[SOLVED] Game stuttering

[enduremcsgclan]

Hello, I've realized in the past couple of months, I've been getting random stutters when playing Rust. I've opened task manager and watched as I play and noticed that at random times, my SSD will spike to 100% and cause the game to stutter. What are the solutions to this? Note that this usually only happens while I'm playing Rust, only occasional on other games. Could it be possible that my SSD is finally going out? I've only had it for about 3 or 4 years.

Specs:
AMD Ryzen 5 2600X
Cooler Master MasterLiquid LC240E
ASRock X470 Master SLI/AC
G,Skill Ripjaws V 16GB (2x8) DDR4-3000
Patriot Spark 2.5" 512 GB SSD
EVGA GTX 1660 Ti 6GB SC Ultra Gaming
NZXT S340 Elite
Corsair CXM 550W 80+ Bronze Certified PSU

 

[Frag Maniac]

Are you keeping the SSD capacity to less than 85% of actual space available? That is a strong recommendation not just for HDDs, but SSDs as well.

 

[enduremcsgclan]

Are you keeping the SSD capacity to less than 85% of actual space available? That is a strong recommendation not just for HDDs, but SSDs as well.

I have 212 GB free of 476 GB on my SSD. My HDD is at 486 GB free of 931 GB.

 

[Frag Maniac]

In the last 2 months, have you installed any 3rd party programs you're running, particularly in the background while gaming, or done any robust cleaning of the PC?

Also, what do you mean by the SSD spiked to 100%? Have you run any diagnostics on the drive?

 

[enduremcsgclan]

I do not believe I have installed any 3rd party programs in the last 2 months and no robust cleaning in the past 2 months. I haven't done a deep clean in a while, I tend to use a can of compressed air (assuming you mean actual cleaning and not disk cleaning).

What diagnostics would you recommend?

Here is a screenshot of what I mean when I say my SSD spikes to 100% usage. Within the times that it is at 100% usage, my game is stuttering or even frozen at some points.

 

[enduremcsgclan]

In the last 2 months, have you installed any 3rd party programs you're running, particularly in the background while gaming, or done any robust cleaning of the PC?

Also, what do you mean by the SSD spiked to 100%? Have you run any diagnostics on the drive?

See above.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Most SSD manufacturer's have a free drive diagnostic tool to use. Samsung's is called Magician. There are also free 3rd party SSD benching tools, and I don't think you have to use your own brand's tool. You really need to check the drive itself before assuming it's bad though, and make sure you have any driver it may need installed, and check that TRIM is working.

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-ensure-trim-enabled-windows-10-speed-ssd-performance

 

[enduremcsgclan]

Most SSD manufacturer's have a free drive diagnostic tool to use. Samsung's is called Magician. There are also free 3rd party SSD benching tools, and I don't think you have to use your own brand's tool. You really need to check the drive itself before assuming it's bad though, and make sure you have any driver it may need installed, and check that TRIM is working.

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-ensure-trim-enabled-windows-10-speed-ssd-performance

I looked into Samsung's Magician diagnostic tool, it doesn't work for my SSD. I benched my SSD and provided the benchmark and disk info below. Patriot has a SATA toolbox application but it doesn't have diagnostics in it. It also states that my SSD is "too old" and doesn't have any firmware updates available. I checked via device manager to see if there were any driver updates for my Patriot Spark SSD, it says it is currently using the most up to date driver. I used your guide provided and made sure that TRIM is enabled. I'll be checking later tonight to see if I am still spiking to 100% disk usage while attempting to play Rust.

Patriot Spark Disk Info
Patriot Spark Disk Benchmark

 

[Frag Maniac]

Actually that Toolbox app does do a diagnostic since it checks for bad blocks. It shows that it passed every test without any errors. The only reason it says 68% on health is likely because of how many writes and erases are recorded in it's memory, and that's the way ALL SSD drives are measured as far as estimated lifespan goes.

If you're sure you have no software problems, including doing a full SFC scan with image restoration before running it as MS recommends, it could possibly be the PSU (I noticed you did not list it in your spec).

Follow these instructions exactly...

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...-windows-365e0031-36b1-6031-f804-8fd86e0ef4ca

 

[enduremcsgclan]

Actually that Toolbox app does do a diagnostic since it checks for bad blocks. It shows that it passed every test without any errors. The only reason it says 68% on health is likely because of how many writes and erases are recorded in it's memory, and that's the way ALL SSD drives are measured as far as estimated lifespan goes.

If you're sure you have no software problems, including doing a full SFC scan with image restoration before running it as MS recommends, it could possibly be the PSU (I noticed you did not list it in your spec).

Follow these instructions exactly...

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...-windows-365e0031-36b1-6031-f804-8fd86e0ef4ca

I went through the guide step by step correctly and it states "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations." In my original post I had misspoken saying that my SSD is only 3 or 4 years old. My SSD is actually probably around 5 years old (not sure if this is relevant to any problems). My power supply was listed in my specs (at the bottom) and was bought near the end of 2018.

 

[enduremcsgclan]

This may seem like a silly question, but could high RAM usage (roughly 15.3 GB / 16 GB) cause spikes in disk usage? Rust is RAM intensive game it seems and I'm not sure if that's a factor or not.

 

[Frag Maniac]

This may seem like a silly question, but could high RAM usage (roughly 15.3 GB / 16 GB) cause spikes in disk usage? Rust is RAM intensive game it seems and I'm not sure if that's a factor or not.

Well the person in the following YT vid has nearly identical spec, and although, yes, RAM usage is high, it's staying under 13GB. You might want to have a look at his graphics settings and take note of the differences.

A game using over 15GB RAM when you have only 16GB is definitely a problem on a modern OS like W10 though, and likely the cause of the problem. I am very diligent about what OS settings I use, especially since W10 is so telemetry heavy. I have all it's apps turned off and I use O&O to block all of it's telemetry. The result is it uses about 1 GB less RAM because of it.