Stuttering in Battlefield 4 after system reset - not sure what's going on

[HappyGilmore]

Hey all,

Prior to Christmas, I decided to reset my system (was running Windows 10) due to having accumulated a ton of junk over three years of use. I ended up having to reset my system a few times thanks to issues with updating Windows, but I am finally running a stable installation of Windows 10. However, I've noticed that after 5-15 minutes of gameplay in BF4, stuttering will occur. At times, it seems to worsen with continued play. When playing Silk Road a few days ago, the stuttering progressed to a such a point where I was forced to exit to Windows. When BF4 shutdown, I was left without a cursor (don't ask me why), and my system would not shutdown normally (I was forced to preform a hard shutdown). Upon restarting, the OS would not boot and I decided to preform another reset. I'm now back in Windows 10, and the stuttering remains, although it hasn't crashed anything (yet). I was able to play BF4 on high (with some parameters set to ultra), and stay in the 40-50 FPS range consistently.

I've checked my GPU, and it isn't failing. I've also tried uninstalling drivers (using the Display Driver Uninstall (DDU) application) and reinstalling, but it doesn't make any difference. Does anyone have any idea what could be going on? I'm at my wits end with this machine. Would a true HDD reformat do anything that a system reset wouldn't?

It is important to note that the only symptoms I'm experiencing are the stuttering in BF4, and a longer boot time when powering up; everything else is lightening fast and error free. I haven't seen any artifacts that would suggest my card is on its way out. BF4 is the only game that I played with any degree of regularity prior to this whole conundrum, and is all I can test with.


My specs are listed below.

Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit (10.0, Build 10586)
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz (8 CPUs), ~3.4GHz
Memory: 16384MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 16270MB RAM
Page File: 2901MB used, 16313MB available
DirectX Version: 11.2


Chip type: GeForce GTX 660
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Device Type: Full Device
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1185&SUBSYS_098A10DE&REV_A1
Display Memory: 9616 MB
Dedicated Memory: 1480 MB
Shared Memory: 8135 MB
Current Mode: 1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (60Hz)


Thank you!

 

[malcolm mill]

Have you checked Task manager performance tab? what is the memory usage like? If it is around 90% then i'd say you have a memory leak, windows 10 users are experiencing alot of these.

Try updating your network drivers
Download here: http://www.killernetworking.com/support/driver-downloads -> Install (requires 2x restart)
If the above doesn't fix it for you, try manually disabling the network data usage driver (the culprit) by following these steps:

Open up "regedit" and go this key. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Ndu

Change the "Start" value to 4 (to disable it).

 

[HappyGilmore]

Thanks for the reply.

I did some testing recently and found something that may or may not be of interest. While the maximum memory usage that I've observed is only around 53%, the 'available' memory (as shown in the task manager) only shows as 8.3 (ish) GB. I'm routinely using 7.6-7.9 when not in combat and around explosions, so I'm almost certain that I'd be hitting the roof when things are busy.

What exactly is the 'available' memory counting? Is this RAM, or dedicated GPU memory? I'm not overly knowledgeable when it comes to hardware.

 

[HappyGilmore]

Did some more testing, and I don't think it's a memory issue. Even during the stutters, the memory and CPU usage do not spike.

 

[malcolm mill]

Have you tried running an antivirus program? could be possible that you have malware or other types of virus'

 

[HappyGilmore]

Yes I have; my system is clean.

The only thing I can think of trying is to format my HDD. Are there any benefits to formatting as opposed to doing a system reset?


Thanks again.