Whats causing my lag?

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N11Ckk123472

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May 13, 2012
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Normally I can play Battlefield 3 on high presets with around high 30's low 50's fps. But lately it goes from the 50's, dips to the 20's and goes up again. I have a decent internet connection, wired, around 28 mbps download and 8 upload.

This happens on a couple server, and a few that I frequently play on and haven't had any issues.

Whats causing my lag? I also play skyrim and haven't had any problems, so its not like my graphics card is dying.
 
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I did more research and I think its because of lack of RAM. I have 4gb 1600 DDR3. Makes sense to me, what do you think?
Battlefield 3 alone uses like 3.5gb, at least thats what I heard.. That plus battlelog, skype, origin, antivirus, and other random programs are sucking up all my RAM. and extra 4gb would do, but I want a second opinion
 
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I agree that RAM is the likely culprit. It's definitely a hardware issue.

For the record what you describe is not lag. Lag would be an issue such as a delay from the time you press the fire button to when the server updates the image on your screen.

I've heard many reports that upgrading from 4GB to 8GB of RAM improved the problem.

My advice is:
1) upgrade to 8GB, and
2) lower your quality settings slightly
 
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I should also add that your graphics card actually buffers video memory into your System Memory. That's in addition to the space in System Memory taken by the actual game itself.

Increasing the quality level can raise the amount of System Memory used. This then makes less RAM available to other tasks such as the space needed to manage the larger map and people on the server.

That's just interesting stuff. Yes, definitely upgrade your RAM.
 
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^+1
I would agree with photonboy. Most gaming rig today have 8 or more gigs of Ram to smooth out game play. Good luck to you.

@photonboy I know this going to sound dumb but I though lag was like when you are looking at the screen and you see the movement stop go stop go etc. If lag is when giving a comand and a second or two later it is executed.

Which makes sence then what I am decribing is it stutter? I know it sounds stupid but that is what I though lag or lagging was called. I wonder how many other terms I have wrong? Cheers
 
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If thats not lag than what am I getting? My fps dips every 5 or so seconds from around high 30's to low 50's depending on the environment to like 25 fps, which obviously makes the game unplayable. It doesn't always happen, it seems to happen after playing for an hour or two. I also notice that my cpu usage stays between 90-100% (no surprise there) but could the cpu staying at 100% cause lag? I'm using an amd phenom II x4 965 at 4.ghz and H60 water cooler. Already tested for stability.
 
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AMD Phenom II X4 965 at 4GHZ, 1.46 v
Corsair H60 Watercooler, Push/Push Pull and arctic silver thermal compound
4GB Wintec DDR3 1600 RAM
MSI Radeon 6850 Cyclone Edition @ 935 core 1175 mem
Asus M5A97 AM3+ 970 Motherboard
5400RPM WD 500GB 250GB HDD
OCZ ModXTreme 600w Modular PSU

The lag just recently started happening, no hardware change or software anything.
 
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I can record a vid with fraps if that helps. cause I can't find anything on my particular problem. Only lag fix videos I see are turning down graphics or get a better connection. I even get this lag problem on low, and before this started I played on High presets.
 
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k. I uploaded a quick vid to youtube so I can show you an example so you can better judge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk1F8xS2szM&feature=youtu.be
As you can see when I die, the stutter makes it almost unplayable. Even though Fraps affected performance, this is almost an exact representation of my problem without FRAPS recording.

BTW I've read up on forums and OC on my card and i've heard people have gone even higher with stable results. i will try to underclock and tell you how it goes.
 
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That is stutter and that jerking around, now I see how it is hard to play. You have to remember when you read about how people OC their stuff might work for them and not for you.

Different everything. Maybe if you had exactly who was saying you can OC to that level then maybe. But different MOBO's etc will react differentially. So I agree try to run it at a lesser setting.

Have you added any RAM yet?
 
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I would assume it's the clocks. Even though it's a while, you'd need to stress test it to make sure it's stable for a considerable amount of time. Try and revert it to stock clocks, I am think you will probably not have issues with stutter. And DM186 is correct about overclocking, it may work for them but not for you.
 
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Okay I'll do that. One last thing I want to look into is that the AMD drivers I'm using, 12.4, have a few mixed reviews concerning Battlefield 3, so I might revert to 12.1 and see if that helps. If not I'll go back to stock clocks.
 
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man i need to get some cash lol. 8gb is enough I think. Too bad work for me doesn't start for another month, so I'm flat broke. At least Battlefield is the only game having this problem. I'll just do everything there is to do in Skyrim and try to beat Third Age: Total War 😛
 
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