[SOLVED] My computer always stutters when I play games

[OwenDocherty]

my computer struggled when i was trying to play recent games due to the fact i have quite a dated pc with dated components. i upgraded my gtx 950 to a gtx 1070 8gb yet whenever i play the newer games it stutters, i cant play the new cod and can't run star wars battlefront 2 without it stuttering. Also when i do play games that seem to stutter discord works poorly and i often cuts out communications to who I'm speaking to breifly. I think it may be a hard drive problem as in task manager my hard drive is often at 100%. How can i solve this problem? what needs upgraded?
i have :
8GB ram ddr4
intel core i 5-6400
gtx 1070 8GB

 

[rgd1101]

upgrade to 2x8GB ram. and get a ssd

 

[WildCard999]

Quad cores are quite limiting nowadays with newer games so trying to play those and run other applications such as Discord is going to make the system struggle.

 

[OwenDocherty]

upgrade to 2x8GB ram. and get a ssd

is 16 gb ram necessary? I was hoping that getting an ssd will fix the problem tho thanks

 

[Phaaze88]

is 16 gb ram necessary? I was hoping that getting an ssd will fix the problem tho thanks

Yes, 16GB ram is necessary.
The reason you find your hard drive at 100% is because you ran out of available memory and the system is now swapping from memory to write on the much slower storage drive.
An SSD will not fix this because it's also slower than actual ram.

 

[OwenDocherty]

Quad cores are quite limiting nowadays with newer games so trying to play those and run other applications such as Discord is going to make the system struggle.

Sorry, what's a quad core?

 

[OwenDocherty]

Yes, 16GB ram is necessary.
The reason you find your hard drive at 100% is because you ran out of available memory and the system is now swapping from memory to write on the much slower storage drive.
An SSD will not fix this because it's also slower than actual ram.

So if i do get an SSD and 8gb more ram, can i just have them in addition to my current hard drive and 8 gb of ram or will I need to buy 2x8gb ram and replace my current hard drive with the SSD?

 

[WildCard999]

Sorry, what's a quad core?

i5-6400=4 Cores=Quad core.

Ideally if your gaming and using other apps such as Discord, web, etc your going to need a better CPU. For your current motherboard the i7-6700(k) or i7-7700(k)* (may require motherboard BIOS update) would be a good choice if you can find one of them for chea used or consider upgrading to AMD Ryzen which may be a better investment.

 

[OwenDocherty]

i5-6400=4 Cores=Quad core.

Ideally if your gaming and using other apps such as Discord, web, etc your going to need a better CPU. For your current motherboard the i7-6700(k) or i7-7700(k)* (may require motherboard BIOS update) would be a good choice if you can find one of them for chea used or consider upgrading to AMD Ryzen which may be a better investment.

Do you think that the cpu is the problem then and not the hard drive? I've been told the cpu is powerful enough for the gtx 1070 so i dont think it would need upgraded anytime soon

 

[Flayed]

May be running out of ram with 8GB and using the swap file

 

[rickypicky5]

COD Modern Warfare recommends 16 Gb RAM. If you're on a budget, I suggest you get a 2x8 kit of RAM first and see if that fixes you're issue. To be clear, remove your existing 8 Gb RAM and replace with the new 2x8 kit. Make sure you place the new RAM in the correct slots for dual channel mode, typically slots 2 and 4.

 

[Phaaze88]

So if i do get an SSD and 8gb more ram, can i just have them in addition to my current hard drive and 8 gb of ram or will I need to buy 2x8gb ram and replace my current hard drive with the SSD?

Yes, you can add the SSD to your system without replacing the hard drive.
As for the ram, I, and no one else can give you a concrete answer on adding/mixing it because it's such a shot in the dark.
Sometimes it works, sometimes not. When it doesn't, all you lose is more time and money.

 

[WildCard999]

Do you think that the cpu is the problem then and not the hard drive? I've been told the cpu is powerful enough for the gtx 1070 so i dont think it would need upgraded anytime soon

Try the game without Discord and other apps running, just only what the game requires to be played and see if your performance increases.

 

[OwenDocherty]

COD Modern Warfare recommends 16 Gb RAM. If you're on a budget, I suggest you get a 2x8 kit of RAM first and see if that fixes you're issue. To be clear, remove your existing 8 Gb RAM and replace with the new 2x8 kit. Make sure you place the new RAM in the correct slots for dual channel mode, typically slots 2 and 4.

