CPU temps and Graphics

I posted a cpu temp thread over on the official forum and got some good replies. I thought I would post here because you can never get enough information. So since version 1 was released, you know how excited I was but......... That excitement is now tinged with a little concern about my cpu temp in game. When the game is running and I have 22 or more AI then my cpu is running close to 90° raceroom runs at 52 max. I've got the fan turned up to 100%. I have I7 6700k, acer predator 34p and 1080ti. I've turned the graphics down to high apart from temporal which is on epic. A lot of people say I need better cooling while others say it's ok to run that high. I don't want to spend money when it's only 1 sim as all the others run lower. I just need reassuring lol.
 
I hope they can increase the performance over time of the physics calculation. I'd say it's logical that ACC needs more CPU for a more advanced physics calculation compared to raceroom. But yes, it's quite CPU hungry at the moment in AI races..
 
@jimortality yes ACC is making heavy use of the GPU and CPU. I tracked down the temps yesterday on my system running 29 AI at Spa in a 24H Race I started.

Ambient Temp in my room around 25°-26° (yes it is warm in Vienna/AUT)
Palit 1080TI Super Jetstream with 120% Powerlimit but standard clocks (Boost around 1930MHz) - Almost 90% load an above while driving - Temps around 78°-85°
I7 7700K @stock (4,6 GHz) with an Alpenföhn Brocken 2 - Load going from 50% to 80% all the time - 79°-85°

Overall everything is running quite warm but still far away from any danger. The i7 7700K is capable of going almost 100° without any damage and the 1080Ti just regulates the boost and fans if it should go close to 90°(in my case at 87° the fans would rush to 100%)

I think performancewise ACC is very well optimized and using the hardware quite effective as I am playing everything maxed out on my 34" 21:9 LG with 3840x1620 steadyly above 60 FPS, mostly 70-85FPS and with G-Sync.

Just one question, where you guys might be a help. I have some small stutters from time to time and the occure at the same spots everytime. For example at Spa after the cemelstraight the righthander after the chicane I get a minimal micro lag/micro stutter. It happens regular. Are those microstutters (not longer then 0.1s I guess) a known issure or sth. that can be solved?
 
steadyly above 60 FPS, mostly 70-85FPS and with G-Sync.

Just one question, where you guys might be a help. I have some small stutters from time to time and the occure at the same spots everytime. For example at Spa after the cemelstraight the righthander after the chicane I get a minimal micro lag/micro stutter. It happens regular. Are those microstutters (not longer then 0.1s I guess) a known issure or sth. that can be solved?
I had the same issues. From my experience and knowledge the problem is that acc is probably in the cpu limit, not in the graphics card limit.
The difference is that fluctuating fps via gsync are only smooth if the graphics card is the limitation.
When the cpu limits, frame times become extremely spikey.
Example in frame times (ms between frames)
Gpu limit + gsync: 14,15,17,13,11,13,16
Cpu limit + gsync: 14,15,23,10,25,13,16

And these drops are visible.
It also seems that the cpu can produce some hiccups when under too heavy load.
So if you simply limit your fps via the ingame limiter to a fps value you can permanently reach, things will smooth out.
Try to limit it at 80. If not smooth, lower it slowly.
I'm on a I7 2600k @ 4.4 GHz and a gtx 1070 in 3440x1440 + gsync.
Sadly have to limit it at 60 fps to run smoothly.

Hope that helps :)
 
@RasmusP good advice. I guess I am in the GPU Limit but I will test your advice and will limit the FPS to 70, that I do have all the time. Also I will take a deeper look at the frametimes when I have such hick-ups. Luckily the graphs from Afterburner are very handy here. :)

I'll let you know in the evening when I am back home. :)
 
When the game is running and I have 22 or more AI then my cpu is running close to 90° raceroom runs at 52 max. I've got the fan turned up to 100%. I have I7 6700k,
What cooler to you have? :)

It's totally normal for raceroom to run cooler. The crucial fact here is that acc is finally a sim that is making at least a little use of modern mukticore CPUs.
Raceroom basically on 2 big threads internally. Meaning in theory, a 3 core cpu would be plenty enough (2 for the big threads, 1 for the little threads).
This also means that me, with 4 cores + HT am seeing stuck fps although my cpu is at about 40% load and my gpu at 60%.

