What Games are you playing right now? [2]

specialkone · 27 Sep 2018

CountMike said:

Wonder what this one can play:
Could it do any of that fancy games ?

CountMike; I'm sure you know Ultra settings aren't needed when playing games. In a lot of cases it's hard to tell the difference compared to lower settings. Check out minimum specs on the games you are interested in and most cases you should be fine.

One game I find runs smoothly without issues is Far Cry 5 and this is an AMD sponsored Ubisoft game. It runs as smooth as silk on my Nvidia 1080 TI but I suspect it would likely run fine on your RX 570 GPU as well.

Far Cry 5 The Recommended (1080p, 60 fps, high settings):
OS: Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 (64-bit versions only)
CPU: Intel Core i7-4770 @ 3.4 GHz or AMD Ryzen 5 1600 @ 3.2 GHz or equivalent
Video: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 or AMD R9 290X (4GB VRAM with Shader Model 5.0 or better)
RAM: 8GB

specialkone · 27 Sep 2018

Kol12 said:

Can you explain those brief drops in any more detail? They sound similar to mine but I don't only experience them FFXV, Watch Dogs 2 also.. Does by any chance the GPU usage% and GPU power% drop when it occurs?

If you remember I mentioned GRW (Ghost Recon Wildlands) as another full blown Game Works game with stutters. Didn't realize you were playing Watch Dogs 2. I love that game but man I remember it stuttering worse than GRW. It's another Nvidia backed Ubisoft Game Works game. I remember full throttle down the streets on a motorcycle and once in a while I would get that stutter, no I think it was maybe that one second freeze that Faith is talking about. Again, I have not experienced a Game Works game without issues if all settings are on Ultra. For me, some games worse than others.

Kol12 · 28 Sep 2018

@#@$%! EVGA 2080Ti XC $2500 NZD, no way in hell!

specialkone · 28 Sep 2018

Kol12 said:

@#@$%! EVGA 2080Ti XC $2500 NZD, no way in hell!

LOL. Our weekly government run lottery draw is tomorrow. $5 ticket with a jackpot of $60 million. When I win I will buy one but not holding my breathe. Odds of winning are 1 in 28,633,528.

Kol12 · 28 Sep 2018

Faith said:

I can run around and occasionally the game will freeze for a second. It looks like if it's more of an issue when I'm near settlements and cities. I haven't monitored the usage, but the GPU is most likely dropping to 0 because the screen is frozen during that period. The audio still plays, so the CPU isn't the issue. First I thought maybe it was the TRAM setting, but dropping it down didn't help. My guess is either the game itself or Windows' standby cache BS that's messing up games. If you didn't know; Windows drops everything to RAM and puts it into standby when the data is not in use. This will make programs more snappier and easier to launch - in theory -, but there's an issue when the system tries to recieve the data from standby to used. The swap or transition from cached to in-use is what's causing stutters. It's an issue Microsoft has been neglecting since the Creators Update 2 years ago. There are plenty of topics on this around the interwebs and it's widely known. This may explain your Watch Dogs 2 problem too.

So is Windows Standby a cache of programs and files you have used since since your last reboot in your current Windows session? This sounds similar like how Android likes to keep things in ram.. What I understand from what I have googled is that this cache doesn't clear before loading up a large game, so the game is fighting for RAM space causing this performance degradation. Does that sound about right?

Kol12 · 28 Sep 2018

I found this from another FFXV player, watch the video at 12.49, he stalls and the GPU usage drops off to 50% momentarily, the GPU power also drops around 100W. Maybe this is a game issue or else this guy has the same issue as me.

Faith · 28 Sep 2018

Kol12 said:

So is Windows Standby a cache of programs and files you have used since since your last reboot in your current Windows session? This sounds similar like how Android likes to keep things in ram.. What I understand from what I have googled is that this cache doesn't clear before loading up a large game, so the game is fighting for RAM space causing this performance degradation. Does that sound about right?

Exactly.

If you open the Windows resource tab you can actually see the line for the standby memory being gradually filled up by everything and anything, e.g using the browser, watching videos, playing games, even when downloading programs. It's not an issue inherently and it's a normal behavior in pretty much any device today. This algorithm is not new for Windows either and has been in W10 ever since it came out, but for some reason it creates stutters for a few users after the CU. Microsoft did something to it that broke it. That video showcases exactly the issue I'm talking about here. Dunno if it's the game or this standby thing though.

Kol12 · 28 Sep 2018

It seems like a copy of all of a programs files, is it an actual copy? I see this in RamMap:

What Games are you playing right now? [2]-rammap-standby.png

Kol12 · 28 Sep 2018

@Faith

Well that stalling issue as shown in the video looks to be a common issue, I thought it may have been unique to my machine but now yourself also confirms that you have that issue. I'm almost certain the only other game I have these stalls in is Watch Dogs 2. The last big game I played was Assassins Creed Origins and ROTTR. Neither I'm sure had stalls like that. It's quite possible it is this standby thing affecting certain games.

Faith · 28 Sep 2018

Hard to tell really what's causing all this. Some games are just poorly optimized I guess. I definitely have those stutters you linked to in FFXV, but I don't care anymore to be honest. I've gotten "used" to it by now. Maybe the October update, or when FFXV gets the big DLSS update it may be fixed. I've never used RAMMap so I can't tell you much on that. PC gaming sucks sometimes.