Random lag in games. Please help.

Ok i'm posting this issue here as I have been unable to resolve it for some amount of time and it is beginning to infuriate me beyond the point I can describe.

This issue occurs in a lot of my games including but not limited to: Planetary Annihilation,Terraria,Starbound,Dawn Of War 2 and Battlefield 4.

The video I have recorded is from Battlefield 4, but in general this occurs in the same manner in all of the above mentioned games.

Where the below video freezes the frames basically dropped to below 10 FPS (taking a guess). This happens randomly quite a lot to the point some games just stop being enjoyable to me. Even in PA the same thing happens.
(lag starts at the 0:07 mark.)


If anyone can help me fix this I would greatly appreciate it.
Just don't ask me to do a virus scan, because I can guarantee you I've been over that multiple times.

by any chance do you own a GTX 970 ?

Yes but I am sure that it is not as a result of that memory limit. The only game that really gets affected by that is shadow of mordor with the ultra textures installed (There was a video on Jayz2Cents channel that covered the whole debacle where he tested this stuff). Also I would have seen it in msi afterburner if it was. Keep in mind this issue happens even if the game is on lower settings instead of the ultra I usually use. Remember this happens in games like starbound as well although not to the same extent.

Would check CPU/GPU temps. Would check if RAM is full. Would check if any sneaky recording software is on (like Shadowplay). Would check if OS has a rather aggressive HDD defragging schedule on a big slow HDD.

..........iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit's the memory limit. it what you showed EXACTLY. wonder how i guessed you had that card ?

But there's now way in hell that Terraria uses over 3.5GB of VRAM?..

maybe not that game alone. other apps can run on GPU rendering on the desktop also.

plus it's totally possible BF4 is a demanding game

OS is on an ssd. Running on windows 10 atm. Back when I was moving over from my HDD I used sasmsungs software to clone the drive over. I would do a fresh install of windows and have tried, but then I can't get maya modelling software running windows refused to install vcredist 2005 which is required. So stuck on my current install but is on an ssd.

Defrag is all disabled due to ssd. Also made sure that shadowplay is off.

Tatsu watch this. And as @burntcustard mentioned there is no way in hell games like starbound and terraria are chewing up that memory. Also told you that I monitored it using afterburner (I know what to look for if its derping at that 3.5gb limit) and that wasnt present.


EDIT:
Temp wise everything is fairly good, I will double check CPU temps tomorrow though if I get a chance to. Although from past tests I am assuming this is not the issue, but never hurts to double check.

EDIT:
Had similar issues back when I had the R9 270x, although I didn't have battlefield then. The issue popped up in PA and starbound mostly then.

Yeah I was expecting you were using an SSD (no defragging), but had to check. Obviously also forgot to mention graphics driver updates

Yeah on the latest Nvidia drivers. Generally like keeping that stuff up to date.

EDIT:
Oh and all my specs are posted in the vid description.

Edit2:
Read somewhere that amd coolnquiet in the bios may be causing issues. So I'll try disabling that when I get on my comp tomorrow, see if it makes a diff.

Was about to say, CPU changing speed on-the-fly *could* cause this sort of thing, especially if it's trying to keep below a certain temperature or fan speed. You could also try disabling the "turbo" or whatever it's called on AMD CPUs that makes it jump from 3.5GHz to 4GHz if it thinks it needs it and can get away with it. I dunno much about AMD overclocking, but if you've done it, or you think your motherboard might be "doing it for you" (I know some Intels would put BCLK to a few % over "automagically") a bit, try running without / disabling anything like that too.

Currently I'm over clocked to 4.0ghz so I've had to disable that frequency adjustment already. Will go through the settings anyway though to check if anything is still enabled that shouldn't be.

i already saw that vid. Frankly I think all these people got paid off by nvidia and the rest are just sheep.

I had exactly this issue with my FX 8320 based rig.

