High Memory, High Disk usage , Medium ranged CPU = Unplayable with games

[CaolanD]

I have a rig running poorly in term of memory, CPU and disk space. On average The CPU runs at 50-60%, memory at 80-100% and diskspace jumps around all the way up to 100%. Everything goes up in usage when running games or virus scans for example.
GPU- MSI GTX 970

CPU- i5 4460

RAM- Hyperx furys 2x4 GB DDR3 1866mhz

Motherboard- msi z97 gaming 3

OS- Windows 10 home 64-bit

I dont know how many solutions i have tried to fix this, it has been getting on my nerves as i havent been able to play game nor run programs like i use to be able to do. ive scanned the disk for errors, and made sure there are no viruses/ malware . I did just recently disable windows sending me notifications and a few of the default windows apps, I also disabled superfetch, windows search and BITS. i have also tried to increase my computer's Virtual memory to see whether that would have an effect. Even one of the smallest programs while have such a dramatic effect on my disk usage and memory, Even recently google chrome has been taken up over 50% of my memory which it has never done before.Games like Overwatch which my computer never struggled with has been having a lot of stutters and freezes this gets even worse in games like GTA V which i was able to run A OK before this started to happen.
Im not a very smart guy when it comes to these things i would only know the basics but my friend said that my hard drive might be failing ,is this a possibility?, so should i get a new hard drive and a possible SSD to help counter these problems or is it something else. Please help! if there is anything that i can include to help you identify my problem just say so and i will get right on it.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Folks ten d to over fixate on usage and often the utility that is being used is at fault. Look at GPU-Z for example. Improper reliance on GPU-z has led to millions of internet posts calling for large amounts if VRAM, when the real problem is, they don' realize what GPUz does. I does NOT measure RAM usage, it measures what the OS has allocated.

For example, when you have a credit card with a limit of $5,000 and an outstanding balance of $500 .... it's not the $500 that gets reported to the bank when you apply for the loan, it's the $5,000/ The credit card company, has allotted you a credit limit of $5,000 ... and you could use it any time you wanted to. The same thing happens on you PC.

When you load a game, and the utility sees that you have 4 GB of VRAM. the utility might decide ... "let's **allocate** 2.5 GB for this game. Once running it may be using far less than that but GPUz is reporting 2.5 GB. The first web site to blow this fake need for mere and more VRAM was alienbabeltech which unfortunately no longer active. They tested about 40 games with 2GB and 4 GB 770s at 1080p and 5860 x 1080.. Here's that they found:

1. For most games, there was no significant performance difference between the 2 GB and 4 GB cards. Sometimes the 4 GB won by a hair, sometimes to the 2 GB won by a hair.

2. In games where there was a notable difference it was irrelevant. At 5760 x 1080, the 4GB card beat the 2 GB by a statistically relevant margin ... however, in both instances the game was un-playable. Does it really matter is one game is 25% faster than the other, when the 2 GB gets 16 fps and the 4 GB gets 20 ? Either way ... unplayable.

3. Several other web sites reported the same thing and the results were again confirmed by extremetech.

GPU-Z claims to report how much VRAM the GPU actually uses, but there’s a significant caveat to this metric. GPU-Z doesn’t actually report how much VRAM the GPU is actually using — instead, it reports the amount of VRAM that a game has requested. We spoke to Nvidia’s Brandon Bell on this topic, who told us the following: “None of the GPU tools on the market report memory usage correctly, whether it’s GPU-Z, Afterburner, Precision, etc. They all report the amount of memory requested by the GPU, not the actual memory usage. Cards will larger memory will request more memory, but that doesn’t mean that they actually use it. They simply request it because the memory is available.”

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/213069-is-4gb-of-vram-enough-amds-fury-x-faces-off-with-nvidias-gtx-980-ti-titan-x

So .. what they are saying is that, running a certain game at 1080p, with 4 GB, the game may allocate 2.5 GB, whereas with 8GB it may allocate 4.5 GB "simple because it is available for use". In reality both cards will use the same amount of VRAM and, as a results heave nearly identical fps and image quality.

The site went on to show that, under no circumstance could they get any card to draw more than 4 GB, unless they went to 4k resolution at extreme settings. And, again, when they could create a difference, the game was unplayable with either card.

The same is true for system RAM usage. Right now my on screen memory utility reports that I am using 99% of my 16 GB by having a 13 year old MMO running ... Task Manager says 25% ....The CPU utility reports 47%, TM 28%.

If you want to see what is using your CPU. disk space and memory and find out if anything is running that shouldn't, open Task Manager, go to Processes tab / View / Options / Select columns. Add the columns that you want to track. Click in the column title to toggle most usage / least usage rankings. With "most", you can see what EXE files are using those resources. 1) if something that shouldn't be there, track it down and remove it. 2) if not necessary, eliminate it by preventing it from starting with msconfig

One thing that is a common culprit ... Chrome can eat tons of memory and disk space ... doesn't seem to happen on every machine but when i find a machine w/ Chrome it, solving extreme memory usage and slowdowns seems to go away a lotta times once it is removed.

 

[alceryes]

I agree with @JackNaylorPE that you may be fixating a bit. Can you pinpoint a particular time when the performance tanked or was it a gradual decline?
An SSD would definitely help. Especially if you reload your system from scratch, since that will also take issues with the OS or a rogue program out of the equation. Have you run any stress tests?

