Hardware Question - Where's My Bottleneck?

[dashender7 78]

Hey all, Hoping someone can shed some quick light on what in my system is holding me back - I'm not extremely knowledgeable about hardware.

 

Here's the problem:  My frame rate will sometimes go down to almost nothing and the game will freeze or CTD.  This happens any time I enter or go close to a large city, and rain in the game seems to make it much worse.  Sometimes when running fast through the forest with good FPS, I will suddenly get a quick drop in FPS and almost freeze as well.  In rural areas in game I generally get 60+ FPS at minimum.

 

Here's what I have:

CPU: Intel i5 4440

GPU: Radeon 7950 HD w/ boost

8 Gigs RAM

Windows 7 32 bit

old 500 GB HDD - don't even know what the RPM is.

 

I'll also add that I've optimized all of my settings per the best rated Dayz optimization guides I've found.  Had this problem before and after that, and significantly, my graphics settings, wether very high or very low seem to have no effect - pretty sure my GPU is not the problem.

 

My thought is that the hard drive is actually my problem as I think I read somewhere that Rocket stated a SSD is the best way to boost performance with rendering and loading especially in towns.

 

With a glance at my current setup above, do you agree, or could my CPU or another component also need upgrading? Thanks!

 

 

[MaxTheSurvivor 152]

Even if not related to your problem, having 8GB RAM with a 32bit OS is pretty much useless. 32bit can only address up to 4GB of RAM. Remove a few RAM modules until you have 4GB of RAM maximum and give it a try.

[plexico 386]

I'd say its the slow hard drive, seeing as you get great FPS only with occasional microstutter. Maybe pick up a new 5400/7200rpm one or an SSD..

[MaxTheSurvivor 152]

HDD should not be a problem as textures should be loaded in the GPU RAM, the Radeon 7950 HD has 3GB of memory, half the size of the DayZ installation files. If you can purchase a SSD and install DayZ on this drive it's even better. One of the DayZ dev could be helpful with this matter as I don't know how they load the textures. Check the settings in game about "Video memory" and set it to maximum, but I don't know if moving the slider does something or not.

[Elle 562]

the game is a monster for CPU usage and windows has a really bad habit of parking CPU cores to save power. give this a read http://www.reddit.com/r/dayz/comments/28cla2/dayz_sa_frame_optimization_launch_options_fov/ and do some research on core parking or CPU parking. the reddit link has some .cfg changes you can make to improve your performance outside of the ingame video settings.

 

by the way Max is correct on the amount of ram you have - I would invest in a 64bit OS upgrade so as to utilize all of your hardware.

[Baker. 1484]

Hey all, Hoping someone can shed some quick light on what in my system is holding me back - I'm not extremely knowledgeable about hardware.

 

Here's the problem:  My frame rate will sometimes go down to almost nothing and the game will freeze or CTD.  This happens any time I enter or go close to a large city, and rain in the game seems to make it much worse.  Sometimes when running fast through the forest with good FPS, I will suddenly get a quick drop in FPS and almost freeze as well.  In rural areas in game I generally get 60+ FPS at minimum.

 

Here's what I have:

CPU: Intel i5 4440

GPU: Radeon 7950 HD w/ boost

8 Gigs RAM

Windows 7 32 bit <-----THIS THIS THIS 32 bit OS's Have a memory limit of 4gb and this includes your vram. 

old 500 GB HDD - don't even know what the RPM is. <-----------To a lesser extent this (since your memory is limited there will be a lot of paging going on)

 

I'll also add that I've optimized all of my settings per the best rated Dayz optimization guides I've found.  Had this problem before and after that, and significantly, my graphics settings, wether very high or very low seem to have no effect - pretty sure my GPU is not the problem.

 

My thought is that the hard drive is actually my problem as I think I read somewhere that Rocket stated a SSD is the best way to boost performance with rendering and loading especially in towns.

 

With a glance at my current setup above, do you agree, or could my CPU or another component also need upgrading? Thanks!

 

See note above :)

Edited September 13, 2014 by Bakermensch

[Baker. 1484]

Remove a few RAM modules until you have 4GB of RAM maximum and give it a try.

This would have no effect I'm afraid and maybe even worsen the problem if the module removed brought him down to single channel 

Edited September 13, 2014 by Bakermensch

[MaxTheSurvivor 152]

Ouh wait in another thread you talked about memory problems didn't you? Now you tell us you have a 32bits OS and 8GB or RAM. Check this before anything. Reduce the amount of RAM to 4GB.

[MaxTheSurvivor 152]

First things first, this guy is having instability problems from what I've read in another of his threads. 8GB of RAM on a 32 bit OS may create real hard to identify issues.

[Baker. 1484]

Reduce the amount of RAM to 4GB.

Again this a waste of time, your system will only address 4GB, not lowering the physical amount of ram in the system if over 4gb has zero detrimental effect, its just a waste of ram.

Edited September 13, 2014 by Bakermensch

[Baker. 1484]

First things first, this guy is having instability problems from what I've read in another of his threads. 8GB of RAM on a 32 bit OS may create real hard to identify issues.

He should upgrade to a 64 bit os, Problem solved.

[dashender7 78]

Thanks for all the help guys, much appreciated all around - seems like the consensus is upgrade to 64 bit OS and maybe SSD after that.

 

Didn't hear anyone say CPU or GPU might be limiting so that's good news.  

[Baker. 1484]

Thanks for all the help guys, much appreciated all around - seems like the consensus is upgrade to 64 bit OS and maybe SSD after that.

 

Didn't hear anyone say CPU or GPU might be limiting so that's good news.  

No both of those are quite capable. Better than most/many honestly

[KamiOfKOS 50]

Good move on 64 bit, you can use your actual license on it, the key work in both x86-x64 as intended, just search for a fresh msdn iso whit sp1 included ( msdn is an official iso and you can tell by checking the iso crc32 and sha1 on theyr dl page, do not trust random guy manual updated isos as they could be infected )

[KamiOfKOS 50]

Also removing a stick of ram (assuming you have 4x2 or 2x4 ) is the most idiotic thing to do as someone already noted you will lose the dual channel and reducing by HALF you mem bandwidth, huge hit in performance, even if win32 adress only 4gb ( or more using PAE and specials kernels )

[MaxTheSurvivor 152]

This forum is about troubleshooting, it means trying to isolate the problem, fastest thing the guy can do is to remove some RAM modules and see if that solves the instability, we don't care about performance here. If having less RAM solves his problem he can go further and reinstall his OS in 64bit but it will take way longer than just open the case remove a RAM module and check. Reinstalling before he even tries the easiest and fastest thing is actually the most idiotic thing to do.

Edited September 14, 2014 by MaxTheSurvivor