BF3 - Stuttering

stueng

stueng

stueng

Associate
Joined
30 Dec 2011
Posts
1,177
Location
London
Hello!

I've played BF3 on two computers now, firt my Phenom x4 3.2 GHZ and now my I5

I have tried with two different sets of RAM

Different motherboards obviously

Different HDD's

The only thing in common between the two systems is the GFX cards, I have 2 X 560 1GB in SLI

When I set BF3 to ultra it plays smoothly for a few minutes then sutters for a few seconds, during the stutter the frame rate must drop to around 10FPS. Then it continues on just fine for another minute or two before this stuttering happens again

This stuttering has happened on both systems

At the moment I have it running on a M4 SSD, 8GB Dominator, 4.8GHZ i5, 560Ti SLI and it still stutters?
 
Two things, first of all see if turning off vsync eliminates the issue. Make sure it is not forced on in the drivers either.

Secondly if you must have vsync enabled then ensure triple buffering is forced on in the nvidia control panel.

I would also try disabling one card to see if it is related to SLI.
 
1Gb of VRAM will be limiting for Ultra settings, depending on the resolution you play at it could be slightly to seriously limiting. Sounds like whats happening is the game runs fine until that 1Gb of VRAM is filled with cached textures, then it has to purge them and reload new ones that are needed (hence the brief slowdown) and the cycle repeats. I'd be willing to bet it wouldn't happen if you set BF3 to low settings just as a test.
 
stueng said:
Oh high settings its flawless, only on ultra do I experience this issue. I suspect VRAM myself
Click to expand...
Thats where I'd place my bet. You can try MSI Afterburner to monitor how much VRAM is being used, that will tell you for sure.
 
If you've not changed graphics cards and you still have the issue, sounds like a SLI or vram issue to me.

As above try it without SLI and see how the game runs.
 
without SLI ultra doesnt run very well at all so I cant really use that as a test

I will monitor the VRAM
 
I forgot about the vram, that is most likely going to be an issue depending on your res.

Did you try vsync and triple buffering just in case?
 
This used to happen to me, I'm running an i5 and 2x 1gb 5770's in crossfire. I solved it by going from 4gb to 8gb of ram, I run all on ultra at 1080 apart from textures which are on high. If I switch to ultra textures my frames go a bit too low for my liking, but I no longer get the massive fps drops to 2-5fps every mins or so for a few seconds.
 
Its the vram, 1gb just isn't enough for BF3 on ultra to run smoothly.
BF3 isn't the biggest fan of SLI or CF rigs either.
 
To high settings that has to be fairly obvious.

Turn it all to high and see what happens. With my 5870 I had to go back to high and 2x AA.
 
I had stuttering for a few seconds every 2-5 min when playing on Ultra. I found out it was my graphics card running out of vram. I turned everything down to high and get 45+ fps on 64 player maps. :)
 
Yep, vram. Got stuttering like this with my 460's in sli with most settings on ultra. No problems with the exact same settings on my 470's, as they have a bit more vram onboard. Tbh as well, the difference between ultra and high isnt an awful lot.
 
It's not about fps for me tho I get plenty fps then the stuttering

I'll google the tweak guide thanks

If I am running SLI with 2 cards do I not get 2gb VRAM?
 
Nope, only 1gb of ram, the memory on xfire/sli isnt doubled up. Check memory use in game using msi afterburners on screen display.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom