Memory speed vs Gaming performance

[Woerr]

I have been doing some research trying to find the bottleneck in my system and have found very mixed responses regarding memory speed and FPS in Battlefield 4.

I am limited to 1600mHz with my mobo and have 1333mHz currently, I will be getting some 1600mHz shortly and will add my own benchmarks. Keep in mind my CPU (2500k) is overclocked to 4.5gHz and I am running two GTX660 in SLI.

Below is the information I have found so far.

#1
http://www.overclock.net/t/1438222/battlefield-4-ram-memory-benchmark


This shows very little difference with his test setup, but the benchmark is done in single player which one can not compare to multiplayer.

#2

http://www.overclock.net/t/1438222/battlefield-4-ram-memory-benchmark

Now this guy reports a 60% performance increase from 1333mHz to 2000mHz in bf4 multiplayer. this is where is gets confusing, most people say that bf4 multiplayer is very well optimized for multi-threaded gaming and this is why we see such a big difference in fps. Many people also report that the game runs much smoother with faster memory without there actually being and fps increase, But I guess I won't know until I test it in my own rig.

 

[chan0o]

What size is your RAM?
The speed won't matter much if you only have 2GB RAM.. the system will have to constantly page from the HDD.

What resolution is your screen?
32GB of RAM won't do you much good if your GTX660s is trying to push a 3840 × 2160 screen.

What fps are you currently getting?

I'm not sure if this is a FYI or a question thread ...

 

[Woerr]

It is a discussion thread. currently it is 16gb 1333gHz, my resolution 1080p and I am currently locked to 121fps as I am using a 120Hz screen but it dips to +- 90fps, something is bottlenecking my computer because my cpu maxes at 80% usage and my GPUs max at 80% and 70% and doesnt peak or dip when the frame loss occurs.

 

[Glordit]

It is a discussion thread. currently it is 16gb 1333gHz, my resolution 1080p and I am currently locked to 121fps as I am using a 120Hz screen but it dips to +- 90fps, something is bottlenecking my computer because my cpu maxes at 80% usage and my GPUs max at 80% and 70% and doesnt peak or dip when the frame loss occurs.

There are too many variables to take into account for me to give an honest opinion, I would say Battlefield 4 was terribly put together or is still somewhat a beta but then that would make people angry. How ever you are getting 121-90 fps thats about 60 more than I ever go so why want more?

 

[BeoTeK]

actually a very interesting topic imo....

... considering of recent I have needed to buy a new a CPU, I then opted to sell off 2x 4GB ram modules in order to fund the process, though I am a little comprehensive as to what this will do to my performance, though I still have 8GB left.

 

[The Joker]

There will be some performance gain, but def not 60%, more in the region of 10% and only in BF4.
From a gaming point of view (BF4 the exception), the more ram the better, speed doesn't really come into it unless you are running a APU, where the increased ram speed will boost the on board GPU.

 

[Woerr]

There are too many variables to take into account for me to give an honest opinion, I would say Battlefield 4 was terribly put together or is still somewhat a beta but then that would make people angry. How ever you are getting 121-90 fps thats about 60 more than I ever go so why want more?

dipping at all below 120 is very noticeable to me, I know many people will try to slaughter me for making that comment because human can only perceive so many bananas per yada yada yada, playing on a competitive level small inconsistencies make a massive impact on overall performance, and the difference between 120 fps and 110 fps is very noticeable. I know my cpu has a headroom of 20% and my GPU's have a average headroom of 25% and I know something is keeping them from working harder in heavy situations (in game) furthermore even a 10% increase in performance is a worthwhile investment imo.

 

[The-1]

dipping at all below 120 is very noticeable to me, I know many people will try to slaughter me for making that comment because human can only perceive so many bananas per yada yada yada, playing on a competitive level small inconsistencies make a massive impact on overall performance, and the difference between 120 fps and 110 fps is very noticeable. I know my cpu has a headroom of 20% and my GPU's have a average headroom of 25% and I know something is keeping them from working harder in heavy situations (in game) furthermore even a 10% increase in performance is a worthwhile investment imo.

I think it has more to do with the stability of the FPS, playing at a steady FPS would be better than playing at a fluctuating FPS as it creates the choppy / stutter effect. So playing at constant 90or 100 fps would be better than playing at fluctuating 120 fps.

 

[Glordit]

dipping at all below 120 is very noticeable to me, I know many people will try to slaughter me for making that comment because human can only perceive so many bananas per yada yada yada, playing on a competitive level small inconsistencies make a massive impact on overall performance, and the difference between 120 fps and 110 fps is very noticeable. I know my cpu has a headroom of 20% and my GPU's have a average headroom of 25% and I know something is keeping them from working harder in heavy situations (in game) furthermore even a 10% increase in performance is a worthwhile investment imo.

Try using Vsync to keep it constant but you may get screen tearing.

