[SOLVED] Sudden game lag (ffxiv), help me find the cause?

etesravan

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Mar 22, 2020
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510
Hello!

I've been playing Final Fantasy XIV for some while now and have been getting dx11 errors which I have not found a working fix for yet. Today I changed from fullscreen to borderless fullscreen and I have not had any crashes happen. After playing for a while with great fps I suddenly started lagging. The lag is worse when looking at a lot of details and other players, and almost gone when only my character is in the frame. I'm thinking this might be the same issue that have been crashing my game earlier, only this time I was in boarderless fullscreen which made it lag instead.

I filmed it happening on my phone together with some live stats from NZXT:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEjpWOWyT34&ab_channel=MartinNMurvold


I'm currently thinking the GPU is the source of the problem, but I'm not an expert on computers. Could this be the CPU at all?

Some more information:
  • I have recently DDUd my GPU drivers and done a clean install of my chipset drivers as well as updating my BIOS.
  • Most other games run fine on the PC, but I have had crashes happen in Anthem as well with no errors.
  • Event Viewer did not show anything other than DCOM warnings when this happened.
My build:
GPU: ASUS GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER DUAL EVO OC V2
CPU: Ryzen 7 3700X
Motherboard: ASUS ROG Strix B450-F GAMING
RAM: HyperX Fury RGB DDR4 2666MHz 8GB x4
PSU: Corsair TX850M


Edit; Lag is gone after restarting game, so no need to restart the PC to remove it.

Edit 2; https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/44760780 , Unigine Valley ran for 2 hours with no issues, had another crash but this time in A Way Out and it was a "nvlddmkm stopped responding" crash.
 
Last edited:
Solution
Mixing RAM kits (even ones with the same model) can cause these issues. If you want to use 4x8GBs you should purchase one 4-stick kit. There is probably nothing wrong with either set of RAM - they are just not compatible to run in dual-channel mode at the speeds you are trying to run them. Please list the exact model numbers of the RAM kits you are using. Sometimes bumping up the voltage slightly allows slightly different kits to work together properly.
You'll need to test with offline games/programs.
Since you're getting OS errors, run a chkdsk /f, then reboot, then run sfc /scannow. Do you get the DX11 errors in other games?
Run a Userbenchmark and post the link to the results. Also, run Unigine Valley, looping for 20+ mins and see if you get lag/hitching.

What drives do you have?
 

etesravan

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Mar 22, 2020
19
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510
Have already done sfc scan which fixed a couple of things, but not the crashing. The chkdsk /f did nothing. I just typed it into Run, am I doing it wrong?

No direct DX11 errors popping up in other games, but Anthem crashes without any errors. After Anthem crashed I sometimes played CSGO right after and it was laggy from the start requiring a full restart of the PC before running normally.

Userbenchmark: https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/44760780

UserBenchmarks: Game 122%, Desk 95%, Work 127%
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X - 87.1%
GPU: Nvidia RTX 2080S (Super) - 139%
SSD: Kingston SA2000M81000G 1TB - 123.8%
SSD: Kingston SA2000M81000G 1TB - 312.1%
RAM: Kingston HyperX 2666 C16 4x8GB - 78.8%
MBD: Asus ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING


Will run Unigine soon.

Drives, you mean SSDs (above) or drivers?
 

etesravan

Prominent
Mar 22, 2020
19
0
510
You'll need to test with offline games/programs.
Since you're getting OS errors, run a chkdsk /f, then reboot, then run sfc /scannow. Do you get the DX11 errors in other games?
Run a Userbenchmark and post the link to the results. Also, run Unigine Valley, looping for 20+ mins and see if you get lag/hitching.

What drives do you have?

I ran Unigine Valley for almost 2 hours with no issues.
 

etesravan

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Mar 22, 2020
19
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510
I just ran a memtest and got quite a lot of errors: https://ibb.co/L9KbNzY

Anyone good with memtest who can tell what my errors are caused by?

Just had a chat with customer support at the place I bought my parts. RAM might be the problem. Until recently I only used two spots on my motherboard, but lately I have had 4x 8GB sticks running.
My motherboard (ASUS ROG Strix B450-F GAMING ) can apparently have some trouble handling 4 RAM sticks from HyperX at the same time and I was told to test the build with only 2 sticks inserted for a couple of days to see if it's still crashing.
 

etesravan

Prominent
Mar 22, 2020
19
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510
Something of note, the game suffers from random DX11 issues. It may be exacerbated by what you found with RAM. I've been playing this game for over 5 years and I see the DX11 errors come and go.

I have seen countless posts about DX11 crashes in FFXIV and so many of them found different solutions because of different problems causing it. Hope I finally found mine now.

Did you buy 2x8GBs a while ago and just recently add another 2x8GBs?
Your Kingston boot drive may also be having issues. Download the Kingston diag. tool to check the health of both your drives.

I had 2x8GB for over a year and about a month ago I added additional 2x8GB. Removing two of them (only using A2 and B2 tracks) made memtest return no errors for test 8 which I ran 4 times. If I have no more crashes for the next couple of days customer support told me I could return either my motherboard or the 2 new RAM sticks and get my money back to buy compatible parts. If not I will have to return the GPU and CPU as well for testing.
 
Mixing RAM kits (even ones with the same model) can cause these issues. If you want to use 4x8GBs you should purchase one 4-stick kit. There is probably nothing wrong with either set of RAM - they are just not compatible to run in dual-channel mode at the speeds you are trying to run them. Please list the exact model numbers of the RAM kits you are using. Sometimes bumping up the voltage slightly allows slightly different kits to work together properly.
 
Solution