FPS drops below 10 every couple of minutes

[R3ign]

Hi All,

I've got a strange issue only noticed it when playing BF4 (will test other games tonight)
as the title mentions the FPS drops especially when my character interacts with the environment i.e. jumping over a wall. I noticed it happening a lot yesterday it was fine on Friday / Saturday though.

This is what I've done so far without any luck:

• Returned CPU to factory clocks + reset Bios
  
• CPU cores are already unparked
  
• Re-built BF4 Game cache (trying to avoid having to download the whole game again)
• Changed game settings to Low
  
• Wiped and re-installed Geforce drivers (Clean install)
• reinstalled Audio drivers
  
• Ran system restore (gone back a week)
• Ran sfc /scannow (fixed most of the issues but also failed to fix others) - not sure if this would cause my FPS to drop so dramatically ?

All help will be greatly appreciated

Edit - Added DxDiag.txt

 

[vega22]

inb4 3.5gb+p.o.s. game issues

you got it running from your spinner?

use ultimatedefrag to move the most used data to outer edge. or put it on your ssd.

 

[Caring1]

inb4 3.5gb+p.o.s. game issues

But 3.5Gb and POS game issue

 

[R3ign]

inb4 3.5gb+p.o.s. game issues

you got it running from your spinner?

use ultimatedefrag to move the most used data to outer edge. or put it on your ssd.

thanks for the quick reply

Yeah I was worried about the 3.5Gb issue but it was working fine on Friday :S

I am indeed running it from the 2TB (saving up for a 1TB SSD) - forgot to mention I'm defragging it as we speak with Defraggler - would ultimate defrag work better?

 

[vega22]

i like that ultimate lets you move data about the platter so you can put what you want on the faster or slower parts. idk if defraggler does that now?

 

[R3ign]

i like that ultimate lets you move data about the platter so you can put what you want on the faster or slower parts. idk if defraggler does that now?

That will help a lot! I don't think defraggler does that (well I've not come across it yet) I'll try moving the game to the outside of the platter and let you know if it fixes the issue.

 

[P4-630]

That will help a lot! I don't think defraggler does that (well I've not come across it yet) I'll try moving the game to the outside of the platter and let you know if it fixes the issue.

If it does not, try install it on SSD.

 

[R3ign]

I've just added my DxDiag to help resolve the issue whilst the drive gets defragged

 

[Ferrum Master]

Maybe temps?

 

[R3ign]

Maybe temps?

Temps seem to be fine:


CPU max - 68 degrees C
GPU Max - 64 degrees C

I've attached some screenshots of my latest Furmark test as you can see it's spiking more often. With each spike the temp drops too, I'm wondering if it could be an issue with my PSU.

Edit - re uploaded screenshots

 

[little cat]

Is the net the one to blame ? Try a single player campaign or game .

 

[MrGenius]

If it's not thermal throttling, then it could be power throttling. Try raising the power/TDP limit %. Or whatever it is for you Nvidia guys.

Man those screenshots are terrible. Almost completely unreadable.

You could also test your PSU 12V rail with a multimeter to rule that out(use a spare PCIe or Molex connector, postive lead to the yellow wire, ground lead to the case or black wire). If it's dropping below ~11.7V with the GPU under full/high load...it's toast(or soon will be). Though I highly doubt that's what's causing the issue.

 

[R3ign]

Is the net the one to blame ? Try a single player campaign or game .

Just tried BF4 campaign and the spikes are there (can see them on the in game diagnostic graph) but they don't effect my gameplay.

If it's not thermal throttling, then it could be power throttling. Try raising the power/TDP limit %. Or whatever it is for you Nvidia guys.

Man those screenshots are terrible. Almost completely unreadable.

You could also test your PSU 12V rail with a multimeter to rule that out(use a spare PCIe or Molex connector, postive lead to the yellow wire, ground lead to the case or black wire). If it's dropping below ~11.7V with the GPU under full/high load...it's toast(or soon will be). Though I highly doubt that's what's causing the issue.

Sorry about the screenshots I've just re uploaded the originals (hopefully they are clearer)

The card is standard and has not been OC'd once I'll look into raising the power to see if that helps (without frying the card)

I'll have a look for a multimeter (all of the wires from the PSU are black lol so that could be difficult)

Thanks for the suggestions

 

[MrGenius]

The card is standard and has not been OC'd once I'll look into raising the power to see if that helps (without frying the card)

I'll have a look for a multimeter (all of the wires from the PSU are black lol so that could be difficult)

Thanks for the suggestions

With no OC you've got nothing to worry about. I'll guide you through the PSU checking procedure as soon as I get back. Got an errand to run.

