Really annoying frame drops in basically all games. Tried pretty much everything.

sentientdishrag · Dec 1, 2015

Hello all,
A few months ago I got a brand new spanking PC. GTX 980 FTW ACX 2.0 coupled with an i74790k and an 850 watt psu. Turns out my graphics card was defective as I kept getting weird crashes so I sent it back and got a new one. The games I play run fine for the most part but every now and again I get these FPS drops. I can be playing at 60 fps then it will suddenly drop to 58/57/56 but it's not just a drop. It's more like a freeze and it annoys me deeply. Also, in another game (Chivalry) I get drops to the 40 and 30 FPS range for basically no reason.
What I really want to figure out is these weird freezes. It's not like a long hard freeze, just 1/2 of a second when I walk around or look around really quickly. I suppose why this annoys me so much if because I feel it shouldn't be happening on this PC that I've put a lot of money and time in. The only reason that I can think of is I put my new graphics card in while on a carpet which I hear is a big no-no, so I don't know if this is a side effect of ESD damge, but I had the same problem with the old card, and i've dropped a screwdriver on the motherboard once (rookie mistake) so I dunno. So, the TL;DR version; why do my games stutter occasionally? Is it the games I play or is it something else?

Tam99 · Dec 1, 2015

Have you tried monitoring your CPU and GPU usage? Download Afterburner and keep track of them so you can figure out the problem or you can post it online to find some help

sentientdishrag · Dec 1, 2015

Tam99 :

Yeah, I have a hard time finding a correlation though. Here's a pic for the CPU/GPU usage while playing Minecraft with the annoying little jitters if anyone can point out any issues.

http://s16.postimg.org/86uexb6tx/cpu.png

http://s7.postimg.org/65k184lx7/gpu.png

Tam99 · Dec 1, 2015

sentientdishrag :

Do you have constant FPS in Minecraft? GPU usage fluctuation is fine if your frame rate doesn't drop

sentientdishrag · Dec 1, 2015

Tam99 :

sentientdishrag :

Do you have constant FPS in Minecraft? GPU usage fluctuation is fine if your frame rate doesn't drop

For the most part I get a constant 60 FPS, but every now again it will drop to say 57 or 56, then go right back up to 60. hence the annoying 'freezes'.

sentientdishrag · Dec 1, 2015

I guess what I really want to know if this is "normal" and if it's not, what I should do. I would hate to RMA this card again for a non-issue.

Karadjgne · Dec 1, 2015

Since you have an nvidia card, have you run it through the GeForce Experience? That has a lot of settings that are not included in your games. Many times you'll get frame drops simply because the card overpowers the monitor. It sends so many frames that by the time the monitor is trying to load a second frame, the card is on its fifth. This'll result in stuttering, freezing etc. Run the optimization. What'll probably happen is the card will render in 2k, then get downgraded to 1080p, eating up a bunch of the cards higher fps, allowing the monitor to get a smoother flow.

sentientdishrag · Dec 1, 2015

Karadjgne :

Ah I see! I guess that clears up why I get it the most in the most basic (graphically) games. But would my monitor cause the frame rate to actually drop from like 50 to 57/56 etc? If I get, say, a 144hz monitor, I assume that would hep?

Steven Jiang · Dec 1, 2015

Check your refresh rate one the monitor too. For me I find 5ms to be the best, 2ms monitors are too expensive and I find 10ms and above to be too slow compared to 5ms. Maybe because I used a 5ms monitor from the start.

Steven Jiang · Dec 1, 2015

Also is your case large enough to provide adequate airflow? If not the card or cpu can thermal throttle thus causing frame drops.

RobCrezz · Dec 1, 2015

Full specs please?

