CPU Bottleneck / Overheating

So I bought a new laptop recently, a nice ASUS FX503 with pretty good specs. However, right off the bat I got problems with it - and it involves either a CPU bottleneck, SSHD issues or an overheating problem.

Intel Core i5 7300 HQ 2.8 GHZ
8GB DDR4 RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX1050 4GB
SSHD 1TB - 5400 rpm (8GB SSD)

Had problems with it from the beginning with very slow loading times but now that has improved markedly - SSHD after all. My main problem is either a CPU bottleneck or an overheating issue causing it to throttle.

I experience very choppy gameplay in some games (CoD WW2) and for example in Attila, I could very nicely move around the battlemap, very smoothly, but the actual battle was an absolute pain to manage - the rendering of 8000 units and a city was a nightmare for a very modern computer. (Attila is from 2015)

So... any ideas? What's the core issue here?

Well, it does have somewhat modern components, but it's not very well equipped with RAM. Neither the 8GB system RAM nor the 4GB on the GPU are modern.

You could try reducing the texture quality to see whether the VRAM of the GPU is full for starters. In many modern reviews people find that 4GB VRAM is not enough anymore and 6 is the absolute minimum if you want to use very high or ultra settings. The GTX 1050 is entry or lower middle class as well.

The CPU is okayish for a notebook actually, since it has 4 actual cores, although it's probably not going to clock very high if Attila uses all four of them. With TW games it's really hard to say for me since I don't find them to be very well optimized and in reviews the performance gains always look sluggish to me. Like when a better component gains you 20 fps in every other game, you get 5 fps more in the Total War game (similar with CPUs and GPUs for some reason)...

I find that 8 GB of RAM as well is not enough, I just figured that very recently when I started to analyse why is this not working ideally. I will update to either 16 or perhaps 32 GB, hopefully then it will work smooth.

I find the Core i5 to be good, same as for the GTX1050. It's good enough for what I need but I didn't expect the super choppiness...

Performance monitor should be able to tell you if the CPU is being pegged or RAM being maxxed out.

Were I buying/building a new system, I'd want at least 16GB or RAM.... but I'm skeptical that having only 8GB or RAM is causing your problems. My first thought would be the graphics card. Drivers up to date?

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Originally Posted by Xiahou

Performance monitor should be able to tell you if the CPU is being pegged or RAM being maxxed out.

Were I buying/building a new system, I'd want at least 16GB or RAM.... but I'm skeptical that having only 8GB or RAM is causing your problems. My first thought would be the graphics card. Drivers up to date?

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Yeah, that's what I was thinking as well. I have essentially the same system, but a GTX 1060 6gb, and it runs Far Cry 5 on almost max settings and it runs fairly well. The RAM may be an issue as well, but I think the graphics card is probably the bigger one.

Edit: My cpu is also better just for reference.

Everything updated, drivers & all. Including Intel drivers. I made sure all is up to speed.

So... might be RAM. And SSHD. SSHD is quite annoying since it's a hybrid.

I have an SSHD, it does not cause choppiness, certainly not in games that load the entire level or battlefield before you can play.
Do what Xiahou said and also check the VRAM usage.
What graphics settings do you use anyway? I read that even 6GB VRAM can be insufficient in CoD WW2 depending on your setting and the scene.

VRAM usage is at half - literally uses 2 GB out of 4.

Usually choppiness happens after like 30-45 mins of gameplay, so overheating can be a problem? But it never goes over 80C.

Since it is a laptop, could it be Power Management?

Maybe check Event Viewer to see if there's any clues (errors) to a problem there?

I actually switched the power usage to max power, so it doesn't change anything when it's on charge. Event Viewer showed me nothing.

Two things I noticed - Hard Disk is very often over 40-50% usage and whenever CoD is on - 100% + RAM is at 80%, using 4 GB.

This is what I found weird. Double checked - it has 8 GB, but it uses 80% and it's at almost 4 GB.

Ok, so that sounds like your system RAM is shared with your GPU. IIRC, this is pretty common on laptops.

Now it does sound like a lack of RAM. All of the hard drive activity is probably indicative of swapping- RAM contents writing itself out to disk to make room for more data. Swapping kills performance.

If it's an option, you might want to see if you can go into the BIOS and cut back on how much is allocated to the GPU, since it only seems to be using about 2Gbs. That might be a short-term workaround. Long term, get more RAM. :yes:

Is it using his hard-drive as virtual memory? That seems weird if your RAM isn't being fully utilized.

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Originally Posted by Xiahou

Ok, so that sounds like your system RAM is shared with your GPU. IIRC, this is pretty common on laptops.

Now it does sound like a lack of RAM. All of the hard drive activity is probably indicative of swapping- RAM contents writing itself out to disk to make room for more data. Swapping kills performance.

If it's an option, you might want to see if you can go into the BIOS and cut back on how much is allocated to the GPU, since it only seems to be using about 2Gbs. That might be a short-term workaround. Long term, get more RAM. :yes:

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So, he's only got 4gb of actual RAM then? The other 4 is from the GPU?

