Can't figure out whats the bottleneck here.

[nck007]

I having stuttering issue every minute or so while playing Red Dead Redemption 2.

 

I cant seem to figure out why is the GPU behaving this way is it because of ram or CPU, may be some weird optimization on GPU i do know RD2 is a badly optimized game but still wanted to find what resource is the bottleneck here

 

ISSUE: GPU stays at 99% for sometime then suddenly throttles back(that's when lag occurs). Temprature stays around 50-70.

 

I tried following things

1.Change affinity in task manager(CPU)

2.Reduced Graphics(everything on low or turned off) res 1366x720

3.DX-12

4.Driver Update

also tried everything on according to this article https://www.ghostarrow.com/red-dead-redemption-2-increase-performance-fps-on-pc

I ordered dual channel 16gb ram 2400mhz but i don't think that's gonna fix the issue.

My main question here is stuttering solely because of bad optimization of game(even at such low res and graphics) or am i missing something here.

Specs:

Processor: Intel 6600

Graphics: gtx 970

Ram: 8gb Hyperx fury black

 

[Turtle Rig]

10 minutes ago, nck007 said:

I having stuttering issue every minute or so while playing Red Dead Redemption 2.

 

I cant seem to figure out why is the GPU behaving this way is it because of ram or CPU, may be some weird optimization on GPU i do know RD2 is a badly optimized game but still wanted to find what resource is the bottleneck here 112.08 kB · 0 downloads

 

ISSUE: GPU stays at 99% for sometime then suddenly throttles back(that's when lag occurs). Temprature stays around 50-70.

 

I tried following things

1.Change affinity in task manager(CPU)

2.Reduced Graphics(everything on low or turned off) res 1366x720

3.DX-12

4.Driver Update

also tried everything on according to this article https://www.ghostarrow.com/red-dead-redemption-2-increase-performance-fps-on-pc

I ordered dual channel 16gb ram 2400mhz but i don't think that's gonna fix the issue.

My main question here is stuttering solely because of bad optimization of game(even at such low res and graphics) or am i missing something here.

Specs:

Processor: Intel 6600

Graphics: gtx 970

Ram: 8gb Hyperx fury black

 

Its your RAM.  Stuttering means RAM, your frame rate doesn't drop it just stutters.  You only have 8GB, once you have 16GB it shouldn't stutter anymore.

[nck007]

3 hours ago, Turtle Rig said:

Its your RAM.  Stuttering means RAM, your frame rate doesn't drop it just stutters.  You only have 8GB, once you have 16GB it shouldn't stutter anymore.

i will get back to you on this.I have ordered them, they will be here by Saturday.

[George.]

Yeah your RAM is not enough for the load, but also I'm noticing that your CPU is maxed out. It could also be a CPU bottleneck. 

Usually cpu bottleneck leads to micro stutter and since the processor isn't able to pump out enough frames at a time to the GPU, the GPU doesn't have to work hard in that moment because it has received less frames to render, hence the gpu usage drops. It appears to be sudden bottleneck instead of constant so I assume there's sth tough for the cpu to process for a short period of time rather than struggling with the game as a hole. 

As RAM fills up your cpu begins to move data from your RAM to your page file (located on your hdd/ssd) and if your game has to be paged that results in huge fps drops - like 100 to 5 and then back up and then down to sth really low.

If your cpu isn't maxed out all the time, then it's prob just RAM.

[borlosky]

I doubt its ram, i have almost the same specs (6600k, 970s, but i already have 16gb of 3200 ram) obviously the game is only running on one of the 2 gpus though (no official sli is implemented in game for now), but when the game is running cpu is steady about 35-50% cpu usage, ram is around 8.5-9gb, and yet i have the same exact stuttering. When the stutters happen cpu spikes to 100% for just a quick second for no discernible reason, then gpu drops to 0%, and the stutter occurs. something in the game engine appears to be spiking cpu usage for some reason, even though the game isn't using 100% normally, and it's creating these crazy stutters that resemble a cpu bottleneck, when the cpu isn't really being fully taxed. looking around on reddit and other forums, most users experiencing this issue are MOSTLY people on i5's (like the 6600k). I'm gonna chalk this up to just plain old poor optimization. I wouldn't throw any money on hardware just for this game until they iron out some of these issues. but by the looks of your screenshots, you may have a a bit of a legit cpu bottleneck, your cpu clock still shows 3.6ghz, you should be able to get a 6600k up to 4.4 before any issues really start (as long as you have a halfway decent cooler) maybe try oc'ing that CPU a little bit to 4.2 or 4.4 that may help a little but, but i have a feeling the stutter is something R* is gonna have to patch for a much larger issue in the game

[nck007]

8 hours ago, George. said:

Yeah your RAM is not enough for the load, but also I'm noticing that your CPU is maxed out. It could also be a CPU bottleneck. 

