Hello friend,
Thank you for your patience and forgive me for not directly addressing specific questions or statements in order.
It has been awhile since I have posted and this is why:
Haha, first things first, I realized afterwards that it was a CPU test and not a GPU test, my apologies.
Concerning the cycles, I will soon learn more about this as it is most likely a requirement for Comptia A+ Certification.
As far as background tasks are concerned, there are a lot them that I am unsure of their function; but GameBooster narrows down most (if not all) of these tasks and tells you what is unnecessary, allowing you to select them and cut them off at the source and then return them when you are done gaming; very simple.
In one forum one person or more claimed that BattleField 3 worked better without virtual memory- What do you think about this?
Another forum claims that XPS viewer in Windows 7 could be the problem; what do you think?
As far as motion blur or interlace emulation programs are concerned, do you think they would be beneficial? ; Some of my tools may do this. Do you have any program suggestions? (I read a few things concerning how interlace would not work well with progressive scan.)
Some believe accessing your BIOS and enabling HPET (High Precision Event Timer) will also help.
Some claim that setting PROCESSOR SCHEDULING TO PROGRAMS helps; do you believe this to be an issue?
So considering Windows 7 32 bit has a limited amount of accessible memory, does this mean that even virtual memory is pointless past 3.25 GB and what about 64-bit, would Ready Boost make a significant change in gaming?
I set Painkiller to max settings, runs flawless on 60 fps (even works well with RadeonPro {multiple uses including fps capping}, DxTory, and Gamebooster [separately] ); almost as if stop lag doesnt even exist, just the same as Shogo, another old title. If it is happening, it is so minute that its almost impossible to see. These are older games requiring less RAM. Deus Ex: HR was also a problem, and I consider RAM to be responsible. Stop lag happened regardless of FPS drops and was far worse than Saints Row 3. At one point in The Walking Dead: Survival Instincts I noticed that settings were to blame for some of the stop lag and I started to turn options off and down, (Dxtory didnt seem to be picking up fps drops, where FRAPS seemed too, almost as if it was hiding the fps drops. ), but that was the only way to fix it partially. One to three fps drops can cause this stop lag, and it seems to happen even in a constant 30 fps.
I found this in the SR3 ini: # * Lighting detail has a major effect on memory usage: Seems to be my problem in The Walking Dead: SI when I turn on certain lighting, just the same as shadows having issues at higher settings: such as State Of Decay, higher settings cause distortions, such as half a shadow(Unless this is GPU related). Stalker being at 9MB in Task Manager also seems to be a part of this, but the lack of RAM effect over this game is tremendous; causing such a lag that seems like the screen is flickering when I walk. After running programs I usually have fairly decreased RAM, due to background services that even GameBooster doesnt shut off; eventually my OS declines to a very low amount of RAM(almost like a RAM leak). I tried CoD MW 1 and I still see the stop lag even at 100-200 fps; also when Vsync is on.
As far as RadeonPro goes : I tried turning Vsync off, using Dynamic Framerate, using Double Vsync, Forcing 30hz through RP while using DxTory with RP set to Default Driver for Vsync, along with CCC being set to Vsync off: Didnt help.
As far as CCC is concerned: I tried multiple settings; again nothing helped.
Ive disabled every useless HID device in my Device Manager (Computer/ (right-click) Properties) and re-enabled them after; during though it didnt help (BECAREFUL READERS: DISABLING SPECIFICS WILL RENDER YOUR DEVICES USLESS). GameBooster does this by default and safely.
I changed some things in CCC (temporarily); particularly surface optimization and I turned off Vsync and triple buffering, but all had a very negative affect even with a constant 30 fps, again I believe RAM responsible; Although turning certain setting off seemed to smooth some lag(not stop lag) that was occurring even during 30 fps constant or 60 fps constant.
I forced 30hz refresh rate through the Saints Row: The Third .ini and made it Read Only to avoid the program changing it back to default settings: This didnt help.
I forced 2 cores through affinity in processes located in Windows 7 Task Manager- that didnt help; in fact it made it worse.