Are you using the stock intel cooler? What temperature and clock speed is the CPU running at when gaming?

sentientdishrag · Dec 1, 2015

RobCrezz :

what's in the op + asus z97 mobo, 16 gb, windows 8.1. My temps for my GPU are most of the time under 60 C while my CPU does get a little hot; 70-80 degrees Celsius sometimes. My CPU also "turbo boost" to 4.5 GHZ also sometimes. And yes, stock cooler.

sentientdishrag · Dec 1, 2015

Steven Jiang :

Yeah airflow seems fine. I don't have any fan besides the stock ones. and my monitor is 60HZ, i don't know the response time. this one is sort of old.

RobCrezz · Dec 1, 2015

sentientdishrag :

When it sutters is the cpu reducing speed because of the heat?

sentientdishrag · Dec 1, 2015

so would this be a problem or is it just the way games work on PC?

sentientdishrag · Dec 1, 2015

RobCrezz :

sentientdishrag :

When it sutters is the cpu reducing speed because of the heat?

No not as far as I can tell. it stays about the same. I'll check again

RobCrezz · Dec 1, 2015

sentientdishrag :

RobCrezz :

No not as far as I can tell. it stays about the same. I'll check again

hmm, yeah its not normal with your spec it should be smooth, especially on games that arent demanding like Chivalry.

The hard part is figuring out whats causing it

sentientdishrag · Dec 1, 2015

RobCrezz :

sentientdishrag :

hmm, yeah its not normal with your spec it should be smooth, especially on games that arent demanding like Chivalry.

The hard part is figuring out whats causing it

Yep. Tried pretty much everything besides buying a new PC.

RobCrezz · Dec 1, 2015

sentientdishrag :

RobCrezz :

Yep. Tried pretty much everything besides buying a new PC.

What PSU make and model is it?

Do you have another graphics card you can test with?

I would suggest a clean install of windows + drivers (bare minimum) to rule out a software issue.

sentientdishrag · Dec 1, 2015

RobCrezz :

sentientdishrag :

What PSU make and model is it?

Do you have another graphics card you can test with?

I would suggest a clean install of windows + drivers (bare minimum) to rule out a software issue.

A corsair 850HX psu. A while back I actually had to reinstall windows but I still got the jitter with the games, but with the old card. My brother has a 600 series card but it's gotten some weird artifacting so I don't think I should use that. Should I try updating my BIOS maybe? I haven't tried that yet.

RobCrezz · Dec 1, 2015

oh ok, so you experienced this with another graphics card? So the common components are cpu/mobo/ram/psu?

Yeah bios update is worth a try.

I would also enable a bunch of the OSD options in afterburner, like CPU Temp, CPU Clock speed etc, see if you can notice what is happening when the frame drops happen. Is it the CPU clocking down? Is it the GPU clocking down?

Can also be worth running just 8gb of ram, then try switching the modules so you can see if one is behaving odd.

RobCrezz · Dec 1, 2015

Also, I dont really like using the stock cooler on the 4790k as its a hot running cpu, and the small stock cooler struggles, but I cant gaurentee that its the cause.

sentientdishrag · Dec 1, 2015

RobCrezz :

Yeah on the older card I had. It's the same brand of card but it was defective to I sent it back. It would just crash every now and again, nothing really crazy. My GPU clock speed seems stable as well as my CPU temps; 70-75 degrees Celsius. I have so many things enabled I can't spot the CPU clock, just the memory clock and so on. i'll figure that out but as for the ram, I'm pretty hesitant to mess around inside the PC because my computer's on carpet and I don't want to mess something up, and I've never taken RAM out but I can try.

sentientdishrag · Dec 1, 2015

And I mean, it's not ALL of my games. Fallout 4, Shadow of Morodor, Hitman Absolution, and Warframe are all okay. It seems the less demanding the games get, the more I get stutters.

RobCrezz · Dec 1, 2015

sentientdishrag :

Ah ok, try going into nvidia control panel, and set the default options to Maximum performance, under the power control options.

Really annoying frame drops in basically all games. Tried pretty much everything.

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