Usually cpu bottleneck leads to micro stutter and since the processor isn't able to pump out enough frames at a time to the GPU, the GPU doesn't have to work hard in that moment because it has received less frames to render, hence the gpu usage drops. It appears to be sudden bottleneck instead of constant so I assume there's sth tough for the cpu to process for a short period of time rather than struggling with the game as a hole. 

As RAM fills up your cpu begins to move data from your RAM to your page file (located on your hdd/ssd) and if your game has to be paged that results in huge fps drops - like 100 to 5 and then back up and then down to sth really low.

If your cpu isn't maxed out all the time, then it's prob just RAM.

Cpu is Maxed out all the time

[nck007]

19 minutes ago, borlosky said:

I doubt its ram, i have almost the same specs (6600k, 970s, but i already have 16gb of 3200 ram) obviously the game is only running on one of the 2 gpus though (no official sli is implemented in game for now), but when the game is running cpu is steady about 35-50% cpu usage, ram is around 8.5-9gb, and yet i have the same exact stuttering. When the stutters happen cpu spikes to 100% for just a quick second for no discernible reason, then gpu drops to 0%, and the stutter occurs. something in the game engine appears to be spiking cpu usage for some reason, even though the game isn't using 100% normally, and it's creating these crazy stutters that resemble a cpu bottleneck, when the cpu isn't really being fully taxed. looking around on reddit and other forums, most users experiencing this issue are MOSTLY people on i5's (like the 6600k). I'm gonna chalk this up to just plain old poor optimization. I wouldn't throw any money on hardware just for this game until they iron out some of these issues. but by the looks of your screenshots, you may have a legit bottlwnexk, your cpu clock still shows 3.6ghz, you should be able to get a 6600k up to 4.4 before any issues really start (as long as you have a halfway decent cooler) maybe try oc'ing that CPU a little bit to 4.2 or 4.4 that may help a little but, but i have a feeling the stutter is something R* is gonna have to patch3 for a much larger issue in the game

I have an AIO by cooler master cooling is not an issue.But  i dont think we can overclock 6600 non k version to 4.2 i may be wrong on this one.

[George.]

29 minutes ago, nck007 said:

Cpu is Maxed out all the time

Then I recommend running a graphics stress test. Download MSI Afterburner or a similar software to monitor cpu, gpu and ram usage and thermal throttling (if any appears). Post the results here so we can get some more representation of the situation. 

Generally if the CPU is maxed out and the GPU dips + stutter => cpu bottleneck

P.S. Could be just bad optimization on the game developer's side...some engines have weird problems with certain hardware configs sometimes...maybe your rig is fine as it is, that can be determined by some benchmarks and stress test monitoring.

[borlosky]

40 minutes ago, nck007 said:

I have an AIO by cooler master cooling is not an issue.But  i dont think we can overclock 6600 non k version to 4.2 i may be wrong on this one.

ahh I just assumed it was a 6600k, yea, prolly can't go that high with a reg 6600, you're right, but maybe oc'ing it a little bit (if possible) might still help.. but in the case of RDR2 here...even though you appear to have a legit cpu bottleneck, based on the screenshots (CPU 100% with GPU at 70% is a pretty good sign of cpu bottleneck), i'd still wait till R* fixes some of these issues that appear to be creating a CPU bottleneck-like issue on it's own. on another note, how is the system with similar games, like GTA5? do you experience the same issues there (maxed CPU with gpu at 70%)? or is this game the outlier here?

[nck007]

21 hours ago, George. said:

Then I recommend running a graphics stress test. Download MSI Afterburner or a similar software to monitor cpu, gpu and ram usage and thermal throttling (if any appears). Post the results here so we can get some more representation of the situation. 

Generally if the CPU is maxed out and the GPU dips + stutter => cpu bottleneck

P.S. Could be just bad optimization on the game developer's side...some engines have weird problems with certain hardware configs sometimes...maybe your rig is fine as it is, that can be determined by some benchmarks and stress test monitoring.

MSI afterburner statistics u can probably guess when i loaded game and when stutter started i ran afterburner before starting game for few min to give you an idea of idle conditions.

