Unable to play Battlefield 4 while meeting minimum requirements.

[UrbanZyrx]

Hi,

Since Battlefield 4 was released I have been able to put 150hours into the game running all my graphics settings at medium while achieving 40-50fps. I had stopped playing in March 2014 and now I want to get back into it. When I recently joined some servers my fps was dropping down to 10-20, so I changed my graphics settings down to Low, yet I was still getting the same issue. I am not sure why this is happening, and I have looked through forums, contacted EA, repaired BF4 in Origin, re-installed drivers, neither were any help.[strike][/strike]

This is my current build, about four years old, built it to run Battlefield 3 and some other games at ultra:

CPU: AMD Phenom II x4 970 @ 3.70GHz
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103894

GPU: MSI Radeon HD 6850 OC Cyclone Power Edition
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127566

Motherboard: ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 AM3 AMD 880G HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131646

RAM: G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) (x2)
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231180

PSU: CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX850 V2 850W
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139022&cm_re=Corsair_850-_-17-139-022-_-Product

HDD: Western Digital Blue WD5000AAKX 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5"
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136769

OS: Windows 7 64-bit operating system

Again I just want to state that I was able to play BF4 at medium graphics settings averaging 40-50fps with this build listed above.


Thanks For the Help!!

 

[skit75]

Open up taskmanager before you play and select the Performance tab. Go play for 10-20 minutes or as much as you can stand then alt+tab out to taskmanager a look at your CPU and RAM usage history. I'd be willing to bet your RAM usage is near saturation, causing your PC to use the hard drive pagefile for more active memory..... causing the the FPS drops.

 

[UrbanZyrx]

Hey Skit,

Your bet was 100% correct! Once I got into game, I immediately saw my RAM usage go up to 3.85-3.95gb out of my 4.0gb. It does solve the problem, yet i'm still confused on why I could run the game before, but it doesn't matter. Thanks for the quick response!!

 

[skit75]

With all the updates they have been doing they could have changed any number of things that caused more RAM usage over time. It is one of the few games developed for PC so I have no problem with them demanding more resources from my PC. It is part of the reason I play on and build gaming PC's =)

 

[UrbanZyrx]

That's what I had figured. I will just have to wait another month to get my new gaming rig: http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/user/UrbanZyrx/saved/R2q7YJ

Thanks again for the help!!

 

[skit75]

That's what I had figured. I will just have to wait another month to get my new gaming rig: http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/user/UrbanZyrx/saved/R2q7YJ

Thanks again for the help!!

You might want a bigger SSD if you intend on putting any games on it.

 

[tiny voices]

That's what I had figured. I will just have to wait another month to get my new gaming rig: http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/user/UrbanZyrx/saved/R2q7YJ

Thanks again for the help!!

Don't bother with the H60. It is worse than $25 air coolers and twice as loud. Get a Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO instead for sure.

ALso, if you want to game mostly, you should be getting a better GPU. I would recommend an i5 4460 and an h97 motherboard, then using the saved money for a better GPU.

 

[UrbanZyrx]

GTX 960 is more then enough GPU for me. I have used Corsair products in the past and I am very happy with there performance. I have seen the H60 performance first hand, and to me its quiet and keeps the CPU tempatures low. Thanks for the input though! 😀

 

[tiny voices]

I own an H60 and have done many benchmarks and it is not a good cooler. It is NOT quiet with the stock fan at all, and it will not cool better than a $25 Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO. Sorry. These are just facts. Not opinions.

Closed loop water cooling "kits" are never a good buy under $120 as a cheaper and quieter air cooler will always beat them at any price range.