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Hey folks!
Let me introduce myself and the theme of this blog. I'm a smoothness-junkie.
What the heck do I mean by that?
Well, I'm the kind of guy who's very picky about having a smooth visual experience when I play games. You know, that guy who buys an expensive 144 hz screen just to get dem feels.
I recently got over some very persistant problems with my graphics drivers causing my screen to reset to 120 hz all the time, making the image choppy (not in sync). Just the other week I found out that all Source games are capped at 120 fps per default and that you manually have to change the fps_max to 144 (or whatever your screen wants). Yes, I'm a little embarassed about not knowing that earlier! 
Anywho! The problem at hand:
Just when things started looking up I'm starting to experience problems with CPU usage (or so I think).
Apparently my CPU (Intel i5 4690k) is at >50 % capacity when I play Dota 2. In comparison, most of my friends are at 15-20 % CPU load and they're sitting on cheaper CPU's or gaming laptops.
So I guess my first questions is: What's normal? How much CPU does Dota require for you? What CPU's do you have?
I guess the followup-question is; if it's not normal, what setting might I have messed up to cause this? The problem I'm experiencing is that the game feels increasingly choppy after a few minutes of gaming, i.e. every game starts out feeling very smooth, but in a matter of minutes becomes quite choppy.
Note: Network, memory and GPU looks completely normal and my FPS isn't dropping in the Net Graph
Any input would be greatly appreciated!
Consider this the first post in my quest to getting the perfect visual experience in Dota!
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Northern Ireland22210 Posts
all i know is, as a source game, dota is very dependent on cpu. it's possible that your cpu can't handle 144fps? i don't know much about specs though, so hopefully someone else can chime in
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Hi Ahswtini, thanks for your reply!
That's not entirely impossible, but seems rather unlikely considering how new and relatively powerful my CPU is.
Also, it doesn't explain why my friends with cheaper computers use less CPU when they play Dota.
Something's fishy!
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Thanks FFGenerations!
I'll do that!
I will however keep this blog running, because I seem to have a knack for these kinds of problems and I'll post the answers I find here so other people (hopefully) can make use of them.
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Northern Ireland22210 Posts
On March 30 2015 22:18 GinNtoniC wrote:Hi Ahswtini, thanks for your reply! That's not entirely impossible, but seems rather unlikely considering how new and relatively powerful my CPU is. Also, it doesn't explain why my friends with cheaper computers use less CPU when they play Dota. Something's fishy!
true, although those friends are probably not running at 144 fps?
also if you're using an nvidia card, make sure you have geforce experience uninstalled as that shit's awful for performance
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Hmm, I'm not sure how that interaction works, but shouldn't the GPU get stressed if I run at 144 hz, rather than the CPU?
I have an ATI card; Sapphire r9 280x
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Northern Ireland22210 Posts
On March 30 2015 23:03 GinNtoniC wrote:
Hmm, I'm not sure how that interaction works, but shouldn't the GPU get stressed if I run at 144 hz, rather than the CPU?
I have an ATI card; Sapphire r9 280x
again, source games are heavily cpu dependent. you can try setting your max fps to 60 and seeing what effect it has on your cpu usage
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There's a multithreading option somewhere in the dota options that you could try turning on or off to see if that does good things for you.
Also source 2 is coming soon(tm) and that may assist with CPU issues.
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On March 30 2015 23:14 ahswtini wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2015 23:03 GinNtoniC wrote:
Hmm, I'm not sure how that interaction works, but shouldn't the GPU get stressed if I run at 144 hz, rather than the CPU?
I have an ATI card; Sapphire r9 280x again, source games are heavily cpu dependent. you can try setting your max fps to 60 and seeing what effect it has on your cpu usage
Hi again, I tried this, unfortunately to no avail.
This multithreading option, I don't recognize ever having seen it. I'll look around! If you know where, I'd greatly appreciate a nudge in the right direction
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144fps is nothing for your processor. I have the last gen equivalents cpu and gpu and I get constant 144 in dota with multiple other programs running simultaneous. Maybe it's those dumb HD issues that come with Windows 8 or something.
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The Tech forum gave me a lot of good feedback, but unfortunately nothing's been able to fix it so far.
My GPU is running at ~90% in a standard game and my CPU is around 50-55 %, so nothing's capped but I still experience a distinct delay/choppnyess (perhaps input lagg, I'm not great at differentiating) which I just can't wrap my head around.
To be continued...
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Well, first of all you didn't list any other program you are running in the background, so a list of that would be great,
Then besides that a list of background services that are running are nice to have as well.
There is always 1 simple fix for small problems like this, and that is to reinstall windows completely and run dota 2 from a clean install. Sometimes it's not worth trying to look for a solution if it takes days and days trying to figure it out.
Also you didn't tell us when your rig was build, and if/when you upgraded internal components.
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Hi Tech Sc2,
While I do appreciate you replying, it feels like you're coming in guns blazing trying to shoot me down.
But ok, other programs in the background are basically 3: Evernote, Google Chrome (with 2-3 tabs) and my Antivirus. Nothing else takes up more than 5 % CPU (chrome). I thought I mentioned that I recently did a clean reinstall of Win8, but if I didn't, then I'll clarify: I recently did a clean reinstall (wiped the drive etc) of Win8. Problem persists.
Nevertheless, I'm currently leaning towards my GPU (Radeon r9 280x) perhaps not being strong enough to drive Dota 2 in 144 hz, after having talked to Cyro and others in this thread.
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EPT