[nck007]

21 hours ago, borlosky said:

ahh I just assumed it was a 6600k, yea, prolly can't go that high with a reg 6600, you're right, but maybe oc'ing it a little bit (if possible) might still help.. but in the case of RDR2 here...even though you appear to have a legit cpu bottleneck, based on the screenshots (CPU 100% with GPU at 70% is a pretty good sign of cpu bottleneck), i'd still wait till R* fixes some of these issues that appear to be creating a CPU bottleneck-like issue on it's own. on another note, how is the system with similar games, like GTA5? do you experience the same issues there (maxed CPU with gpu at 70%)? or is this game the outlier here?

On RD2 GPU maxs at 98% all the time except when it stutters it drops to 70-60 and rest all games i can play fine at 2k even at 4k (GTA,Witcher) without lag or stutter

[borlosky]

1 hour ago, nck007 said:

On RD2 GPU maxs at 98% all the time except when it stutters it drops to 70-60 and rest all games i can play fine at 2k even at 4k (GTA,Witcher) without lag or stutter

sounds like your system is mostly running normally/fine then, We just may have to wait for R* to iron some of these issues out. . But also looking at screen shots, the CPU is still the bottle neck in general though, 100%cpu, while gpu isn't 100%... that's a good sign that the CPU can't keep up with GPU..see also: https://pc-builds.com/calculator/Core_i5-6600/GeForce_GTX_970/0FQ0LElu/8/

this site considers anything over 10% a bottleneck issue, with your combo, it's at 11%, so it's BARELY considered a bottleneck (off just by 1%), and for the most part the CPU/GPU should work pretty well in most cases (as you've confirmed with GTA5 and W3), so I wouldn't worry about the CPU being a major bottleneck issue, yes it's a little old, and may have some trouble here and there with future/newer AAA releases, but shouldn't really be a huge issue with only a 970 (I wouldn't try running a 1070/80, 2070/80 or a titan with that cpu though, those gpus will eat that cpu for breakfast). In the end, for the most part, most issues with RDR2 seem to be optimization with the game engine itself, and less to do with peoples CPUs being bottle necked or problems with peoples systems in general. Remember, gta4 had a similar rocky start, but ended fixing the issues within a few months, GTA5 on the other hand...they took over TWO years between console and PC release, and it was in a much, MUCH better state on first release to pc (sure, the extra time sucked, but it sure did help with making sure the game ran well) and was widely considered a very well optimized game, even from the start. (even though it didn't have sli support from the start, but was added in later months). Witcher 3 can be considered one of the BEST examples of a well-optimized game, they did a FANTASTIC job there, and really shows what you can do, even on older hardware (I play a ton of W3 too, maxed out, with a TON of extra graphical mods and such, and the game runs beautifully @ a solid 60fps+ at 1440p) Many game makers could learn a few things from CD Projekt Red

[George.]

3 hours ago, nck007 said:

MSI afterburner statistics u can probably guess when i loaded game and when stutter started i ran afterburner before starting game for few min to give you an idea of idle conditions.

Is that with RD2 running? If so I think it's just the game being badly optimized at least for your setup (not saying it's bad, just the devs have more work to do) so I think your pc is fine If other games run smoothly.

If you have some sort of bottleneck you'll have the same issues in any game.

[nck007]

i agree with @George. and @borlosky. Tomorrow i will get my ram sticks and let you guys know what the status on that but i too think game being badly optimized is the issue and ram wouldn't make a difference.

ps i hope its the ram so i can atleast play the game.

[nck007]

Ok ,so update ram was one of the bottleneck as its now using +8gb while playing game although when using with default setting stuttering still occurs but way less also when i changed "set affinity " to only 2 processors all stuttering was gone but at expense of FPS.So , now i can play on 2560x res at med settings with 30-45 fps and 0 stutters.

 

Conclusion: Rockstar needs to optimize their game better for CPU and GPU usage and this game req 8+ gb ram in order to fix stuttering.

[George.]

3 hours ago, nck007 said:

Ok ,so update ram was one of the bottleneck as its now using +8gb while playing game although when using with default setting stuttering still occurs but way less also when i changed "set affinity " to only 2 processors all stuttering was gone but at expense of FPS.So , now i can play on 2560x res at med settings with 30-45 fps and 0 stutters.

 

Conclusion: Rockstar needs to optimize their game better for CPU and GPU usage and this game req 8+ gb ram in order to fix stuttering.

Glad your system is fine and yeah, if reducing core count fixes it then the game is terribly optimized. More RAM is never obsolete