I tried DirectX9, DX 11, and I lowered multiple settings. I even turned some completely off in game, in CCC, in RadeonPro, and also in .inis and other configurations: None of this helped as far as stop lag was concerned.
I even changed system Virtual Memory to 7400MB (suggested by a forum poster) which only seemed to make gameplay worse(Properties/Advanced System Settings/System Properties/Advanced (Tab)/ [Performance] Settings/Advanced (Tab)/Change). I also in the same area (Visual Effects) turned on Adjust For Best Performance; that also didnt help. This makes sense if Windows 7 32-bit limits RAM usage.
I disabled Stereo Mix as this has caused issues with games I have played before, but it did not solve my problem this time. (This change must be followed by a restart normally to make a difference.)
I used Prio to set my game priority to high; using this program I can do this permanently: This also didnt help.
I tried FXAA tool on Saints Row: The Third and all I obtained was a black screen.
I tried SSAA tool, didnt help.
I found another fps limiter, but I believe it was for DirectX10, it was named: Fps Limiter 0.2; I doubt I will be using this.
I tried disabling Windows Firewall momentarily and I disabled my anti-virus program temporarily through the options it gives; again didnt help the stop lag.
In DxDiag my Page File is 1185MB out of 5467MB, shouldnt this be way higher? Is this the virtual memory that seemed to harm my gameplay when I increased it?
In msconfig, under the Startup tab, I have minimal processes; I keep a very clean PC, but this doesnt help my case.
In a trial of AVG tune up there seems to be a few registry issues that CCleaner doesnt pick up, but I am not ready to install this software just yet.
DriverBooster by the GameBooster creators seems to be promising. Perhaps I should use this; what do you think?
All of my tests were various methods-DxTory was used, and not used at points; as well as Gamebooster and RadeonPro. Vsync was turned on and off during these separate/together processes.
I thought about plugging in my television set, but this would be another issue due to the fact that it is a 60Hz television.
Okay, so knowing that certain games stress different parts of the GPU, should I try to find a better GPU? ; do you have some suggestions? I have looked, but it has been hard to find out what is best.
I also used two other GameBooster options that I dont normally use: Launch from Desktop and Kill Explorer; Killing Explorer in the past helped some of my old games that had color issues (In the past I used a batch file to do this, but now I use DxWnd for most old titles.), but neither options helped the stop lag.
I ran Disk Defragmenter, Defraggler, CCleaner, Disk Cleanup. After I ran Disk Defragmenter I ran Defraggler and it picked up twelve fragmented files, 4.4GB worth; Im glad I have both programs, but none of the above programs helped.
Forgive me, but I am going to try to sum this up:
I tried an elevated cmd that was supposed to increase physical memory recognition, and it may work as it seemed to help Skyrim for quite some time when I was having purple texture issues and random crashes, but it is not being read in my computer/properties/ ; Instead it still says 3.25GB of usable RAM out of 4GB, I tried Windows Classic Theme, I tried 3D Analyze 2.36 on default setting, disabled visual themes, disabled desktop composition, disabled display scaling on high DPI settings (right clicked the programs/properties.), changed audio frequency and bitrate both higher and lower (16bit 44100hz and higher) I tried to make sure .inis were set to the same frequency and bitrate that I chose via Windows 7 sound settings, but I could find nothing in the one game I tested this on, I turned off Windows 7 Sound Equalizer, ran games at different fps limits (30, 40, 59, 25, 38 [vsync on and off] ), ran different compatibility modes, (I use DVI) I turned these options on and off, followed by a restart: Alternate DVI operational mode and Reduce DVI frequency on high-resolution displays. I swapped keyboard, mouse, and controller USB ports to front and back randomly and separately at points, also disconnecting all other USB devices, (lag especially prominent in left and right movement, but in COD MW 1, it is present in all movement, but not while stationary; leads me to still wonder about input lag, although it seems it has been eliminated in Dead Island or been added to the controller .) In services.msc (run or start bar) there is a program called background intelligent transfer service- I have set this to manual; some have said this helps, but it was set this way by default, tried no mouse and keyboard and also a no controller method: None of the above helped at all as far as my stop lag issue is concerned.
