Inconsisent Frame Rates

[B Klipp]

Disclaimer: I am computer illiterate

I have a Lenovo Y510p laptop running windows 8.1. It has an i7 processor, 8GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA GT750M graphics card.

I use it primarily for gaming, and some days I will get 50 frames per second and smooth performance no problem, but other days I'm lucky if I get 5 frames. I don't change any settings, download any programs or make any other modifications in between, and I never have any other programs running in the background.

Regardless of how well my games are running, I often get warnings that my game is using up too much RAM despite being the only program running and never using more than 2GB of my 8GB total, and I will often see my desktop flash intermittently while playing.

I have no idea what could be causing these performance drops, and I have no idea where to even start looking.

Any help is extremely appreciated.

 

[NightAntilli]

Does your laptop automatically change between performance mode and energy saving mode?

Let me put it this way... Is there a difference in performance when you're playing with the laptop connected to the wall socket or on the battery?

 

[B Klipp]

Thank you for your reply, NightAntilli.

I checked my power settings and I have it set to High Performance whether it is plugged in or not. I rarely use my laptop while it is not plugged in, but I do often unplug it for transport. Would that make any sort of difference?

 

[NightAntilli]

Generally, laptops underclock the CPU for example, in order to make the battery last longer. But since it's set for high performance on both, I doubt that's the case.

Another thing to check for... Check in task manager for anything that might be using an abnormal amount of memory or CPU, when your performance is bad. I for example always had some issues with my sound drivers on my laptop, and it gave a constant 100% CPU usage, killing my gaming performance.

If that's not it, we'll keep looking for what else it can be.

 

[B Klipp]

Sorry for the long wait for a response. I looked at my task manager and the only thing that is abnormal is that my game that is using 2.2GB of RAM is reported to be using 80% of my 8GB of RAM which (obviously) doesn't add up. My framerate, which is pretty much a slideshow, is listed as being GPU bound most of the time. My CPU usage rarely rises above 15% and seldom spikes at 50%.

 

[B Klipp]

It appears that my issue is with the RAM, so I will try posting in a different forum.