Lag in large areas

[tomw708]

Hi all,

I have recently been playing games such as Borderlands 2, Assassin's Creed 2 etc. and I am getting perfect FPS (50-60 FPS) in small areas, inside buildings and stuff, but as soon as I step into a large area I lag lots. Any idea why? could it be my CPU?

My specs are -
AMD Radeon HD 7850 2gb
AMD Phenom ii x4 850 3.3ghz
4gb RAM
1920x1080 native resolution

Thanks

 

[hackerDON]

Try to lower the resolution and then play again. Hope it works

 

[tomw708]

Try to lower the resolution and then play again. Hope it works

Changed resolution, no change, but I did check the load on my CPU and GPU
The average load on my CPU during gaming is around 80%
The average load on my GPU during gaming is around 15%

Am I getting a bottleneck?

 

[renz496]

i think your cpu should be fine with your gpu though i believe there are still bottleneck to it. try overclockinng your cpu and see if it's help with your problem. also if possible try lowering draw distance as well if such option available in the game. larger draw distance will taxing gpu performance as well

 

[tomw708]

i think your cpu should be fine with your gpu though i believe there are still bottleneck to it. try overclockinng your cpu and see if it's help with your problem. also if possible try lowering draw distance as well if such option available in the game. larger draw distance will taxing gpu performance as well

OK, lowered draw distance in Borderlands 2 and a slight increase in performance but I am still getting massive drops to around 20fps sometimes in large areas so I am thinking about OC'ing the CPU, but I don't have the correct thermal paste and still have stock fan, would it be worth me investing in thermal paste if it is just a possibility that it will increase performance?

 

[renz496]

if bottleneck really is present then overclocking should increase the frame rates. for overclocking purpose you're definitely going to need better fan than your stock fan. about thermal paste just about any will do but if you want better performing one you can google about it. sorry i'm not really an expert on thermal paste stuff. if you don't want to spend much on after market cpu cooler just go pick something like cooler master hyper 212 which is proven to be good enough for decent overclock without breaking the bank.

 

[tomw708]

if bottleneck really is present then overclocking should increase the frame rates. for overclocking purpose you're definitely going to need better fan than your stock fan. about thermal paste just about any will do but if you want better performing one you can google about it. sorry i'm not really an expert on thermal paste stuff. if you don't want to spend much on after market cpu cooler just go pick something like cooler master hyper 212 which is proven to be good enough for decent overclock without breaking the bank.

Just looked in my computer to check if I had stock fan, I saw I had some sort of Arctic Cooler one but I remembered that I smudged the thermal paste, I think I will probably buy new thermal paste or for the long run it would probably be better if I just buy a new CPU, birthday in a few days

 

[jessterman21]

Framerate drops in large areas are almost always due to the CPU hitting its limit. I had the same problem with my Athlon II - when I upgraded to my i3, it didn't drop nearly as low. But even overclocked i5s and i7s drop in demanding games in large areas, as draw-distance is almost entirely dependent on CPU power.

If you're only getting 20% GPU usage, though - your CPU may be overheating and throttling due to a mis-seated HSF.

 

[tomw708]

Thanks for all the help guys, i've looked into reviews and benchmarks of my cpu and it seems my cpu is pretty terrible, I will probably invest in getting an fx-6300