How to Identify a Bottleneck in-gaming?

[Wufflez]

Hi, I have a very old system. List of all the specs below:

CPU: i5-4690k (Not OC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO

GPU: GTX 970

Memory: 16GB DDR3
NVMe SSD + SATA SSD
Displays: 144hz 1080p VA panel + 60hz 1080p IPS Panel
Win 10
All Graphics drivers up-to-date w/ clean install.

I only play 2 games, Rocket League and Classic WoW. WoW is no issue. When I play Rocket League at minimum settings, uncapped frames, v-sync off with Youtube videos @480p on the 2nd monitor; nothing else open. I do get noticeable stutters. I suspected that it's my CPU that is too dated because Rocket League is a very CPU dependent game, but could it possibly be my GPU that's the issue? I'd like to know how I can test if there's a bottleneck in my system while playing Rocket League without having to swap hardware.

Thanks!

[Shimejii]

Its the CPU. its a 4 core 4 thread that is pretty old at this point. Its gonna be pretty tough for it to be handling games+videos at this point. 

 

How to tell a bottleneck? Knowledge of hardware and doing enough research. You can do testing, but that also requires you have hardware in hand so you can test to see where that lies, and most people cannot do that.

 

What should you do? Well depends on how much money ya got or you are willing to spend. You can buy a used Ryzen 3000 series PC or 5000 PC for a relatively affordable price compared to if you bought everything new. 

[da na]

Just now, Shimejii said:

Its the CPU. its a 4 core 4 thread. Its gonna be pretty tough for it to be handling games+videos at this point. 

 

How to tell a bottleneck? Knowledge of hardware and doing enough research. You can do testing, but that also requires you have hardware in hand so you can test to see where that lies, and most people cannot do that.

 

What should you do? Well depends on how much money ya got or you are willing to spend. You can buy a used Ryzen 3000 series PC or 5000 PC for a relatively affordable price compared to if you bought everything new. 

Well, both components are a little outdated. You could get an i7 that fits your board, a 4core 8thread minimum, that'll be maybe $50? And of course the 970 is a little lacking in VRAM nowadays, but computationally for Rocket League a 970 is more than enough still.

[Jon-Slow]

9 minutes ago, Wufflez said:

I only play 2 games, Rocket League and Classic WoW. WoW is no issue. When I play Rocket League at minimum settings, uncapped frames, v-sync off with Youtube videos @480p on the 2nd monitor; nothing else open. I do get noticeable stutters. I suspected that it's my CPU that is too dated because Rocket League is a very CPU dependent game, but could it possibly be my GPU that's the issue? I'd like to know how I can test if there's a bottleneck in my system while playing Rocket League without having to swap hardware.

 

Well if you're running a Youtube video on your second monitor, this could be causing you all sorts of problens like first locking your main monitor to 60fps as well instead of its unlocked 144. When you say 'bottleneck in gaming' then you need to first just look into playing the game and not anything on the background and see what CPU/GPU utilization you have.

 

Generally at 60fps, you wont be running into CPU bottlenecks with any processor form the past couple of years playing WOW or Rocket League. But going above 60 puts more pressure on your CPU, online games put pressure on your CPU.

 

You need to check your CPU/GPU utilization to find out. I would say that for those two games you've mentioned, you're definitely not running into any bottlenecks that you can see at even 144hz. But the main problem is what you're doing in the background. Those processes are causing your trouble. I usually wouldn't run Youtube and game at the same time and I have 13900k with a 4080.

 

To wrap up, both your CPU and GPU are fine for WOW and Rocket League at a decent resolution and framerate. Don't watch Youtube while gaming as you'll run into Vram limits and stutters.

[Wufflez]

1 minute ago, da na said:

Well, both components are a little outdated. You could get an i7 that fits your board, a 4core 8thread minimum, that'll be maybe $50? And of course the 970 is a little lacking in VRAM nowadays, but computationally for Rocket League a 970 is more than enough still.

I could get one for free, an i7-4770, but I wasn't sure if the virtual cores would make much of an impact to be worth the hassle. I don't plan on playing other games or upgrading to a higher resolution. Thoughts?

[da na]

2 minutes ago, Wufflez said:

I could get one for free, an i7-4770, but I wasn't sure if the virtual cores would make much of an impact to be worth the hassle. I don't plan on playing other games or upgrading to a higher resolution. Thoughts?

Awesome, for free an i7-4770 would be a great upgrade. It won't perform worse, that's for sure. 

2 core 4 thread is worse than a real 4 cores, for example, but 4 core 8 thread will perform a good deal better than non-hyperthreaded 4 cores. In most programs/apps you'll see a maybe 33-60% performance increase? Depends how cache-heavy it is.

[Jon-Slow]

1 minute ago, Wufflez said:

I could get one for free, an i7-4770, but I wasn't sure if the virtual cores would make much of an impact to be worth the hassle. I don't plan on playing other games or upgrading to a higher resolution. Thoughts?

 

Currently your problem with the stutters are because you're running a Youtube video in the background. You're needlessly filling up your Vram, and causing stutters. a CPU upgrade wont do you anygood. Try watching your Youtube on your phone or something else.

[Wufflez]

Just now, Jon-Slow said:

 

Currently your problem with the stutters are because you're running a Youtube video in the background. You're needlessly filling up your Vram, and causing stutters. a CPU upgrade wont do you anygood. Try watching your Youtube on your phone or something else.

