Question Frame Rate Issues

[Last_Approach]

(I posted a similar thread to this recently, but it seems to have completely vanished from the forum. My apologies if it still exists somewhere)

I am experiencing an issue with my PC at the moment which I cannot seem to resolve, and I was really hoping someone would know what's going on.

My Specs:

Ryzen 5 1600
8 gig RAM (DDR4 - 3000mhz - Dual 2x4gb)
RTX 2060 6gb

The issue that I have is that, while games are running very smooth for me (60fps), I will get what I can only describe as a "load stutter" - this is where, usually when traversing the landscape, the FPS will dip for no good reason to say, 55, then back up again. Interestingly, if I disable VSYNC in some of these games (such as Far Cry 5), the FPS shoots up to way more than expected (70/80 fps) - this shows it's not a hardware limitation in my opinion, but I'm really confused.

I have recently bought Metro Exodus and in this game I am noticing it WAY more than other games; again, it will run smooth 60fps, but in this game I'm getting the stutters even when firing sometimes.

The thing that annoys me is I've found a YouTube video of someone with a worse machine than mine, playing this game at a steady FPS without the issue I'm facing.

My question is; what on earth could be causing it? I want to upgrade or fix the issue, but I literally don't know what the problem is...if my FPS sucked then fair enough, but it absolutely doesn't...I just have these non-nonsensical DIPs, which are really disruptive to gameplay.

Games I've recently had this issue in:

Metro Exodus
Shadow of the Tomb Raider (not that bad really but it happens)
Far Cry 5 (this one is ALL the time..dips to 57/55).

I'm debating upgrading to 16gig RAM, but I'm really not convinced that will make any difference.

Does anyone have a clue what's going on here?

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Yes, for some of those games Your system has a slight imbalance. Firstly though, I'm so jealous of your RTX 😉

I suspect your running out of system ram for some if not all of those games. Other games like BF 1/V are the same. 8gbs of system ram is the limitation. 8gbs used to be the sweet-spot, but is now the min more often than not for AAA gaming, and it will continue like that. This is at 1080p res. BF V runs upward of 9-10gbs at 1080p. When you run out of system ram, you have to use the swap file/pagefile, which is located on your HD/SSD. This is much slower than your system ram, where normally your game data is loaded (providing you have enough ram). When that happens, you have those frame drops.

Also, the R1600 is a great CPU, but I would definitely consider OC'ing it, to get more from your GPU. If the slightly faster 1600x and it's OC'ed. You can get a good 10% extra FPS from your GPU with a relatively simple OC.

My recommendation is to get a 2 x 8gb mem kit (sell your current 8gb stick to offset the cost) and you will feel the benefits. It may be problematic to get just another stick of 3000mhz ram, because if it's not in a kit, you can't be sure they will work together. That's why getting a kit is always best advise.

edit: I'm not sure if your current ram is a 1 x 8gb, or 2 x 4gb. Having two DIMMS is best. It's called dual channel. 1 stick is single channel.. There is a 10-15% bump in performance between the two. Defo have a 2 x matched kit config.

 

[Last_Approach]

Thank you for the reply; I as actually looking at 2x8gb of RAM thats the same exact make etc as the 2 x 4gb I already have - the reason for that is I want to maintain dual channel for obvious reasons, and from what I understand 2 and 4 are the only dual combos (maths! ha!) and 1 and 3 sticks of course would be single.

I have tried overclocking my Ryzen a little in the past (using the Ryzen master...I'm scared to do anything outside of that), but I honestly didn't notice a huge improvement. I might have to look at playing around with that again, though as I mentioned I'm quite reluctant to do any BIOS changes as I don't want to set my machine on fire 😵

I guess my main worry with the RAM is that it's a lot of money (£100) for something I'm not even sure if it would help - I mean, when my RAM useage is only around 5gb then that would indicate 8gb is more than enough, right?