There are only two slots in my motherboard for ram

 

[OwenDocherty]

Yes, you can add the SSD to your system without replacing the hard drive.
As for the ram, I, and no one else can give you a concrete answer on adding/mixing it because it's such a shot in the dark.
Sometimes it works, sometimes not. When it doesn't, all you lose is more time and money.

So it woulld be safest and most effective for me to just add an ssd and get 2x8gb of ram in order to fix the issue

 

[OwenDocherty]

Try the game without Discord and other apps running, just only what the game requires to be played and see if your performance increases.

I have tried this it has little to no effect on the game performance

 

[Phaaze88]

So it woulld be safest and most effective for me to just add an ssd and get 2x8gb of ram in order to fix the issue

The problem is that you currently don't have enough ram. It had absolutely nothing to do with the storage.

Is your current storage drive full, or almost full? If not, no real need to get a new one yet.

 

[OwenDocherty]

The problem is that you currently don't have enough ram. It had absolutely nothing to do with the storage.

Is your current storage drive full, or almost full? If not, no real need to get a new one yet.

I recently formatted my pc as i thought the storage may have been the problem. so now after a couple game installs i have plenty of free space

 

[Phaaze88]

I recently formatted my pc as i thought the storage may have been the problem. so now after a couple game installs i have plenty of free space

So the stuttering has stopped?

 

[psi]

Yes, 16GB ram is necessary.
The reason you find your hard drive at 100% is because you ran out of available memory and the system is now swapping from memory to write on the much slower storage drive.
An SSD will not fix this because it's also slower than actual ram.

16GB is still very big amount of RAM today. I don't know if 16 GB is neccessary. It's not known if a Game always reads HDD for files to use, or writes them into RAM. That much RAm could be standing still, without action.
OwenDocherty, It's worth looking how much you use when biggest game is loaded.

 

[OwenDocherty]

So the stuttering has stopped?

No it has no effect on the gameplay

 

[OwenDocherty]

16GB is still very big amount of RAM today. I don't know if 16 GB is neccessary. It's not known if a Game always reads HDD for files to use, or writes them into RAM. That much RAm could be standing still, without action.
OwenDocherty, It's worth looking how much you use when biggest game is loaded.

Not going to lie i didnt really understand anything after the first two sentences which is probably why I'm finding it so difficult to get my pc to run well

 

[Phaaze88]

16GB is still very big amount of RAM today. I don't know if 16 GB is neccessary.

...
Are you seriously suggesting the OP stay with their 8GB ram config..?

It's not known if a Game always reads HDD for files to use, or writes them into RAM. That much RAm could be standing still, without action.

Windows mate... WINDOWS.

Take a look at the game's system requirements? Just the minimum, which is for 720p 30fps, recommends 8GB - and that's only the game.
The recommendations don't account for Windows, browsers, Discord, etc., being open alongside the game.

 

[psi]

Not going to lie i didnt really understand anything after the first two sentences which is probably why I'm finding it so difficult to get my pc to run well

You will probably understand very soon, this is easy and internet has the answers. So if this the HDD you need to backup your data.

...
Are you seriously suggesting the OP stay with their 8GB ram config..?

Why not, because I myself have Windows 10 and 1 stick of 8GB RAM. Super modern games run smoothly.

Windows mate... WINDOWS.

Take a look at the game's system requirements? Just the minimum, which is for 720p 30fps, recommends 8GB - and that's only the game.
The recommendations don't account for Windows, browsers, Discord, etc., being open alongside the game.

I don't know about this game maybe it has size of 100Gb and even more system requierements than usually found for this year. Yes possibly if you run browser along with few programs, they might add 600Mb to 2Gb plus a game, but can this really lead to so much stuttering. Though, OP didn't say how bad it is.

 

[rickypicky5]

OP stated 'new cod' as one of the games that stutters. 'New cod' is COD Modern Warfare 2019. COD Modern Warfare 2019 recommended specs include 12 Gb of RAM. Sorry about my earlier post that stated 16 Gb, I'm not sure where I found that.

https://www.gfinityesports.com/arti...re--pc-specs-and-minimum-requirements-to-play