Do I need to upgrade? Would love some advice

[bebryant]

Hope someone here can help! Here's my PC Specs:

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9700K CPU @ 3.60GHz, 8 Core(s)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER
Team Group Vulcan T-Force 16GB (2x8GB) RAM
Gigabyte Z390 UD Intel Z390 (Socket 1151) DDR4 ATX Motherboard
Intel 660P 1TB Solid State Drive

I use my PC for my work (digital illustrator) but also gaming, and i'm really interested in playing Warhammer Darktide at the moment.
However, it's currently unplayable as whenever there's lots of mobs onscreen or around my character, I get such bad framerate spikes I just can't play. It can range from stuttering for a few seconds before catching up briefly only to then repeat, to freezing for a full second or two and then catching up again, only to repeat until the horde is gone.
I don't think it's an internet issue as it only happens when there's lots going on onscreen. This also happens when playing other games like Vermintide, Deep Rock Galactic, and L4D2 - all when there's hordes of enemies and such.

I'm no PC expert, and i've done all I can following online guides on how to reduce lag/improve FPS, and despite meeting many of these game's minimum / recommended settings I'm still having no luck.
I am wondering if it is a software issue, or a hardware issue. Do I need a processor upgrade? More RAM? What do you guys think?

I'd welcome any and all advice, and if you need more info let me know. Thank you so much!

 

[Tetras]

I'm no PC expert, and i've done all I can following online guides on how to reduce lag/improve FPS, and despite meeting many of these game's minimum / recommended settings I'm still having no luck.
I am wondering if it is a software issue, or a hardware issue. Do I need a processor upgrade? More RAM? What do you guys think?

Can you do some troubleshooting?

I would:
1. Run some benchmarks: e.g. cinebench and 3D Mark. Then check your scores.
2. Run the game in a window with task manager open to check where the hitching is occurring (e.g. CPU, RAM, SSD).
3. Check the event viewer to see if anything is being reported.
4. Run the game in a window with hwinfo sensor tab or hwmonitor open, to check the temperatures and clocks.

I don't think it's an internet issue as it only happens when there's lots going on onscreen. This also happens when playing other games like Vermintide, Deep Rock Galactic, and L4D2 - all when there's hordes of enemies and such.

Just to be clear, when you say that things freeze and then the enemies jump, do you mean that the whole PC freezes (including your mouse inputs), or that it only appears to freeze?

What I'm getting at is that one of these symptoms is almost entirely due to an Internet problem (ghosting, for example), whereas if your PC is struggling to achieve sufficient FPS, this looks and feels rather different.

 

[bebryant]

Thank you so much for your response!
so I did some troubleshooting and I reckon I was wrong before - it does appear to be simply an internet issue. Here's what I found;

- Benchmarks came back GPU running as expected. CPU spore was lower than standard but not by much.
- Ran the game, no hitches (explaination below). CPU 30% avr, Memory 70% avr and GPU 30% avr
- No events reported related to this
- Temp and clocks were normal
- Checked monitor for ghosting, monitor is fine

I play a lot with my friends in America, and i'm wondering if it's because i'm joining their servers - when I played today the issues were gone! It ran very well.
Is this likely then an internet issue?

Also, second question; the memory when running the game got to 70%, is that normal or too high?

Sorry for the uneducated questions, I really appreciate your help! Thank you!

 

[Tetras]

- Checked monitor for ghosting, monitor is fine

I was being lazy with my terminology, what I mean is: when you have an internet connection problem, things jump around and aren't smooth (hence I call it ghosting, like the NPCs are using hacks in your game), but your FPS is not actually impacted, even if it might seem like it is. The reason is because the game struggles to process the changes in positions of the NPCs since there the connection is chugging, hence the updates are infrequent and it can't position and report on them correctly.

I play a lot with my friends in America, and i'm wondering if it's because i'm joining their servers - when I played today the issues were gone! It ran very well.
Is this likely then an internet issue?

I suspect it is, yes.

Also, second question; the memory when running the game got to 70%, is that normal or too high?

Quite high, but it's not a problem if the game is still running smoothly. It's common for some games to have memory leaks where their performance gets progressively worse over a long period of gameplay (e.g. 2+ hours). If you had more memory you'd get a bigger buffer, but 16GB is still sufficient for most games if you manage your usage (e.g. don't leave Chrome and a million tabs running in the background).

 

[bebryant]

That all makes a lot of sense, thank you for your feedback.
Going to look into upgrading my internet package. Thank you again for helping me solve this issue!

 

[Tetras]

That all makes a lot of sense, thank you for your feedback.
Going to look into upgrading my internet package. Thank you again for helping me solve this issue!

You're welcome, for the record: if I'm right, it doesn't mean that your internet is the problem. For example: you mentioned that you're joining their servers, so it could be because they don't have sufficient upload for their server role, or it is a distance issue, who knows.

 

[bebryant]

Hello again, i've returned because what I thought was an internet issue is most likely not. I tried hosting again, joining their servers / other servers and the issue has reappeared - I guess last time was a fluke. Here's a link to a video of me playing the game to demonstrate the issue (apologies for only showing half the screen, had it balanced against my chest haha!)

My friends are suggesting it may be RAM or CPU related. Could I ask for your opinion?
Thank you!

 

[Tetras]

I guess last time was a fluke. Here's a link to a video of me playing the game to demonstrate the issue (apologies for only showing half the screen, had it balanced against my chest haha!)

My friends are suggesting it may be RAM or CPU related. Could I ask for your opinion?

It's hard for me to tell because there's so much going on, on the screen, without getting the visual/input feedback myself. When I've experienced slow downs in that kind of circumstance it can be anything really. The one moment that stood out is toward the end where you turned away from the flame and it stopped lagging and then when you turned back it immediately lagged again, which made me wonder if the particle effects (or a specific particle effect) is causing the problem and if (I Know nothing about this game) you're playing with a character, or against enemies that produces more of these effects, that triggers the problem. It was lagging at the beginning too though, before there was any flame on screen.

I don't know where the common theme would be with lots of enemies in other games either, since again this could be related to anything.

Is there anything that is consistent when it does or does not happen, perhaps related to your usage of the PC? E.g. has the PC been turned on longer? Is anything else running? Do some maps cause it more than others?

Could you share a picture of GPU-Z? Would like to check your graphics card is not running at PCI-E 1x or something

 

[Joxeon]

What resolution of monitor are you using? Have you tried using the MSI afterburner OSD to see what your CPU/GPU is running at and how much ram/VRAM you’re using?