[PC] Bad FPS dips

Luck100

Running BF4 on PC, just purchased and downloaded today. FPS is good most of the time on ultra (60+ usually) but once every minute or so I hit some spot and it dips down to 10 or so. It's really like it freezes for a moment (probably about half a second) and then kicks in again.

Using 2 GTX 670's in SLI, Nvidia drivers version 331.82, Windows 7 pro, 1440p resolution. I tried running at very high quality instead of ultra, and it just raises my average FPS but the sudden stops are still there.

Any ideas? System details in my signature. All my other games run perfectly in SLI, no issues at all.

Edit: so far just playing single player campaign, haven't tried multiplayer yet.

Spear

Is there any disk activity the same time?

Luck100

Not sure, it's running from the SSD. Doesn't happen in any other game. I'll run a system monitor on my other screen next time to see what's happening.

dreamers75

I would suggest these settings until the game is patched and or drivers make this **** work.

TerrorFirmer

I actually think it could be vram usage. Especially at 1440p. I had a similar problem with a GTX590, now granted that's only 1.5GB ram, but it'd be 90fps, then suddenly drop to 20, then back to 90, and so on. I've since changed the ram and CPU to 1866mhz and an 8-core respectively, so it only dawned on me since that it was vram. I tried a 7950, which is actually a slower card, but the FPS was way more stable because it has 3GB. Ended up buying a 290 3GB in the end :P People in other forums mapped out their vram usage and past 1080p, found it was often hitting 2.2GB usage.

I'm not saying it's a hard fact but it's certainly one to consider. Try running at ultra except textures at medium or low as a test example and see how you fare.

TheFairy

I had the same thing happen, I tweaked settings, but the most noticable thing I changed was the sound, dropped it to Stereo? I had a feeling that maybe onboard sound wasnt cutting it?

Luck100

Thanks for all the tips guys. I went back and finally noticed the little flashing cursor symbol in the upper right of the screen, I guess that pops up when something is loading during play. That was clearly the reason for the worst freezes. I guess that was probably the same in BF3, but I never played that.

Out of curiosity I tried playing with SLI disabled, 1920x1080 at low settings and it was running around 150-200 fps super smooth (except of course for when something loads, that always seems to cause a brief freeze).

There do seem to be some additional slow spots with 2550x1440 at ultra (SLI enabled), but I'll try tweaking settings as suggested and see how it goes.

I have to say it's just really a pain to do any testing with this game, there's no benchmark loop and you can't even jump to any saved locations.