Battlefront II (2017) hangs for a second every minute or so while in-game

[JustSomeNumbers]

As title. The game runs fine on low to high settings(ultra has too low of a framerate to be playable in multiplayer), save for the fact that every minute or so the game hangs for a second, which makes it impossible to react to situations. It isn't network lag, because the game completely freezes up(no rubberbanding occurs). It's clearly got something to do with my hardware but I can't figure out what it is. I should add, this occurs on all maps in all game modes even at low settings at 1080p with the resolution scaling set to under 50%. It really seems like something my PC should be able to handle.

Specs:
CPU: AMD FX-8350 @ 4ghz (locked to 4ghz, turbo disabled, core parking disabled, power-saving features disabled)
Mobo: ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0
GPU: AMD Radeon R9 380 2GB (stock settings)
RAM: 16GB DDR3 1600 9-9-9-24

I'm not sure what I've tried but I've spent the last two days scouring forums and such for solutions and so far nothing I've tried has worked. I'm just reaching out here in the hopes that maybe someone has something I haven't thought of or at least an explanation of why it might be doing this.

 

[COLGeek]

Do you have a SSD or HDD primary storage device? Your video and chipset drivers up to date? Also, how are your CPU and GPU operating temperatures at idle and under load?

Any other issues with any other games/apps?

 

[Solandri]

Try checking the Windows logs to see if an error is recurring with the frequency you're getting the freezes.

This PC => right-click => Manage => Event Viewer => Windows Logs => probably System but check all the other categories if there's nothing bad in there.

Check to make sure your motherboard drivers are current. Download them from Asus' website. Windows Update sometimes replaces crucial drivers with ones which don't quite work. Usually driver issues which cause this type of problem show up in the logs though. Intel's network software used to cause this type of problem too, but I haven't seen that recur in years.

What type of drive do you have? If it's a HDD, don't let it go into sleep mode. If Windows needs something crucial off a disk that's gone to sleep, it will freeze while it waits for the drive to spin up again.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/21454-turn-off-hard-disk-after-idle-windows-10-a.html

If it's a 5400 RPM Western Digital HDD (Green, SSHDs, most of the Blue), those have a head parking issue which causes problems similar to the drive going to sleep. Just more frequent and a shorter freeze.

 

[JustSomeNumbers]

@COLGeek: Windows is on my SSD but SWBF2 is on a standard HDD. All drivers(chipset, cpu, gpu, etc) are up to date. All temps appear to be safe/within limits, cpu never goes above 50C under load and GPU stays around 70C under load. They both idle around 40C. Middle-Earth Shadow of Mordor and Far Cry: Primal both have similar issues. I also play Overwatch and it does not have this particular issue. I should mention OW is installed on the SSD.

@Solandri: Windows logs don't show any corresponding errors but I'll keep an eye on it and play another couple rounds to see if anything crops up while I'm playing. All motherboard drivers are current. You might be on to something with the HDD issue though, it is a WD drive. Is there a solution to that, which I might be able to address? It is rather frequent(2 minutes inbetween maybe) and a very short freeze. The HDD it's installed on is a WD30EZRX, btw.

 

[Solandri]

You might be on to something with the HDD issue though, it is a WD drive. Is there a solution to that, which I might be able to address? It is rather frequent(2 minutes inbetween maybe) and a very short freeze. The HDD it's installed on is a WD30EZRX, btw.

Ugh, WD Green. Yeah, those definitely suffer the head parking problem. Try the script I made and posted in this thread:

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3291249/hdd-giving-problems-games.html#19105974

 

[JustSomeNumbers]

Yeah, I ran that script while I was playing and it seemed to correct the problem. I think it's definitely a head-parking issue.

 

[JustSomeNumbers]

So what can I do about it, besides buying a new HDD?

 

[Solandri]

The four options I gave in the linked post (run the script when you game, try widdle3 at the risk of bricking your drive, use CrystalDiskInfo to change the drive's powersave settings, or replace the drive) are the only solutions I've found.

The script doesn't use much resources. It pings itself, which causes a 1 second pause between ping attempts. After 8 pings, it writes a random number to the disk. If you minimize the text box, your computer won't even use resources drawing the text box. So if it's not too annoying you can just run the script whenever you game. Just make a shortcut to test.bat on your desktop and double-click it before you game (or leave it running all the time). You can ctrl-c inside the text box to kill it.

If that's too much of a bother, I'd try CrystalDiskInfo. It worked on my WD drive (came standard in a gaming laptop), though I had to re-do it every few reboots. I just got in the habit of putting the laptop to sleep instead of shutting it down.

Ideally though you'd get a new system drive, and demote the WD Green to backups and media storage (do not put a pagefile on it or you'll suffer the same problem even though it's no longer the system drive).

 

[JustSomeNumbers]

I've got space on my SSD so I moved the page file to that, but as far as SWBFII goes I'm going to need to get a new HDD since I don't feel like messing around with firmware settings. In the meantime I'll keep that script running when I play the game, just to make sure that's actually the problem and not something else.