Weirdly enough it seems that stop lag is not present when I am stationary in any game; just to add to the above theory.
Its strange, Dxtory seems to be taking all of the lag, focusing it, and then cycling it every few seconds, which seems less stop laggy perhaps and games without DxTory are doing the opposite, as in releasing larger fps drops or stop lagging even when frames are at 30 fps constant.
I also tried DxTory in a different compatibility mode and tried GameBooster in a different compatibility mode, both with Disable Visual Themes, Disable Desktop Composition, Disable Display scaling on high DPI settings, and Run this program as an administrator all checked(this last one I tried on games also): None of that helped either.
I also tried Xbox 360 vs PC comparison and sadly due to my RAM, Xbox360 won; had my RAM been updated my system would stomp the Xbox360, I am almost 100% sure of this. I have been watching countless videos where fps drops are very active; contrary to what some gamers believe (A lot have a common misconception that frames are locked; a quick youtube.com search will fix that issue right away.) and my system seems to be a bit more fluent and definitely better looking.
I watched the video about the input lag and it is similar, but I am not sure that I would consider it the exact same issue, due to the fact that it seems a bit worse; although I wont throw the theory out the window because I do feel that Dead Island could use me unplugging the keyboard and mouse and using only the controller to see if theres a difference (this is what I did before).----(Also although I get the point of whats going on in that video, my video runs at 30 fps which is 5 fps lower than what he is running, if I recall, so it is almost laggy regardless.)
I didnt quite understand the graph, but I monitored the Free MB section and RAM is almost always low; Im talking 0-18 MB (when accessing Task Manager with Ctrl+Alt+Delete while playing most of my games.). Even at 70+ fps with Vsync off I still experience stop lag. RadeonPro has helped a lot in the past, but even it couldnt help this.
I thought to turn off Mouse Acceleration located in the Control Panel options (I believe), but no need to do this since, most likely, because it happens with a controller also.
I cleaned my PC very well on the inside, which took my GPU temperatures from 104C (after a minute or two of both FurMark and HeavyLoad) down to 100C (within four minutes), would you consider that bad, if so I can use RadeonPro to manually control Fan Speeds, CCC may also have this option; temps are normally around 42-60C+ when running games(GPU), I believe. This, however, did not help my stop lag issue. Should Vsync be enabled when I am stress testing?
And a strange question: Would lag be noticed less on a smaller scale, as in Twitch.tv streaming gameplay on a mobile device? If youd like join my page and attempt on your mobile device to check differences, if you are willing it would be a learning experience for both of us.
http://www.twitch.tv/deathbestowerx
Darksiders in the past, if I recall, had issues with MediaPlayer; would having this set as a non-default video player cause any issues or do you think it would simply be ignored as most applications target a specific file?
How do I check my FSB cycles; would these be included in HwiNfo32? How can I be sure that I cant change my cycles? I found this in a forum:
PCI Latency Timings
In some rare cases, the PCI Latency is a setting that can affect your system in such a way that you may experience "stuttering" or a looping sound crash while playing the game. There are various ways to go about adjusting your PCI latency timings to troubleshoot the issue. Please follow the directions included in the example below:
PCI Latency Tool provided by Guru3d.com
I think it may be what I am looking for, but I will have to re-find the link if I havent stored it.
While I am at it, does a partitioned drive affect performance, such as programs/drivers related to the game being in a Local Drive (C and games being on a partitioned drive such as (X?
One thing that I realized is that CCC Vsync, regardless of being set to Always On, still tears if I turn it off in game; what does that say for my CCC program? Could this have anything to do with priority; does that mean it will run faster or does it mean it takes priority over things like CCC?
Also I have read something about DVI and how there is a Dual Data Rate, is there a chance I am using outdated equipment and regardless, how do I find this out?