It's the "single thread performance limit". The game simply doesn't have enough threads to use the whole cpu.

Acc uses 3 big threads and a 4th kinda big thread.
Together with the rest (multiple little threads), it means that a 4 core cpu can be fully used. Way more than raceroom can!

Sadly instead of seeing the fps go into the 200's if you lower the graphic settings or resolution, acc needs the whole cpu to run basic 60-90 fps.

This leads to a fully loaded cpu while playing acc and therefore a lot higher temperatures.

Now 90° with the fan at maximum isn't great. Especially since acc doesn't even "redlines" the cpu. You'll probably see it fluctuating between 70-99% cpu load.

When checking if the fan is okay for a system it's always recommended to do a so called "stress test".
Intel burn, prime95, 3d Mark (cpu tests), running cinebench.
Or my favorite: the cpu stress test coming with msi kombustor. Kombustor is a great tool for overclocking the graphics card and the cpu stress tool is very simple, easy and shows the same temperatures like rendering a video or multi core games do.

Anyway, to sum up your problem:
Your cooler isn't good enough for your system. It's like telling a car owner "yeah if you go over 3k rpm or 150 kph, your engine will overheat".
Now raceroom is like City traffic. It's okay.
Acc is Autobahn.

Imo something like a cooler should always be able to take full load. Maximum temps I would tolerate would be 80° in acc and 87° in stress tests.
I personally have a very very bad pc case with one of the best Air coolers (le grand macho rt).
I'm reaching 74°c in acc and 78°c in stress tests.

It's not really known what too high temps really do to a cpu. Many say it would accelerate degeneration though. So at some point it will either fail or you'll have to run at lower GHz.

Anyway what case, cooler and case Fans do you have and how are they set up?
Maybe we can find something without you buying stuff :)
 
Luckily the graphs from Afterburner are very handy here. :)
Yes and no. They will show bigger hiccups but not single-frame spikes.
At fastest refresh rate it shows the average across 100ms. If you have 9x 10ms and 1x 20ms, afterburner will average it to 11ms.
So you'll only see the frame time graph fluctuating between 10ms and 11 ms if you're running at 100 fps.
The one 20ms frame will be visible, but won't show in the graphs.

But it might be good enough :)

One general thing: gsync will allow for any fps within range and fluctuating fps to display without tearing or "stuttering" (like vsync, showing a frame a second time when the fps drop below vsynced Hz).
However an fps drop is a drop in smoothness. No matter if it tears or not. If the fluctuation becomes big enough you'll always see it.

Gsync helps a lot and reduces the problems to only be exactly as big as the frame time pacing and not bigger (like tearing or showing the frame twice). But it can't magically stop us from seeing the raw lag in frame time.

You can easily see if you're in the gpu or cpu limit:
Is your gpu reaching 98% load or more? Then it's gpu.
If your gpu is at let's say only 92% most of the times it means the cpu is limiting.
Mostly not because the cpu is at 100%. No no, but the cpu is reaching its "single thread performance limit", like I explained to Jim above.

Fun fact: with the amd ryzen 1xxx and 2xxx this really is going to extremes.
You habe 8c/16t with many of them but a single thread performance worse than my old I7 2600k.
The result in raceroom for example is the cpu being the limit although it only shows 20% load.
80% of the cpu is basically wasted potential in this case!

As I said, only way to check which is limiting is to monitor the gpu load. If it's maxed out: gpu. If not maxed out: cpu single thread limit.

Anyway, sorry for the wall of text. Wanted to clear a few things up and answer a few questions that might come up :)
 
What cooler to you have? :)

It's totally normal for raceroom to run cooler. The crucial fact here is that acc is finally a sim that is making at least a little use of modern mukticore CPUs.
Raceroom basically on 2 big threads internally. Meaning in theory, a 3 core cpu would be plenty enough (2 for the big threads, 1 for the little threads).
This also means that me, with 4 cores + HT am seeing stuck fps although my cpu is at about 40% load and my gpu at 60%.

