maintain the 1 ghz boost clock. there was nothing magic about the chip. at the same clocks all samples of all gpus perform virtually identically
 
you are misunderstanding the situation. the only difference was the required fan speed to maintain the 1 ghz boost clock. there was nothing magic about the chip. at the same clocks all samples of all gpus perform virtually identically

Still stock cards, from this test, and they worked differently, giving some a boost or a speed down depending on your perspective :) That's what I'm saying can happen to everyone.
 
Still stock cards, from this test, and they worked differently, giving some a boost or a speed down depending on your perspective :) That's what I'm saying can happen to everyone.

only under the quiet setting which is non-deterministic and clamps the fan speed at 40% regardless of the variable leakage ranges inherent to all microchips. this doesnt vet your claim.
 
"Pretty much a locked 60fps" = I never actually checked a fps counter/my tests involved staring at the floor for 10mins/I don't know what good frame-pacing looks like

Don't forget people who only look at average framerate in framerate tests, when the minimum could be quite low.
 
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