It was CPU temps spiking- which triggers the CPU to throttle down to 1.4ghz until it cools down.

note, the FX cpu has a *really low* upper temp threshold. The throttle kicks in at 60 degrees and there's nothing you can do to prevent that other than keeping the cpu temp down.

60 isn't really that high for most silicon (GPU's usually are stable up to 90, and the older Phenom CPU's would be ok up to 80 ish, the FX just doesn't like heat at all).

I cured the issue by: Undervolting my cpu by about 0.2v (totally stable at that, I was quite surprised), reducing my clock speed back to 3.8ghz and using a closed loop liquid cooler to get the heat out of the case.

That sounds about right for you. You lunatic!

@cdrkf AMD has lower temperature thresholds, and ironically then run hotter. Downside to using big silicon and as many cores as they can get away with

Disabling pretty much all of the temperature monitoring in the BIOS will help to reduce the throttling outside of the chip's programming, and it will still report temperatures in Windows. @nicb1 what cooler do you have for your CPU? If its the default I suggest that you replace it right away, as they are very under powered and don't help move air very well, and if its not equivalent to the Hyper 212+/EVO then you might want to consider not OC'ing.

I picked up a cooler master seidon closed loop water cooler (http://www.coolermaster.com/cooling/seidon/seidon-120v/ )- it was only about £5 more than going with an Evo air cooler- with the added benefit that it expels all the heat directly out of the case (I already had a decent air cooler before, however all it was doing was moving the warm air around inside my case due to the CPU being sandwiched between the PSU (venting down onto it) and the graphics card). I also replaced the case with something bigger that positions the PSU at the bottom of the enclosure, venting down and out of the case also.

I still maintain the FX cpu's (used) to offer superb value overall (the Haswell / Skylake cpu's are so strong per core that for gaming at least the i3 is faster than any fx now, still back in the Sandy / Ivy era the FX wasn't such a bad idea- AMD need zen out badly now though). They just require a good setup cooling wise.

Thanks for all the replies.
Currently I am using a corsair h50i closed loop cooler.

When I get back home I'll load up those games and will keep an eye on the CPU temps, will report what I get.

EDIT:
I may have derped earlier. Have the corsair h55 not the h50.

Ok so here's Core Temp after a small single planet galactic war game.

I'll have to check out what temps it reaches in battlefield as well since the issue is all the more noticeable there. Will have to do that a bit later on, but will post my findings when I do that.

EDIT:
When doing casual chrome browsing with a chat program in the back and word running, the temp appears to jump between 30 and 40 degrees C. This does not sound right to me, but maybe it's fine.

I let my CPU idle quite warm since it keeps the fan nose down. Assuming you're using the stock h50i, I would recommend any serious clock increases since while being decent, it's still subpar to the hyper212+.

If I were you, I'd go into your BIOS and look for CPU fan PWM. Play with the various manual modes until you hit 100% fan speed at 60-65 degrees. To get your temps that high, use Prime 95 (small FFT torture test) or Intel burn test. If your fan doesn't support PWM, use voltage control instead.

Also, who does AMD think they're fooling? 70C tjmax is pathetic. How did anybody ever do anything past stock with these crappy monsters!

Yeah you've recorded 68 degrees in the game. That will trigger the down clock to 1.4 ghz.

You might want to try reducing the core voltage a bit. I got my 8320 down to 1.25v core no problem, which helps temps a bit.

I think ironically the problem is older games didn't use the cores, so the cpu didn't overheat. More modern titles are often using most of the 8 threads, generating more heat and leading to throttling.

It's also worth remembering, the fx doesn't actually have a temp sensor on it like an Intel core cpu, it monitors current instead and calculates the expected temp. Reducing the temp helps reduce leakage, reducing the current so it well still register the better cooler helping, however the actual core temp could be fine and it will still throttle, as it's not that accurate (part of the turbo mechanism).

Amd have subsequently included actual temp sensors in their latest apus, so will probably have them in Zen too. If only there was a way to prevent the thing throttling so readily.