It's the "single thread performance limit". The game simply doesn't have enough threads to use the whole cpu.

Acc uses 3 big threads and a 4th kinda big thread.
Together with the rest (multiple little threads), it means that a 4 core cpu can be fully used. Way more than raceroom can!

Sadly instead of seeing the fps go into the 200's if you lower the graphic settings or resolution, acc needs the whole cpu to run basic 60-90 fps.

This leads to a fully loaded cpu while playing acc and therefore a lot higher temperatures.

Now 90° with the fan at maximum isn't great. Especially since acc doesn't even "redlines" the cpu. You'll probably see it fluctuating between 70-99% cpu load.

When checking if the fan is okay for a system it's always recommended to do a so called "stress test".
Intel burn, prime95, 3d Mark (cpu tests), running cinebench.
Or my favorite: the cpu stress test coming with msi kombustor. Kombustor is a great tool for overclocking the graphics card and the cpu stress tool is very simple, easy and shows the same temperatures like rendering a video or multi core games do.

Anyway, to sum up your problem:
Your cooler isn't good enough for your system. It's like telling a car owner "yeah if you go over 3k rpm or 150 kph, your engine will overheat".
Now raceroom is like City traffic. It's okay.
Acc is Autobahn.

Imo something like a cooler should always be able to take full load. Maximum temps I would tolerate would be 80° in acc and 87° in stress tests.
I personally have a very very bad pc case with one of the best Air coolers (le grand macho rt).
I'm reaching 74°c in acc and 78°c in stress tests.

It's not really known what too high temps really do to a cpu. Many say it would accelerate degeneration though. So at some point it will either fail or you'll have to run at lower GHz.

Anyway what case, cooler and case Fans do you have and how are they set up?
Maybe we can find something without you buying stuff :)
I realised I think this morning that afterburner was set to auto fan and it showed 54°or% can't remember but I moved it to 100% and the fan was on all the time. I'm sure it's just a stock Intel cooler but it does fluctuate between 77 and 87 this morning. Now if this is the same as version 0.7.2 then I'll leave it alone as I've been playing for months as is. My frame rate is limited to 97 but get about 80 to 97 with AI. I wish I hadn't downloaded afterburner and started checking temps but I did and now I'm constantly checking temps. No problem with my 1080ti, that's running where I expect it to. Cpu load is 50 to 60%
 
I realised I think this morning that afterburner was set to auto fan and it showed 54°or% can't remember but I moved it to 100% and the fan was on all the time. I'm sure it's just a stock Intel cooler but it does fluctuate between 77 and 87 this morning. Now if this is the same as version 0.7.2 then I'll leave it alone as I've been playing for months as is. My frame rate is limited to 97 but get about 80 to 97 with AI. I wish I hadn't downloaded afterburner and started checking temps but I did and now I'm constantly checking temps. No problem with my 1080ti, that's running where I expect it to. Cpu load is 50 to 60%
Thanks for the info :)
A few things:
1. Msi afterburner can only adjust the fan on the 1080ti. So at 100% it's probably pretty cool but your intro still gets fried

2. Ouch, Intel stock cooler. You don't have your 6700k overclocked though I guess?

3. The Intel fan and case fans can only be adjusted from the bios or with Mainboard/fan specific tools. Mostly such a tool comes with the Mainboard and can be downloaded from the webpage.
However every bios has some basic settings too so while you mostly can't run a very silent pc with just the bios settings, you can definitely get the fans to reach 100%.

Your little Intel stock fan probably does go up to 100% but it's really not enough.
I mean it's okay. If too hot, the cpu will clock down or shut off the pc but if you want to keep the cpu for years to come, I'd buy a separate cooler.
It's like your car engine being constantly at the border to cooking the cooling water. Doable for sure but just not great.