That's kinda what it sounds like to me. :yes:

Ah, so is it keeping the other 2gb as a buffer for swapping in data from the HD? I'm guessing that's the case at least.

Well, if we employ some advanced mathematics here.....if 4GB usage are 80%, that would mean the system has 5GB available. Using advanced quantum physics, we can deduce from this, that 3GB might be reserved for something else. I think some of that info should actually be in the performance tab of the task manager, or whatever the second tab is called in non-German.

If that is the case, I would follow Xiahou's advice and see whether you can find the BIOS setting that allocates 3GB to the GPU and reduce that to zero, which should leave the GPU with the 4GB of its own memory and give the system the full 8GB.

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Originally Posted by Husar

Well, if we employ some advanced mathematics here.....if 4GB usage are 80%, that would mean the system has 5GB available. Using advanced quantum physics, we can deduce from this, that 3GB might be reserved for something else. I think some of that info should actually be in the performance tab of the task manager, or whatever the second tab is called in non-German.

If that is the case, I would follow Xiahou's advice and see whether you can find the BIOS setting that allocates 3GB to the GPU and reduce that to zero, which should leave the GPU with the 4GB of its own memory and give the system the full 8GB.

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If Xiahou's right then the 80% is the GPU 2/4GB VRAM plus the system 4GB RAM, which would be 6/8GB ~ 80% I believe. My task manager completely separates the GPU from system RAM, so I don't understand why it would be like that? I don't understand why the GPU isn't maxing out either.

If you're right it shouldn't be reserving 3GB of RAM from the system. That seems excessively high to me. I've got 7.9 out of 8, so that's .1GB reserved for hardware/OS or whatever.

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Originally Posted by Csargo

If Xiahou's right then the 80% is the GPU 2/4GB VRAM plus the system 4GB RAM, which would be 6/8GB ~ 80% I believe. My task manager completely separates the GPU from system RAM, so I don't understand why it would be like that? I don't understand why the GPU isn't maxing out either.

If you're right it shouldn't be reserving 3GB of RAM from the system. That seems excessively high to me. I've got 7.9 out of 8, so that's .1GB reserved for hardware/OS or whatever.

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Well, there's this:

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Originally Posted by edyzmedieval

This is what I found weird. Double checked - it has 8 GB, but it uses 80% and it's at almost 4 GB.

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I don't think anyone would combine system RAM and GPU RAM or even sell a notebook where they are both 4GB in 2018. If the usage is at 80% with 4GB that means there should be another GB available, but Windows may already begin swapping programs to keep those last 20% in reserve.

It would indeed be weird if the BIOS is set to reserve 3GB for the GPU, but who knows? I don't think it reserves a lot for anything else, my main question is why 4GB usage = ~80% and not ~50%.
The amount of RAM Windows uses itself is already included in the 80% either way.

If you have system RAM reserved for your GPU, it should actually be shown in the performance tab of the task manager. Go to "Memory" and look for Hardware reserved". On my notebook I set it to 500MB and it gives me 562MB, the 62 being the bit it reserves anyway. The overall available system memory is consequently shown as 7.5GB since it detracts the GPU-reseved memory right away, but also shows that 8GB are installed. In fact, a screenshot of that memory section could be helpful.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Husar

Well, there's this:



I don't think anyone would combine system RAM and GPU RAM or even sell a notebook where they are both 4GB in 2018. If the usage is at 80% with 4GB that means there should be another GB available, but Windows may already begin swapping programs to keep those last 20% in reserve.

It would indeed be weird if the BIOS is set to reserve 3GB for the GPU, but who knows? I don't think it reserves a lot for anything else, my main question is why 4GB usage = ~80% and not ~50%.
The amount of RAM Windows uses itself is already included in the 80% either way.

If you have system RAM reserved for your GPU, it should actually be shown in the performance tab of the task manager. Go to "Memory" and look for Hardware reserved". On my notebook I set it to 500MB and it gives me 562MB, the 62 being the bit it reserves anyway. The overall available system memory is consequently shown as 7.5GB since it detracts the GPU-reseved memory right away, but also shows that 8GB are installed. In fact, a screenshot of that memory section could be helpful.

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It seems weird if that would be the case, I'm just struggling to understand what's going on then. Boggles the mind really.

Yeah, I agree a screenshot of the memory section would be helpful. I've got 56MB reserved for hardware.

I have 120 MB reserved for memory.

On idle, in use is 3.1 GB and 4.8 GB is available. As I type right now, this is what Task Manager is telling me. Just 3 Chrome tabs open and nothing more.

Cached - 3.5 GB
Committed total - 14.9 GB (probably including HDD?)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by edyzmedieval

I have 120 MB reserved for memory.

On idle, in use is 3.1 GB and 4.8 GB is available. As I type right now, this is what Task Manager is telling me. Just 3 Chrome tabs open and nothing more.

