How to troubleshoot whats bottlenecking me?

D2Girl

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Dec 3, 2013
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Um so I have a pretty decent computer, but I'm lagging in a couple of games at max settings. Crysis and Crysis 3 are two games I want to get running @ a constant 60fps at max settings, but at the moment my computer doesn't want to.. how do I trouble shoot what exactly is causing my problem?

Both games I get dips in FPS during heavy gunfights. I also get 15-25 drop in fps at other moments, just randomly. I can't maintain a constant 60fps for more then 30 seconds unless I'm standing still not doing anything :[ is my PC just not up to snuff?

My rig:
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And not sure if it matters but my hard drive is over 2 years old and not the fastest speed. It actually does cause me lag when I play MMORPGS and its trying to load the textures for the cities off my HD (WoW and Final Fantasy 14 had this problem for me) I don't feel like this is the problem though since I do get stable FPS at some points of the game... also not sure if this is helpful or not, but I'm able to run Farcry 3 at max settings except SSAO @ 60fps. And another game I get dips in FPS all the time is Assassins Creed 4, during the first hour of gameplay my average FPS was about 40...
 
Solution
Indeed, we need to know your system specs. Identifying hardware bottlenecks is fairly simple really. If your GPU load is low and your CPU usage is high, it's a CPU bottleneck. If it's the other way round, it's a GPU bottleneck.

*edit*

Your graphics card is ageing, it's most definitely that which is holding you back.
D

Deleted member 489584

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The easiest way would be to post your system specs for people to quickly identify any aging components that could be causing you issue(s).
 

benjii

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Oct 29, 2010
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Indeed, we need to know your system specs. Identifying hardware bottlenecks is fairly simple really. If your GPU load is low and your CPU usage is high, it's a CPU bottleneck. If it's the other way round, it's a GPU bottleneck.

*edit*

Your graphics card is ageing, it's most definitely that which is holding you back.
 
Solution

D2Girl

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Dec 3, 2013
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Are you sure my graphics card is holding me back...? I was under the impression that the GTX 670 was a really good card.
And how do I tell how my loads are on my CPU and GPU during gaming?
 

benjii

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Oct 29, 2010
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Unfortunately that's not the case. The 670 isn't a bad card, it's just not really good, somewhere around middle of the range. It is definitely what is holding you back.