Would any of the options in Windows features cause issues?
When I run games from my secondary drive (partitioned) should system memory be set to a specific amount; would it help in 32-bit or 64-bit?
I found this statement in a forum:
Yeah, you usually do NOT want drivers from Windows Update. I don't know if the situation is any different these days, but the last time I got video drivers from WU they didn't include proper OpenGL support, which would definitely cause problems here.
Perhaps I shouldnt have updated, but it is hard to resist.
By the way, I made sure to check Read Only when I changed .ini settings, because if you dont do this certain games will reset the .ini back to default settings every time you change an in game setting.
In conclusion I believe a lot of the stop lag comes from lack of RAM and this causes decent drops that are very evident; Dxtory may either be picking these jumps/lows up late or perhaps just hiding them. I have noticed a lot of games are on a 64-bit kick lately (as in exclusive), so RAM could totally be my main issue.
In contradiction to the above statement, attempting to run the ROM of the game EarthBound (SNES) (Original copy given to me when I was younger and I still own it to this day) I noticed that regardless of RAM (700MB+) I am still getting stop lag; now, I assume this is due to this specific program, a program on my OS, or the fact that it was originally ran at what I believe used to be 25-30 fps(I lean towards 25 fps) and it is pushing far too fast considering no options for limiting fps is available(not even DxTory helps this, maybe its an OpenGL application, in which I believe has no support on DxTory, I could be wrong though.). I noticed also that Fraps ran it at 59-61 fps, kind of sporadic, but constantly these numbers and I still see horrible jumping/stop lag and it doesnt seem as smooth as I recall. It would be nice if my problems were due to a program issue, but I highly doubt it. This stop lag reminds me of the lag I got with The Walking Dead: SI that started my first forum post; almost as if the problem didnt stop but smoothed itself out with the new processor, taking 10-20 fps drops to about 4-6 fps drops (but as I said before even constant frames and locked frames bring stop lag). That is another reason why I believe RAM is the issue for most of my games.
I am also considering the USB 1.0 being a problem also:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=589344
I noticed CCleaner has a Scheduled Task bar and other options that could help me turn off any lag making issues; what do you think about these?
And concerning Temps again: I noted that on a 955BE description that Max temp was 62C; I may go over this while gaming at points. Also a side note: It says Memory Bandwidth (DDR2-1066) + 16.0GB/s HT3-; although this is a Black Edition description, could that be an issue? And also on that same page it states: 955BE
True Quad Core x86 processor ; What exactly does that mean, because it claims it is 64 bit capable?
I have also noticed artifacts that I dont remember from before and I am wondering if I should obtain a new GPU, or if this is a new issue.
To quote COFFEEJUNKEE from the first page of this forum:
"Then keep in mind the 5770 is an older midrange card, so it will struggle in newer games. If that happens, turn settings down, starting with AA. "
Thank you COFFEEJUNKEE; this is a good indication that a GPU upgrade could benefit my system.
Another thanks I would like to state:
0___________0, I am pretty sure you were the first to state CPU as the bottleneck issue, in which BigChickenJim(Thank you also) furthered; It definitely helped quite a few of my issues, and thank you kindly, because now I can at least play Saints Row 3, and not to bad regardless of the horrible stop lag that occurs.
One last question: Does my memory clocks seem normal, I have heard of people having issues with this, but I believe I have all options set correct in the BIOS (PCI-E x 16 instead of PCI-E x 1).
Now as far as my solution goes: I am going to try 64-bit; Hopefully this will help recognize the Video RAM on my card and any extra Virtual Memory applied, along with Ready Boost if necessary. I also hope it allows my OS to open up the restrictions on the 2GB of memory address space; as one person claims (just as another claimed that 5GB will be addressed after the 64-bit installation).
I hope I covered everything and thank you for those suggestions in that last post; I did not cover all of my research, but this should be a good start.
Thank you again for your patience, and feel free to opt out at any time; haha, as this is epically long.(Also sorry if it runs together at points, I copied and pasted using Word 2010.)