Cached - 3.5 GB
Committed total - 14.9 GB (probably including HDD?)

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That sounds like your 8GB are pretty much available, don't see why they should be a bottleneck unless the games do actually use 80%+ of it.

The guy in this video runs Attila on a much weaker CPU, so I'm not sure why your fasdter one should cause problems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_l62dLDDbMA

he's also using the MSI Afterburner overlay to see how the game uses his hardware. It's quite useful I guess, but I was hesitant to mention it because I found the UI terrible and didn't like having to manually download upgrades every month or so. You can probably find some guides for it I guess. It can show you how much RAM you're using and to what extent your CPU and GPU are used, etc. while you're playing the game.

Alternatively you can alt-tab to the task manager and leave it open in the background while you play, perhaps you find a component that is at 100% when the lagging happens. If the alt-tabbing is very slow and sluggish, then you may indeed be lacking in RAM. :shrug:

Alt-tabbing is slow and sluggish, especially in Attila, and especially after Task Manager is on.

So I guess it really is RAM...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by edyzmedieval

Alt-tabbing is slow and sluggish, especially in Attila, and especially after Task Manager is on.

So I guess it really is RAM...

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Does it show your RAM as mostly filled when that happens?
Given that your Notebook has 8GB and the recommended amount for Attila is 4GB, that seems like a huge discrepancy. Perhaps there is some kind of bug or hardware fault that prevents normal usage of the RAM? Maybe it really has only 4GB as Xiahou says because 4GB are broken. It's not entirely unusual for brand new RAM to be faulty.

You could run a test program such as: https://www.memtest86.com

And what's the operating system? I assume/hope Win 10 64bit.

Wouldn't it throw an error when booting if the ram was faulty? I was thinking that before, but I thought it wouldn't boot properly if one of the ram sticks was faulty?

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Originally Posted by Csargo

Wouldn't it throw an error when booting if the ram was faulty? I was thinking that before, but I thought it wouldn't boot properly if one of the ram sticks was faulty?

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I guess that could depend on the exact bug. Some RAM faults just lead to bluescreens for example. It is just very weird trying to make sense of these things all together:

1. Task Manager shows 8GB.
2. Diagnosis says with 4GB in use, 80% of the RAM are used (=5GB total?)
3. A game with recommended specs of 4GB stutters despite there being 8.
4. Alt-Tabbing is slow as though the RAM were full.

If it's not some kind of weird bug, then it could be malware of some sort hogging the resources.
I'm just really confused now.

On second thought, and after testing an Attila battle, maybe it is the CPU after all, I'd try reducing the settings, beginning with unit sizes. After all, even if the CPU is not at 100%, one single core could be, and that would then delay everything else.

Might also help to check which processes are using which resources and to what extent. After the last big Windows update for example, I had some update process go crazy and only deleting some cache files it creates caused it to calm down. :shrug:

I don't understand why do I have 3.2 GB of RAM used at idle. When I have only 4 GB available left of course things are not gonna work well.

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Originally Posted by edyzmedieval

I don't understand why do I have 3.2 GB of RAM used at idle. When I have only 4 GB available left of course things are not gonna work well.

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That's relatively normal because Windows, your drivers and so on will use RAM even at idle. When a game for example needs more RAM, Windows can also use less, not just by putting things into the HDD cache I think. On my tablet with 2GB RAM, Windows also uses less than 2GB of course, so the usage is dynamic to some extent. I upgraded my notebook from 4GB to 8GB and that increased the idle RAM usage but still made multitasking a lot faster. There's probably a maximum that Windows will use and a minimum, but between that it can obviously be a bit dynamic.
Plus that should be factored in when developers recommend a certain amount of RAM I would think. After all one can't play a game without an OS.

Basically I do not think the amount Windows uses is the big issue.

I just started the Ravenna Historical Battle in Attila, which takes place in a city, and Task Manager says Attila uses ~1.2-1.3GB of RAM while my overall RAM usage went up from ~4.0GB to ~5.7GB of 16GB. I don't think with that usage Attila is overloading your 8GB RAM, there has to be another problem.

I think it's because of ultra settings on Attila unit size and high-ultra graphics, it overloads the RAM.

When you technically only have 4GB of RAM available, things get choppy. I will upgrade my RAM and see if it's the case.

Cortana ate up 1 GB of my RAM... deactivated Cortana, suddenly my COD works almost perf.

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Originally Posted by edyzmedieval

Cortana ate up 1 GB of my RAM... deactivated Cortana, suddenly my COD works almost perf.

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Nice find! :2thumbsup:
I don't have a gaming PC on Win10, but I always recommend auditing Windows10 privacy settings to people who do use it- a step of which is turning off Cortana. :yes:

I've got my Cortana turned on on purpose, just so I can give all my privacy to Microsoft and make Google jealous.

There's a lot of weird things starting up when I boot Windows, have to check all of them to see which ones are ok to cut.