i5-4590k
gtx 960
12 gb ram ddr3
windows 10
x64 bit i have changed graphics options around i cant seem to get a stable 60 fps :l
1.) Not consistently. My rig is a i7-4790K with a GTX 980 ti (6 GB VRAM) and 16 GB G.Skill Ripjaws. I'll get around 45-60 at 1920x1080 Ultra (aside from AA set to FXAA, and I left battle size at 500 for now). Nice and smooth, but I doubt most scenes will play much over 60 on our systems. If that level of performance is what you're after, I would lower the the graphical settings to minimum, then lower the Resolution down to something between 1600x900 and 1280x720. If you can get, say, 80-120 FPS at that config, you're in business, but it will require you to play in the smaller draw-space, lower the resolution scale, or reconfigure your actual desktop to that resolution in order to use the whole screen at 1:1 scale. (I recommend disabling scaling and simply playing with crisp graphics in the smaller screen area. At least that way, graphics will not be pixelated / blurry.)
Using the technique above with many demanding games in the past, I've often been able to begin turning graphics settings back up to High-Ultra while still getting smooth FPS. I also strongly recommend using Vsync, as it will keep the game from fluctuating wildly between very high and much lower FPS every few seconds in demanding scenes. And it will prevent screen tearing, of course. In the end, it's
consistent FPS that creates the experience of smooth gameplay, not
high FPS.
2.) Another thing of note is that your screen cannot draw anything over its max Refresh Rate. So, if you have a 60 Hz monitor, you're only ever going to see a maximum of 60 FPS. It doesn't matter what the GPU is
rendering, it will only ever be able to
draw 60. Hence, 120 Hz means 120 FPS max, 144 Hz means 144 FPS max, and so on. This is where Vsync off / G-Sync / Freesync comes into play, as it will render
partial frames as they are available, then draw just those areas onto the screen before getting another partial frame. This is what creates "screen tearing", but that may be preferable to having the FPS plummet when things get busy, making it feel as if control input and response time is lagging.
3.) The SSD consideration is an important one, but not for performance
directly. Having an SSD will allow for game assets to be more efficiently called upon and loaded into RAM / VRAM. This will not affect your FPS during play; it will make loading screens go by much more quickly. Having
faster RAM (not more RAM) and having a more powerful CPU and GPU are what will make the game crank out more FPS with higher settings. The SSD will not affect this...unless the game makes a call for something during gameplay that wasn't cached when the level initially loaded. At that point, you're not going to see an FPS drop, but rather "hitching" or "stuttering" as the assets are loaded in. It's not the GPU struggling, it's the game engine being forced to stop drawing anything to the screen because important assets are not loaded yet. It is true that an SSD will make that process faster, but the hitching will still occur no matter what. Until they work on the engine some more, at least. (All of that being said, you do want to make the jump to an SSD if you can. In many cases, what would take an HDD 1+ minutes to load something will often become literally 5-10 seconds.)
