Games running very choppy

[Lazar_99]

I have been having problems in games recently. Every game i play runs very choppy (like high FPS but constantly skipping every second). These games are: GTA 5, Far Cry 4, CS GO, BF4.
I have never experienced this kind of behavior on my old HD 6850 and the 7950 is brand new, but it worked fine for 2 weeks after i got it and now this seems to randomly occur. Games sometimes run fine and sometimes run unplayably choppy no matter how high or low FPS is.

What i already done is: Update all drivers including the BIOS to the latest possible version, Selected high performance in the power plan, monitored the temps while playing games (CPU never goes above 52 degrees celsius, GPU never goes above 60 degrees, motherboard runs at about 40 degrees). Also i'm using Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit OS

PC spec: Sapphire HD 7950 Boost, Unlocked Athlon II X3 445, 2x4gb Corsair Vengeance 1600mhz, MSI 970A-G46, Antec HCG 620W PSU, Seagate Barracuda 1TB HDD, Zalman CNPS9900MAX CPU cooler, Raidmax Narwhal PC case.

 

[geofelt]

You have changed your limiting factor(AKA bottleneck) from the graphics card to the cpu.
I think what you are seeing is the slow cpu cores struggling to feed the graphics card.

Try this test to verify in a backhanded way:

Limit your cpu, either by reducing the OC, or, in windows power management, limit the maximum cpu% to something like 70%.
Go to control panel/power options/change plan settings/change advanced power settings/processor power management/maximum processor state/
This will simulate what a lack of cpu power will do.
Conversely what a 30% improvement in core speed might do.

You could also experiment with removing one core. You can do this in the windows msconfig boot advanced options option. set the number of processors to less than you have.
This will tell you how sensitive your games are to the benefits of many cores.

If your FPS drops significantly, it is an indicator that your cpu is the limiting factor, and a cpu upgrade is in order.

 

[photonboy]

CPU bottleneck.
It probably didn't happen as much before because the GPU to CPU difference wasn't a high. Now with the HD7950 you can crank the settings higher but any time you get high CPU usage it causes a bottleneck thus stuttering.

For comparison, I'll list the i5-4690K passmark score which also does not have hyperthreading though note it has FOUR cores and yours has THREE:

X3-445: 2314

i5-4690K: 7758

No SINGLE THREAD performance was given (not exactly Total/core count) so instead we'll just do Total/core count. Thus the comparison is:
771 vs
1939

*An FX-4300 can be as much as over 40% slower than the i5-4690K (depends on the game) and it compares at a score of 1162 so that gives us a rough idea of bottleneck potential in some games. FYI, the "single thread" performance is always higher than this score because most programs can't use all cores at the same time so the single thread metric is more applicable at times (again, wasn't given at Passmark so had to use the method above).

*Now it's POSSIBLE that it's not solely a CPU bottleneck issue though you definitely are getting a bottleneck at times (possibly most of the time though it varies by the game AND in the game).

**TOMB RAIDER would be an excellent game to try. It doesn't tend to have a CPU bottleneck, runs very SMOOTH on most setups, and is a really GREAT game. If that runs fine then that suggest a CPU bottleneck in the other games.

Other:
You may want to upgrade to Windows 10 especially if it's been a while since you installed. That MAY make a difference, though mainly if there's some software issue that this corrects NOT because W10 is faster (should be similar).

Apparently though W7 to W8 helped in BF4 for some people though that might only have been an Intel core parking issue.

AMD has also had some DRIVER issues reported and difficulties getting them sorted even with a reinstall (so again a reinstall may or may not help).

Summary:
- CPU bottleneck?
- relative performance to other CPU's discussed
- Tomb Raider smooth?
- Windows 10 upgrade?

 

[photonboy]

Tomb Raider: http://www.techspot.com/review/645-tomb-raider-performance/page5.html

*An X2-265 is still averaging 61FPS, on ULTRA with no AA using an HD7970.

(not sure about low FPS scores though). So this is definitely a game to try.

RadeonPRO:
Other: You might want to try using "Dynamic VSYNC" in RadeonPro which works like "Adaptive VSYNC" for NVidia. This automatically disables VSYNC if you can't output high enough.

For example, if using a 60Hz monitor you'll be locked to 60FPS VSYNC ON. Normally, if you dropped to 59FPS or below you'd get STUTTERING due to the varying frame times (1/60th and 2/60th second) causes by missing updates.

With Adaptive/Dynamic VSYNC it automatically disables VSYNC so you get screen tearing like normal instead of the stuttering.

You may already be getting sudden drops due to a CPU bottleneck but STUTTER on top of that would make it even worse.

 

[Lazar_99]

You have changed your limiting factor(AKA bottleneck) from the graphics card to the cpu.
I think what you are seeing is the slow cpu cores struggling to feed the graphics card.