 

[little cat]

GTX 970 is excellent for 1920x1080 not for 2K gaming .

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_970_Gaming/10.html

here no GTX 970 but
http://www.techspot.com/review/734-battlefield-4-benchmarks/page4.html

might look for a background process/task including viruses (virus scan ) . also for different video driver

 

[EarthDog]

12V rail sags don't cause drops in FPS people. 99% of the time, it works or it doesn't.....there are no 'brown outs' for PSUs.

 

[vega22]

yea, it aint psu imo.

they tend to be lots of random bsod then the random shutdowns.

something holding the data up is what i think. either the drive not being optimal or even some anti virus/malware check could be slowing it down.

 

[MrGenius]

He said he thought it might be his PSU. I said I highly doubt it. But if you want to check to be sure, there's a way to check the relative health of it. The 12V rail at least. But let's just forget I mentioned it for now. For the reasons mentioned above. I've also never seen it cause fps problems. And I've ran several many PSUs completely dead trying to survive my power hungry OCed GPUs. But I don't rule anything out I can't prove. So maybe it's possible. If you want to check it just in case google PCIe or Molex connector to find out which terminals are what. Or I'll do it for you I guess.

Anyhow, I don't even think it's power throttling either. But it could be. Raising the TDP/power limit % would tell you if that's the case. If it makes a difference, then there's your answer.

I think it may be drive related as well. Or possibly memory related. Or both. Such as page file related.

 

[R3ign]

GTX 970 is excellent for 1920x1080 not for 2K gaming .

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_970_Gaming/10.html

here no GTX 970 but
http://www.techspot.com/review/734-battlefield-4-benchmarks/page4.html

might look for a background process/task including viruses (virus scan ) . also for different video driver

Thanks for the links!
It has been running fine at 1440p with at least 55 - 60 fps - running another virus scan today to see if there's anything lurking in the background.

@MrGenius - Thank you for the detailed guide I have now raised the TDP/power limit yet as I'm going to leave that until the end. After finishing defraging the 2TB I played a few other online games last night including Cs:go (I know this is not a resource hungry game) but I ran a FPS counter on it and there were notable dips from 220 down to 100 in some places.

Then I tried BF4 offline - this worked fine no sign of any dips, so I went ahead and played a online match (13ms ping) after 30 mins of play I experienced 1 spike - maybe it was a one off or the defrag actually helped (25% fragmented)

As far as Nvidia drivers are concerned I'm using the latest version 365.19

I have a 4GB page file set up, I was told that should be enough? as BF4 + system processes use a max of 6GB - 8GB of RAM that still gives the system 8GB to play with. Will also run Memtest tonight to see if one of the RAM sticks are at fault.

Thank you all for the continued help

 

[Mussels]

check your windows power settings for the hard drive and set the idle timer higher - a mechanical drive spinning up (even if the game is not on that drive) can cause momentary, system-wide stutter

 

[R3ign]

check your windows power settings for the hard drive and set the idle timer higher - a mechanical drive spinning up (even if the game is not on that drive) can cause momentary, system-wide stutter

I never thought of checking the idle timer on the HDD - I know I've set everything in the power settings to high performance mode but I'll check the idle timer when I finish work.

 

[Mussels]

I never thought of checking the idle timer on the HDD - I know I've set everything in the power settings to high performance mode but I'll check the idle timer when I finish work.

it became painfully obvious to me on my secondary system with its ~10 external hard drives. As the system would stutter i got to listen to each of them power up one by one.

 

[R3ign]

it became painfully obvious to me on my secondary system with its ~10 external hard drives. As the system would stutter i got to listen to each of them power up one by one.

Oh man! that would be painful - I hope it's as simple as the idle timer

 

[jaggerwild]

2560X1440 display is the issue

 

[R3ign]

UPDATE

Since defragging the drive (moving large fines to the outside of the drive) I'm seeing less stuttering in game now - This only seems to happen when I play Bf4 online (I get a constant 13ms ping)

I've also checked the driver for errors and it seems clear - maybe it's time to invest in a SSD for my games.

Thank you all for your input - I'll keep an eye on the performance over the coming days