Poor gaming performance, with a higher-end computer?

Just migrated from Sevenforums to here. Also updated my system specs.

I'm lacking game performance despite having, I would consider, a decent system. Problem is the game temporarily freezing. I don't have FPS issues, just the game freezing and causing a 3 - 15 second delay until it unfreezes. My HD-Activity light illuminates and stays on during the duration of the freeze.

Two games I'm having issues with for example are 'Dying Light' and 'Grand Theft Auto V'.

Both games use about 9.5GB to 10.5GB RAM, 50% - 80% of CPU, and GPU fans rarely come on.

My graphic settings for the two games are under NVIDIA GeForce Optimal gaming settings. Side-note, all my drivers are up-to-date, and I've checked the Task-Manager for any apps in the background causing this performance issue.

Any suggestions or questions? Thanks in advance!

-Can you see any processes in Resource Monitor that might be stealing CPU time or HD cycles from your foreground gaming programs?
-Also, on the advice of a post here in the Forums I have begun using 'Razer Cortex', an optimization freeware that acts as a background process killer and memory optimizer specifically for gaming . . . might give it a trial.
Good Luck

T0mmy1977 said:

This sounds like it could possibly be related to insufficient RAM. Does your page file have a optimal size?

I had a feeling it was a RAM issue. I don't have enough RAM to compensate for SLI-GPU's and the amount of detail the HD needs to load. Therefore, presuming my system does not have enough hardware resources to use as cache. I guess 16GB isn't a lot of RAM anymore.

And pagefiles is same thing as virtual memory I believe? And Dying Light if I recall goes from 8GB to 11GB "Commit Size" in Task Manager.

What? 16 GB is more than enough for any current game. Just turn down some eye-candy options in your games.

can you us e something like evga precision to monitor your gpu usage ingame? it would be usefull to see your vram usage as stuttering and hitching is usually a symptom of this , if i play dying light maxed at 1440p it uses all my vram 6gb of it , same as for tomb raider , modern games will now fill up vram and use it as a cache but sometimes due to poor optimisation this can result in hitching , heres an example of a screenshot i took in tomb raider showing the monitor i use ingame (evga precision) notice the ram usage , thats vram btw not system ram , somre cards can have issues , if you turn the textures and post FX way down does it still stutter? what about disabling SLi? Also HBAO+ , pure hair etc can all cause severe hitching , and SLi if the games not optimised for it can cause issues , basically if any seting has NVidia in the description itll tank your resources

Eblim said:

I had a feeling it was a RAM issue. I don't have enough RAM to compensate for SLI-GPU's and the amount of detail the HD needs to load. Therefore, presuming my system does not have enough hardware resources to use as cache. I guess 16GB isn't a lot of RAM anymore.

And pagefiles is same thing as virtual memory I believe? And Dying Light if I recall goes from 8GB to 11GB "Commit Size" in Task Manager.

I dont know what you mean by "compensate for sli gpus"? you have plenty of system ram , however 2gb of vram really isnt enough to run many modern games over medium textures especially when you start throwing in post fx and hbao , that said at 1080 benchmarks show your card performing quite well

Archie123 said:

I dont know what you mean by "compensate for sli gpus"? you have plenty of system ram , however 2gb of vram really isnt enough to run many modern games over medium textures especially when you start throwing in post fx and hbao , that said at 1080 benchmarks show your card performing quite well

I have 4GB of VRAM. But like I said, I'm not having FPS issues. The game just freezes and causes a delay. I'm getting 70 - 90 fps on Dying Light and I max out 60 fps on GTA-V. These games are only 10% instanced, at most.

I already invested in 16GB more RAM which will be here in approximately 2 - 3 weeks. Being in my location, that's pretty decent. Don't expect it to solve the problem what so ever, but it's a try.

Why is it my hardrive is loading something everytime the game freezes? I think I'm lacking hardware resources, such as RAM.

Know of any free graphic benchmark tests?

Eblim said:

I have 4GB of VRAM. But like I said, I'm not having FPS issues. The game just freezes and causes a delay. I'm getting 70 - 90 fps on Dying Light and I max out 60 fps on GTA-V. These games are only 10% instanced, at most.

I already invested in 16GB more RAM which will be here in approximately 2 - 3 weeks. Being in my location, that's pretty decent. Don't expect it to solve the problem what so ever, but it's a try.

Why is it my hardrive is loading something everytime the game freezes? I think I'm lacking hardware resources, such as RAM.

Know of any free graphic benchmark tests?

you dont you have 2gb of vram , running sli doesnt double your ram. Heaven benchmark is free also all the 3d mark benchmarks have a free version. Use msi afterburner or evga precision to monitor your stats ingame (msi afterburner is better as you can also monitor system ram its alot more comprehensive though a little harder to use) if you need any help setting it up just shout when you got it installed its pretty easy once you know how :) . Its most definatley a ram issue id have though as your hard drive is being acessed , what level do you have textures set to in those games? are other games ok? Also you didnt answer one of my previous questions , if you disable sli does the game still stutter? and do you have plenty of free space on your hard drive?

It may just be as simple as the game fetching new resources from your hard drive and the hard drive not being able to keep up. Or another application randomly maxing out your hard drive , all these things can be seen if you use some monitoring software even task manager can help with this if you play your games windowed you can watch the hard drive usage at the same time , also try running those games after a clean boot (no third party software running) see if that helps , problem is it could be a few things but you will be able to pin it down easy enough :)

one more thing do you use vsync?

Archie123 said:

you dont you have 2gb of vram , running sli doesnt double your ram. Heaven benchmark is free also all the 3d mark benchmarks have a free version. Use msi afterburner or evga precision to monitor your stats ingame (msi afterburner is better as you can also monitor system ram its alot more comprehensive though a little harder to use) if you need any help setting it up just shout when you got it installed its pretty easy once you know how :) . Its most definatley a ram issue id have though as your hard drive is being acessed , what level do you have textures set to in those games? are other games ok? Also you didnt answer one of my previous questions , if you disable sli does the game still stutter? and do you have plenty of free space on your hard drive?

It may just be as simple as the game fetching new resources from your hard drive and the hard drive not being able to keep up. Or another application randomly maxing out your hard drive , all these things can be seen if you use some monitoring software even task manager can help with this if you play your games windowed you can watch the hard drive usage at the same time , also try running those games after a clean boot (no third party software running) see if that helps , problem is it could be a few things but you will be able to pin it down easy enough :)

one more thing do you use vsync?

I do use V-Sync on GTA V but I disabled it on Dying Light because it drops the FPS quite a bit.

I have 4048mb of VRAM. 2GB per graphics card.

Yes, I don't think my HD can keep up with data fetching like you said, but if I increase my RAM to 32GB would that allow more hardware resources for cache? Which is what I'm trying to do.