This is what I suspected the issue might be. Is there a way to see my GPU's VRAM usage? Playing Rocket League without Youtube videos is non-negotiable for me. I use headphones as well so using a separate device is out of the question

[Quackers101]

it can be hard when there is so much else that can be going on with newer builds. between OS, hardware and features.
but its nice to be aware of your hardware, use some tools to see temps and performance between a few titles you own.
if you see the usage % stops at a certain point, temps are fine, and tested in a few titles. but even if something is at 100% usage you can also see on the FPS on how much it drops with what settings, like if it still can handle higher resolution, tessellation, shadows, AA, for the GPU or memory.

could be that every part wants an upgrade, but can do an gpu in future? as its easier to upgrade GPU, so long the CPU isn't holding back too much.

GPU for speed and needing enough memory for some tasks/games, while CPU, cores, some speed and can be harder to find right one, unless your board can get a small upgrade with a CPU that works for your board to give some boost to performance.

Edited June 4, 2023 by Quackers101

[Jon-Slow]

3 minutes ago, Wufflez said:

This is what I suspected the issue might be. Is there a way to see my GPU's VRAM usage? Playing Rocket League without Youtube videos is non-negotiable for me. I use headphones as well so using a separate device is out of the question

 

HWinfo+RTSS+Afterburner, will give you all the info you need. CapframeX is also decent. All you need is to look for your dedicated video memory and not virtual video memory. You can also see your dedicated video memory under performance in Task manger.

 

I don't think that youtube should be a non-negotiable for you when you only have 3.5gb of Vram on your card. You will get stutters with Youtube running in the background. You should try putting your youtube on your phone.

[Jon-Slow]

Or buy a card with 16 or 24gb of Vram which is going to cost you a ton. But I still wouldn't run any browser with videos or heavy Vram requirements in the back ground. A youtube video and a couple of tabs could easily fill up all of your Vram faster than you can imagin. This filling and refilling of Vram is the main cause of stutters for a game that doesn't stutter on its own. There are other solution for getting youtube on a second monitor that wouldn't compromise your game.

[Wufflez]

After testing and monitoring, the stuttering is occurring when the CPU hits 100%. The GPU never goes beyond 95% usage and the VRAM is not moving past 2.2GB of usage. I'll try upgrading to the i7-4770 and see if it makes any difference before considering upgrading to a newer platform. Thank you all!

[Crunchy Dragon]

2 minutes ago, Jon-Slow said:

Or buy a card with 16 or 24gb of Vram which is going to cost you a ton. But I still wouldn't run any browser with videos or heavy Vram requirements in the back ground. A youtube video and a couple of tabs could easily fill up all of your Vram faster than you can imagin. This filling and refilling of Vram is the main cause of stutters for a game that doesn't stutter on its own.

What?

My 2070 Super has 8GB of VRAM and I can run games at 1080p with YouTube on a second monitor with other browser tabs open with very few issues.

Having a bunch of tabs open in a browser will fill your RAM more than your VRAM, but that's not a major issue with 16GB.

 

Now with 3.5GB of GTX 970 VRAM, having YouTube open at the same time as an esport title like Rocket League will absolutely cause problems, but the remedy isn't going to be buy a card with 16 or 24GB VRAM. A CPU upgrade, especially a free i7-4770 like OP mentioned, combined with maybe an upgrade to a GTX 1070 will go a long way for what OP has mentioned.

 

Games can also stutter for other reasons than filling up VRAM, I would argue it's more common for games to stutter due to non-VRAM-related issues.

[Guest]

One technique to tell if there's a bottleneck is to see what fps your GPU should get. 

 

Then have task manager open. 

If you get less frames check:

Is my CPU at 100%?

Is my GPU less than 100%?

Okay I am CPU limited. 

 

Is your fps stable? 

Okay let's check usage. 

GPU 100%? Great perfect use. 

CPU is less than 100%? Okay your cpu can maybe handle a better GPU. 

 

This is a rough technique. It's not definitive. 

There could be more to it. 

Also I think it's impossible to get 100% out of CPU and GPU. It really depends on how the game code was written. 

Minecraft realistically won't ever use 100% of a modern GPU. 

Arma 2 or 3 also couldn't use a lot of a GPU. 

 

[Mark Kaine]

pretty easy check with msi afterburner overlay, if cpu is at 100% (on any core) thats a cpu bottleneck. 

 

And what are you using to stream cpu or gpu? Not sure if 970 has NVENC? 

 

3 hours ago, fpo said:

Also I think it's impossible to get 100% out of CPU and GPU.

funny enough the tomb raider games do that if i max them out as far as possible,  both gpu and cpu pretty much 100% almost all the time and its stable (cause i lock my framerates) but yes, thats rare, talk about good optimization though. 

[Wufflez]

Hello all, 

Thank each and every one of your replies. I haven't upgraded my CPU yet (it is what I found to be the bottle neck), but what I have found to help significantly for myself and anyone else in my position is to instead of having the web browser and video playing on the 2nd monitor. It is much less taxing for my system to play the video in picture-in-picture mode (right-click twice on a youtube video for the option) and then minimizing the browser. You can resize the picture-in-picture video. After doing this, my CPU rarely peaks at 100% usage while playing rocket league and videos playing.