4. Do you know if, where and how many case fans you have? And which pc case is it?
 
Thanks for the info :)
A few things:
1. Msi afterburner can only adjust the fan on the 1080ti. So at 100% it's probably pretty cool but your intro still gets fried

2. Ouch, Intel stock cooler. You don't have your 6700k overclocked though I guess?

3. The Intel fan and case fans can only be adjusted from the bios or with Mainboard/fan specific tools. Mostly such a tool comes with the Mainboard and can be downloaded from the webpage.
However every bios has some basic settings too so while you mostly can't run a very silent pc with just the bios settings, you can definitely get the fans to reach 100%.

Your little Intel stock fan probably does go up to 100% but it's really not enough.
I mean it's okay. If too hot, the cpu will clock down or shut off the pc but if you want to keep the cpu for years to come, I'd buy a separate cooler.
It's like your car engine being constantly at the border to cooking the cooling water. Doable for sure but just not great.

4. Do you know if, where and how many case fans you have? And which pc case is it?
I think the case is a Vengeance? I have to fans that have a manual switch on the side and I think there are 2 further inside fans.
 
I think the case is a Vengeance? I have to fans that have a manual switch on the side and I think there are 2 further inside fans.
Hehe that's a bit too imprecise to really gain something from it.
Any chance you get a link of what you bought or finding the exact specs in the bills or emails or something?

Do you have that manual switch set to the maximum?

And: you should really replace the intel stock cooler. It's like putting your Porsche on 15" steel rims and high profile tyres instead of 17-20" shiny rims and wide low profile tyres.

I guess the 30 bucks for a cooler wouldn't be the big issue but to get it swapped... It's not a totally easy task and it's for sure no joy to do it either.

If you can't find the specs, could you do some pictures?
Front, side, opened side: showing internals?
 
AMD Ryzen 5 2600X with a RTX2060

Epic settings - minimum around 60fps normally between 70-80fps - doesn't seem to make much difference with grid size etc...

CPU runs mid 40°'s and barely stretches it's legs between 25% to 40% use.
GPU flat out and mid 50°'s.

I run the fans on the GPU on full when racing as it is OC'd and the 'Performance' profile on the Corsair H115i AIO Watercooler I have on the CPU.
 
Hehe that's a bit too imprecise to really gain something from it.
Any chance you get a link of what you bought or finding the exact specs in the bills or emails or something?

Do you have that manual switch set to the maximum?

And: you should really replace the intel stock cooler. It's like putting your Porsche on 15" steel rims and high profile tyres instead of 17-20" shiny rims and wide low profile tyres.

I guess the 30 bucks for a cooler wouldn't be the big issue but to get it swapped... It's not a totally easy task and it's for sure no joy to do it either.

If you can't find the specs, could you do some pictures?
Front, side, opened side: showing internals?
The manual fans only have one speed. I'm going to limit the fps lower and see how we go. If I can keep it in the 70's I'll stick with it if not then I need to think. My cpu is not overclocked and I don't really want to be going down that road.
 
That excitement is now tinged with a little concern about my cpu temp in game. When the game is running and I have 22 or more AI then my cpu is running close to 90° raceroom runs at 52 max. I've got the fan turned up to 100%.
You should definitely do something about your CPU cooling. 90 degrees is not a healthy temperature to run for extended amount of time, not even with the stock cooler (which I would certainly recommend getting rid of, there's plenty of affordable solutions that are much, much better) at full CPU usage.

It might be as simple as your cooler not being seated properly, or there might be some other issue, or the stock cooler really is that bad with your CPU (I wouldn't put this past Intel), but I would definitely look at it ASAP. The CPU can certainly take it short term (even though it might be perhaps even throttling due to high temperatures), but running this long term is not a good idea. I wouldn't even consider other alternatives and would make fixing the cooling a top priority in this case. It wouldn't be a question "if" I do something about it, it would be a question of "when" (and the answer would be "as soon as I can").
 
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So after dropping my limiter down to 75fps and knocking a few AI off, my temps are now 74 -79 with occasional 81-82. Surely for 2 or 3 hours a day, the thing can cope with that but I am waiting to hear back about a cooler and fitting, sod it I might buy a new pc lol
 

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