Advanced Warfare FPS drops/Micro-stuttering/fps lag

[The Communist]

Hey guys....recently bought AW for the PC and I've realized it's completely terrible performance wise...this game is all over the place, one little setting messed up and the FPS range changes radically. I usually get about 80 fps in most games, dipping down below 50, 60, 40, it all depends it's all random, there's no real pattern at all. I'm playing on LOWEST settings possible, and even on Medium render quality instead of "Native". I have FXAA on for AA but even when it's off there's no real big difference in performance.

My system is:

8GB ram
AMD FX-6300 @ 3.4ghz
AMD Radeon HD 7770 HD (1GB VRAM)

I know my system is just a little over entry level quality but I feel like I should be running the game at least on medium-high settings with relatively NO fps drops or micro stuttering....I usually have Shader preload ON because otherwise the entire match length is stuttering, freezing, and low fps drops - however, when preload is ON some maps like Instinct and Defender just hang at the "Synchronizing game settings" loading screen or "Setting up game..." screen, but never actually loads the match and after several minutes it loses connection and brings me back to the main screen.

I'm incredibily frustrated with this game as no tweaks or tips have seem to be working, and there has been no update on any performance patches from the developers. It's real annoying when you try doing good in a game but get fps drops, stuttering, and fps inconsistency causing lag.

Please tell me someone has some REAL tweaks and tips to fix this shit, it's an awesome game and I think it has SO MUCH POTENTIAL if the optimization of the game was dealt with.

 

[BrandonYoung]

Does it work fine on lowest settings? If not there could be another issue at hand, or your GPU simply isn't powerful enough to expect a solid 60fps.

 

[BrandonYoung]

You could also monitor CPU/GPU temperatures, to make sure your not overheating which will vastly affect game performance.

 

[tinmann]

It's your GPU, it only has 1GB of vram. Optimal would be 3GB for AAA titles today. I don't know what kind of CPU cooler you use but if you use a stock cooler I'd look into getting a better one and overclocking your CPU to at least 4.2GHz and upgrade to a R9-280 or above if you prefer the Red Team.

SAPPHIRE 100363-4L Radeon R9 280X 3GB 384-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 CrossFireX Support Video Card Tri-X OC version
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202125&cm_re=r9_280x-_-14-202-125-_-Product

AnandTech Bench
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1079?vs=1041

 

[Vynavill]

I'm afraid tinmann's right. You're ok for lowest settings, performance wise, but VRAM is bogging you down.

The game itself is relatively lightweight (exception made for some very specific missions which will drop your framerate no matter what), but is very memory hungry.
Plus, there's a "hidden" setting in the config file that decides how much VRAM the game sees, set by default at 85% of your actual total.

r_videoMemoryScale "0.85"

You might want to try getting it to something like 90% (100% can cause out of memory errors, AFAIK, but haven't tried it personally), but don't expect miracles.
Config files are under your Steam installation folder, inside "Steamapps/common/[AW folder name]/players2".

 

[Seif Samir]

Look guys at SYS REQ For this game is
Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTS 450 @ 1GB / ATI® Radeon™ HD 5870 @ 1GB
so the problem is with the game .. not Hardware

anyway ..

try to Install Latest Update For AMD
and if your running MSI Afterburner during play .. try to close it

and need to know Temps too ..

 

[tinmann]

Those are probably the "minimum" system requirements. Here is how a low end AMD card stacks up running COD-AW. The R7 260X only manages 42 fps minimum and 48 fps max. That using a very high end overclocked i7 5960X @4.6Ghz, an Asus X99 Deluxe and 32Gbs of 2666Mhz ram.


Here is how the HD 7770 stacks up against the R7 260X

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1079?vs=1044

So if the R7 260x which is a faster gpu is only getting 42-48 fps it's reasonable to conclude that you are getting frame rates in the low 30's.

 

[BrandonYoung]

Granted that chart is very high quality setting, and on a CPU that will not bottleneck the GPU.

 

[Vynavill]

I think seif's argument was more VRAM related, really, but yeah, you usually do not blindly trust minimum/recommended requirements.

That said, with a 7770 he should get about 30~40 FPS at best (on medium-high/maxed), although the swapping between memory and paging file that it'll bring will probably be horrible...

@OP
what resolution are you playing at? 1080p or lower? It's going to look badly pixelated, depending on how low you go from native resolution, but it'll improve things a lot, unless there's another issue somewhere else...