Try this test to verify in a backhanded way:

Limit your cpu, either by reducing the OC, or, in windows power management, limit the maximum cpu% to something like 70%.
Go to control panel/power options/change plan settings/change advanced power settings/processor power management/maximum processor state/
This will simulate what a lack of cpu power will do.
Conversely what a 30% improvement in core speed might do.

You could also experiment with removing one core. You can do this in the windows msconfig boot advanced options option. set the number of processors to less than you have.
This will tell you how sensitive your games are to the benefits of many cores.

If your FPS drops significantly, it is an indicator that your cpu is the limiting factor, and a cpu upgrade is in order.

Tomb Raider: http://www.techspot.com/review/645-tomb-raider-performance/page5.html

*An X2-265 is still averaging 61FPS, on ULTRA with no AA using an HD7970.

(not sure about low FPS scores though). So this is definitely a game to try.

RadeonPRO:
Other: You might want to try using "Dynamic VSYNC" in RadeonPro which works like "Adaptive VSYNC" for NVidia. This automatically disables VSYNC if you can't output high enough.

For example, if using a 60Hz monitor you'll be locked to 60FPS VSYNC ON. Normally, if you dropped to 59FPS or below you'd get STUTTERING due to the varying frame times (1/60th and 2/60th second) causes by missing updates.

With Adaptive/Dynamic VSYNC it automatically disables VSYNC so you get screen tearing like normal instead of the stuttering.

You may already be getting sudden drops due to a CPU bottleneck but STUTTER on top of that would make it even worse.

So far i have been able to make CS GO run smooth as silk by limiting the fps to 60 by the means of using the console, Vsync got the job done but then it created input lag of some sort. I'm going to try out Tomb Raider and see how it goes. Note that i unlocked the 4th core on this CPU so its not a triple core anymore. And i have noticed a significant bottleneck in FC4 and GTA 5 where the GPU usage would at best reach 85% usage but i didn't know that it was going to cause choppy gameplay

 

[Lazar_99]

CPU bottleneck.
It probably didn't happen as much before because the GPU to CPU difference wasn't a high. Now with the HD7950 you can crank the settings higher but any time you get high CPU usage it causes a bottleneck thus stuttering.

For comparison, I'll list the i5-4690K passmark score which also does not have hyperthreading though note it has FOUR cores and yours has THREE:

X3-445: 2314

i5-4690K: 7758

No SINGLE THREAD performance was given (not exactly Total/core count) so instead we'll just do Total/core count. Thus the comparison is:
771 vs
1939

*An FX-4300 can be as much as over 40% slower than the i5-4690K (depends on the game) and it compares at a score of 1162 so that gives us a rough idea of bottleneck potential in some games. FYI, the "single thread" performance is always higher than this score because most programs can't use all cores at the same time so the single thread metric is more applicable at times (again, wasn't given at Passmark so had to use the method above).

*Now it's POSSIBLE that it's not solely a CPU bottleneck issue though you definitely are getting a bottleneck at times (possibly most of the time though it varies by the game AND in the game).

**TOMB RAIDER would be an excellent game to try. It doesn't tend to have a CPU bottleneck, runs very SMOOTH on most setups, and is a really GREAT game. If that runs fine then that suggest a CPU bottleneck in the other games.

Other:
You may want to upgrade to Windows 10 especially if it's been a while since you installed. That MAY make a difference, though mainly if there's some software issue that this corrects NOT because W10 is faster (should be similar).

Apparently though W7 to W8 helped in BF4 for some people though that might only have been an Intel core parking issue.

AMD has also had some DRIVER issues reported and difficulties getting them sorted even with a reinstall (so again a reinstall may or may not help).

Summary:
- CPU bottleneck?
- relative performance to other CPU's discussed
- Tomb Raider smooth?
- Windows 10 upgrade?

Tomb Raider: http://www.techspot.com/review/645-tomb-raider-performance/page5.html

*An X2-265 is still averaging 61FPS, on ULTRA with no AA using an HD7970.

(not sure about low FPS scores though). So this is definitely a game to try.

RadeonPRO:
Other: You might want to try using "Dynamic VSYNC" in RadeonPro which works like "Adaptive VSYNC" for NVidia. This automatically disables VSYNC if you can't output high enough.

For example, if using a 60Hz monitor you'll be locked to 60FPS VSYNC ON. Normally, if you dropped to 59FPS or below you'd get STUTTERING due to the varying frame times (1/60th and 2/60th second) causes by missing updates.

With Adaptive/Dynamic VSYNC it automatically disables VSYNC so you get screen tearing like normal instead of the stuttering.

You may already be getting sudden drops due to a CPU bottleneck but STUTTER on top of that would make it even worse.

