Lag and Stutter In Every Game

[sumdudez]

Hello.

I've asked this question on other websites and also browsed the forums for this website, but I haven't been getting very good results. Since two weeks ago, I've been able to play pc games with no lag or stutter (Mass Effect 2/3, Half-Life 2, Crysis 2). However, ever since I've been playing Skyrim, all of the games I mentioned before stutter when I play them. This stutter happens every 5-10 seconds. I know this is not a connection issue because I've only been playing these games on single player. I also logged the temperatures to 65C after 15 minutes of playing Skyrim, in which the game still stutters at all quality settings. I've been told anything over 100C is dangerous. As I mentioned before, even low-end games like half-life 2 have been stuttering. Here are my specs:

Windows 7
Radeon HD 6670
500W PSU
4gb RAM
AMD Athlon x2 II 220 ~2.8ghz

Here are the things I have tried to do:

1. I've cleaned out the dust in the fans.
2. Having been told that version 12.6 CCC had bugs, I removed and installed a clean copy of v12.4. I've also done a driver rollback to DEC 2011, which also has been ineffective. I am currently still on 12.4
3. I've run all the games on windows XP compatibility (service pack 2 and 3) and only Half-Life 2 has been able to work better, but with less frequent stutters.
4. I've noticed that my CPU Usage on the task manager has been jumping from 10% to over 50%, so I've manually disabled some processes which some websites said were safe to disable. The jump is gone and some of the stuttering is gone, but I would like to have no stutter at all.

The only thing I could assume is that I have yet to find a suitable version of the CCC to roll back to. My other guess would be that my processor is going bad (I've had this computer for 2 years). I've seen other videos of people who also have the HD 6670 and a dual core processor, so I don't think it's a hardware problem. I'm not a computer whiz, so I'd really appreciate if any solutions could be simple as possible. Thanks again for any help and sorry for this long text!

 

[XperiaAir]

Hello.

I've asked this question on other websites and also browsed the forums for this website, but I haven't been getting very good results. Since two weeks ago, I've been able to play pc games with no lag or stutter (Mass Effect 2/3, Half-Life 2, Crysis 2). However, ever since I've been playing Skyrim, all of the games I mentioned before stutter when I play them. This stutter happens every 5-10 seconds. I know this is not a connection issue because I've only been playing these games on single player. I also logged the temperatures to 65C after 15 minutes of playing Skyrim, in which the game still stutters at all quality settings. I've been told anything over 100C is dangerous. As I mentioned before, even low-end games like half-life 2 have been stuttering. Here are my specs:

Windows 7
Radeon HD 6670
500W PSU
4gb RAM
AMD Athlon x2 II 220 ~2.8ghz

Here are the things I have tried to do:

1. I've cleaned out the dust in the fans.
2. Having been told that version 12.6 CCC had bugs, I removed and installed a clean copy of v12.4. I've also done a driver rollback to DEC 2011, which also has been ineffective. I am currently still on 12.4
3. I've run all the games on windows XP compatibility (service pack 2 and 3) and only Half-Life 2 has been able to work better, but with less frequent stutters.
4. I've noticed that my CPU Usage on the task manager has been jumping from 10% to over 50%, so I've manually disabled some processes which some websites said were safe to disable. The jump is gone and some of the stuttering is gone, but I would like to have no stutter at all.

The only thing I could assume is that I have yet to find a suitable version of the CCC to roll back to. My other guess would be that my processor is going bad (I've had this computer for 2 years). I've seen other videos of people who also have the HD 6670 and a dual core processor, so I don't think it's a hardware problem. I'm not a computer whiz, so I'd really appreciate if any solutions could be simple as possible. Thanks again for any help and sorry for this long text!

your processor is fairly slow, try looking into an intel i5 2500k, i use the 2320 and it runs a lot of things on max settings, but i know it isnt your graphics card, i have the same one and it is a beast

 

[simon12]

Is the 65C your CPU or GPU if its the CPU it could be the problem.

 

[AntiZig]

I'd advise to recheck the temperatures and usage for CPU, GPU and RAM. Use a prog like hwinfo. My guess is either you have a driver problem with something besides your GPU or it's a hardware issue. I don't want to necessarily say that it's your CPU, it's weak, but it's almost 3ghz, so that's not so bad. If it's in good working conditions it should work fine with games like HL2 and skyrim.

Other things to check is what resolution are you gaming on? 1080p might be too much for 6670 in some games. Also check that you turned off anti-aliasing, it tends to hit your fps pretty hard.

 

[sumdudez]

I'd advise to recheck the temperatures and usage for CPU, GPU and RAM. Use a prog like hwinfo. My guess is either you have a driver problem with something besides your GPU or it's a hardware issue. I don't want to necessarily say that it's your CPU, it's weak, but it's almost 3ghz, so that's not so bad. If it's in good working conditions it should work fine with games like HL2 and skyrim.

Other things to check is what resolution are you gaming on? 1080p might be too much for 6670 in some games. Also check that you turned off anti-aliasing, it tends to hit your fps pretty hard.

My resolution is 1600x900. I've set Skyrim on high, medium, and low settings, which disables AA, and I still have this problem. I've tried to empty out save files and the stuttering has lessened.

 

[venjhammet]

Skyrim uses a lot of ram especially if you had that High Res Texture Pack installed. You need to add more ram and the stutter will completely go away.

 

[simon12]

If it all used to run OK then its not your hardware specification. I still think temps are possible have you checked the CPU and GPU temps with HWMonitor? I could be a driver issue or a spyware/virus problem. It is also possible that a part is failing so you could try running a benchmark to see if to get the results you should ie sisandra or 3dmark.

 

[tuskman]

i have exactly the same problem. i have been playing games on my laptop since Y2011 and everything was fine until Sep-Oct 2012. The video seems to freeze/stutter every 5-10sec and the audio would loop. For example, if the game would say "Our base is under attack!", it would actually go "Our base is under attack-tack-tack-tack-tack-tack!". It even affected my internet explorer! I recall it happened right after I have installed a couple of new (and genuine) games so I think it's one of the updates I have installed (~October 2012) that made it sick because I recall playing a few games before that and it was still fine. I've uninstalled all those new games and the problem persisted. I then re-installed my windows 7 and updated all my drivers (I think... all those onine driver checks will always say you need to update something anyway so you'd buy their product) but the problem is still there. I plan to bring it to the manufacturer when I go back to my country because nothing online seems to be helping.

windows home basic 64-bit
i7-2630QM
40GB RAM (enuf for all them programs to cha-cha!)
Intel(R) HD3000