 

[CaolanD]

I agree with @JackNaylorPE that you may be fixating a bit. Can you pinpoint a particular time when the performance tanked or was it a gradual decline?
An SSD would definitely help. Especially if you reload your system from scratch, since that will also take issues with the OS or a rogue program out of the equation. Have you run any stress tests?

Thanks for both of the reply that was pretty quick, if you are talking about the time that these do become an issue is when it is trying to load something in like a new piece of the map or opening a different tab in a program. i dont know how to perform a stress test if you wouldnt mind telling me how to do it?

 

[CaolanD]

Folks ten d to over fixate on usage and often the utility that is being used is at fault. Look at GPU-Z for example. Improper reliance on GPU-z has led to millions of internet posts calling for large amounts if VRAM, when the real problem is, they don' realize what GPUz does. I does NOT measure RAM usage, it measures what the OS has allocated.

For example, when you have a credit card with a limit of $5,000 and an outstanding balance of $500 .... it's not the $500 that gets reported to the bank when you apply for the loan, it's the $5,000/ The credit card company, has allotted you a credit limit of $5,000 ... and you could use it any time you wanted to. The same thing happens on you PC.

When you load a game, and the utility sees that you have 4 GB of VRAM. the utility might decide ... "let's **allocate** 2.5 GB for this game. Once running it may be using far less than that but GPUz is reporting 2.5 GB. The first web site to blow this fake need for mere and more VRAM was alienbabeltech which unfortunately no longer active. They tested about 40 games with 2GB and 4 GB 770s at 1080p and 5860 x 1080.. Here's that they found:

1. For most games, there was no significant performance difference between the 2 GB and 4 GB cards. Sometimes the 4 GB won by a hair, sometimes to the 2 GB won by a hair.

2. In games where there was a notable difference it was irrelevant. At 5760 x 1080, the 4GB card beat the 2 GB by a statistically relevant margin ... however, in both instances the game was un-playable. Does it really matter is one game is 25% faster than the other, when the 2 GB gets 16 fps and the 4 GB gets 20 ? Either way ... unplayable.

3. Several other web sites reported the same thing and the results were again confirmed by extremetech.

GPU-Z claims to report how much VRAM the GPU actually uses, but there’s a significant caveat to this metric. GPU-Z doesn’t actually report how much VRAM the GPU is actually using — instead, it reports the amount of VRAM that a game has requested. We spoke to Nvidia’s Brandon Bell on this topic, who told us the following: “None of the GPU tools on the market report memory usage correctly, whether it’s GPU-Z, Afterburner, Precision, etc. They all report the amount of memory requested by the GPU, not the actual memory usage. Cards will larger memory will request more memory, but that doesn’t mean that they actually use it. They simply request it because the memory is available.”

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/213069-is-4gb-of-vram-enough-amds-fury-x-faces-off-with-nvidias-gtx-980-ti-titan-x

So .. what they are saying is that, running a certain game at 1080p, with 4 GB, the game may allocate 2.5 GB, whereas with 8GB it may allocate 4.5 GB "simple because it is available for use". In reality both cards will use the same amount of VRAM and, as a results heave nearly identical fps and image quality.

The site went on to show that, under no circumstance could they get any card to draw more than 4 GB, unless they went to 4k resolution at extreme settings. And, again, when they could create a difference, the game was unplayable with either card.

The same is true for system RAM usage. Right now my on screen memory utility reports that I am using 99% of my 16 GB by having a 13 year old MMO running ... Task Manager says 25% ....The CPU utility reports 47%, TM 28%.

If you want to see what is using your CPU. disk space and memory and find out if anything is running that shouldn't, open Task Manager, go to Processes tab / View / Options / Select columns. Add the columns that you want to track. Click in the column title to toggle most usage / least usage rankings. With "most", you can see what EXE files are using those resources. 1) if something that shouldn't be there, track it down and remove it. 2) if not necessary, eliminate it by preventing it from starting with msconfig

One thing that is a common culprit ... Chrome can eat tons of memory and disk space ... doesn't seem to happen on every machine but when i find a machine w/ Chrome it, solving extreme memory usage and slowdowns seems to go away a lotta times once it is removed.

Yea by looking at it google chrome is roughly eating up around 3-4gbs but that is unusally as that didnt happen that often till recently.

 

[alceryes]

I agree with @JackNaylorPE that you may be fixating a bit. Can you pinpoint a particular time when the performance tanked or was it a gradual decline?
An SSD would definitely help. Especially if you reload your system from scratch, since that will also take issues with the OS or a rogue program out of the equation. Have you run any stress tests?

Thanks for both of the reply that was pretty quick, if you are talking about the time that these do become an issue is when it is trying to load something in like a new piece of the map or opening a different tab in a program. i dont know how to perform a stress test if you wouldnt mind telling me how to do it?

Right, but it sounds like this pause used to *not* happen when loading a new piece of a map or a different tab. Is this true? If so, did you change anything on the PC just before this performance degradation started occurring? ...started playing a new game? ...installed some new software? ...updated/changed your AV? Are you overclocking or changed your overclock settings recently?