I tried Tomb Raider 2013 and it worked flawlessly, no skipping or choppy gameplay whatsoever at highest settings except AA, i used FXAA although i didn't try 4xSSAA. I mistakenly clicked on the "pick as the best answer" button instead of the reply 🙂pfff: Though i at least didn't pick the wrong answer 😀

 

[geofelt]

@Lazar_99:
If you want to continue the discussion, and unselect best answer, I can do that for you.

 

[Lazar_99]

@Lazar_99:
If you want to continue the discussion, and unselect best answer, I can do that for you.

Yes, i would like to continue the discussion. And btw, i didn't mention that i didn't feel the games being choppy up until a few days ago and most games tend to crash if i perform an action like for example, press the action button to light a torch in Tomb Raider or in GTA 5 when i want to buy clothes in shops and things like that. It just freezes and gives me the "this program has stopped working".

 

[Lazar_99]

Ok guys, i think i may have a faulty HDD. Even before my 6850 died, my PC would randomly become unresponsive for 5-10 seconds, though the mouse cursor could be moved, anything else like pressing crl-alt-del and clicking on icons didn't work. When it happened in games, it would stop loading the world and cause me to get stuck in place if i go toward the unloaded part and i would have to wait until those 5-10 seconds passed before i could move again. I should have mentioned this earlier but this was something different and didn't happen for a while when i got the 7950, so i assume the HDD is faulty. I did reinstall the OS even before my 6850 died and the random unresponsiveness still occurred. The HDD is a Seagate Barracuda 1TB drive.

 

[himynameiswill]

Ok guys, i think i may have a faulty HDD. Even before my 6850 died, my PC would randomly become unresponsive for 5-10 seconds, though the mouse cursor could be moved, anything else like pressing crl-alt-del and clicking on icons didn't work. When it happened in games, it would stop loading the world and cause me to get stuck in place if i go toward the unloaded part and i would have to wait until those 5-10 seconds passed before i could move again. I should have mentioned this earlier but this was something different and didn't happen for a while when i got the 7950, so i assume the HDD is faulty. I did reinstall the OS even before my 6850 died and the random unresponsiveness still occurred. The HDD is a Seagate Barracuda 1TB drive.

Odd, the same thing happened to me. I went from an old AMD card to a 970 and new PSU and my computer would become super unresponsive (before I bought the card also). Sometimes it would work, most of the time it wouldn't. And when it did work it was still slow. After about 3 days of owning the card, my HDD completely died (I think I have a thread on here asking about it.)

Seeing as how similar your situation sounds to what I had, I would also assume your HDD may be on its way out.

 

[Lazar_99]

I found out that the VRM's were overheating and caused throttling (yeah, again the 970A-G46 proves it has bad VRM's). I did some testing and i got a break when i disabled the 4th core which dropped power usage from 147W to 105W and didn't get choppy gameplay even in a hot room temp. Both the board and the CPU need replacing, at the very least, i'm going to get an FX 6300 and use it at stock speeds...
It is this site that made me certain that VRM's were causing throttling: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a8k1fAzGnSNQGsMJi4Rl22RRdG_4ni98heLTM_SxNGQ/preview

 

[BillV523]

Probably not the answer (apologies), but I installed the Zalman CNPS9900max-r on an AMD FX8350 in a Thermaltake Soprano case, Asus M5A88-M, GSkill 32GB ripjawsX xmp'd at 1600mhz. The Zalman air gap between the front cooling pipes and fan is too large (almost large enough for a second fan), allows air to enter around the fan instead of pulling air through the front pipes - doesn't cool effectively. Normal internet surfing without video or audio and no gaming, is running 48 - 52C. The mounting sucks, if you have to remove the cooler, you have to remove the mobo. Idle temps are 38C, no different than the stock low profile Cooler Master that comes with the FX8350. Only good thing I can say about it is can use all four RAM slots.

 

[Lazar_99]

Probably not the answer (apologies), but I installed the Zalman CNPS9900max-r on an AMD FX8350 in a Thermaltake Soprano case, Asus M5A88-M, GSkill 32GB ripjawsX xmp'd at 1600mhz. The Zalman air gap between the front cooling pipes and fan is too large (almost large enough for a second fan), allows air to enter around the fan instead of pulling air through the front pipes - doesn't cool effectively. Normal internet surfing without video or audio and no gaming, is running 48 - 52C. The mounting sucks, if you have to remove the cooler, you have to remove the mobo. Idle temps are 38C, no different than the stock low profile Cooler Master that comes with the FX8350. Only good thing I can say about it is can use all four RAM slots.

You probably didn't properly install it. Although, i don't blame you for not installing it properly because like you said, the mounting sucks and that is my opinion as well. And it could be due to thermal paste not being applied properly or not enough. The best method that works for me is to just make a pea sized drop on the CPU and let the cooler spread it.