I won't deny that 120 fps is not better than 90 fps, it will feel quite a bit smoother but that is only if it dipping, when I played BF4 I was lucky to get 50 at High/Med at 1600x900, it would dip to the mid 30's but it was still quite playable, I can only assume that I am more used to playing with frame dips due to me not worrying about getting that extra 30 fps out of a game.

As for the CPU/GPU usage I have yet to come across a game that would maximise CPU usage (unless it is well below the required CPU/GPU speed/core count/memory requirement) which would cause frame stutter and lag. Watching 4/8k video with my first series i5 places CPU usage at 50%-87% on all four cores. My understanding is that games a software will use what is needed to them and hitting 100% can also cause problems like overheating and throttling. I only ever see 100% CPU usage when running CPU stress tests, burn tests or encoding video (setting CPU usage to real time).

I will throw my 2c in about the memory usage and battlefield 4, I think the person that posted those results must have made the conditions in his favour to obtain such massive increases, likewise with Corsair's representation of the same test. If it was the case with other games I would believe it but as Joker stated:

speed doesn't really come into it unless you are running a APU, where the increased ram speed will boost the on board GPU.

Looking at Bit-tech's results of BF4 it looks to be a very GPU intensive game:
CPU performance: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2013/11/27/battlefield-4-performance-analysis/8
RAM performance: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2013/11/27/battlefield-4-performance-analysis/9
GPU performance: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2013/11/27/battlefield-4-performance-analysis/3

Even with a R9 270X the game dipped from 101 to 86 in their tests, it just shows me that Battlefield has/had some optimisation issues (I stopped playing a while ago so I am unable to comment on the current state of the game) that need to be resolved, what causes the frame dips? I can't say for sure as I am well versed in programing and the amount needed to render 64 players across a massive map that is fully destructible with over 20 vehicles roaming about is quite a feat that is well out of my knowledge range. So you'll have to forgive DICE for leaving in a few hitches and bugs.

TL;DR Use Vsync, or get used to frame dips until DICE fixes the engine.

 

[The Joker]

You make some good points Glordit.

@OP There is no way you would notice a drop from 120-110, I personally jam @ 120Hz with a 780Ti and there is no way to notice this, the only way you would is if your running something like fraps or the in game fps monitor and you see the number dropping 120-110. Its just too small a jump especially at that fps.

Noticing a drop in frame rates will usually happen at the low end, so if you drop from 50-30, that will be noticeable because the frames will become really choppy and you'll experience "lag".

 

[Woerr]

I guess its just the enthusiast in me that refuses to believe that is how it is and there is nothing I can do about it, vertical sync isn't an option for me because of the added input latency.

@Joker: its more the stutter effect that you notice, which is probably caused by the sudden increase/decrease in frames or just bad coding as glordit said.

 

[The Joker]

I guess its just the enthusiast in me that refuses to believe that is how it is and there is nothing I can do about it, vertical sync isn't an option for me because of the added input latency.

@Joker: its more the stutter effect that you notice, which is probably caused by the sudden increase/decrease in frames or just bad coding as glordit said.

The mirco stutter will be from the 2 gpu's in SLI.
Get a single more powerful card, something along the lines of a R9 290/ GTX780 and the game will be smoother, 0 microstutter, and frame drops won't be as "noticeable".

 

[Snare]

There are too many variables to take into account for me to give an honest opinion, I would say Battlefield 4 was terribly put together or is still somewhat a beta but then that would make people angry. How ever you are getting 121-90 fps thats about 60 more than I ever go so why want more?

I'm with Glordit on this one. I have a very similar setup, (with a 3570 instead of 2500); and I can literally get no more than 33 fps in BF4 regardless of settings(thats on lowest. on High --> Ultra it averages 17 ~ 24 fps). Terribly assembled game, so no advise will ever be definitive in accordance to this game.

 

[Woerr]

I'm with Glordit on this one. I have a very similar setup, (with a 3570 instead of 2500); and I can literally get no more than 33 fps in BF4 regardless of settings(thats on lowest. on High --> Ultra it averages 17 ~ 24 fps). Terribly assembled game, so no advise will ever be definitive in accordance to this game.

I got quite a bit more performance with shadowplay turned off, seems the new capture driver is problematic. if you want I can help you get more fps, on high I get around 80-90 fps.

 

[Wesley]

You will see a jump in performance, nothing on the order of 60% but a decent improvement nonetheless (more for smoothness than anything else). Battlefield 4's memory management is very different from previous games in the series and that's why even Corsair took time to show how much the game benefits from faster memory and a Haswell K-series processor. The game's still not perfect and remains buggy for a lot of people.

In the tests that OP linked to, there's no mention of whether it's a comparison with the CPU at stock frequencies in both tests, or overclocked in both tests. An overclocked processor will, in most cases, also overclock the internal memory controller (if he's just raising the multiplier then that negates this point somewhat) and many people also fiddle with the BLCK for higher overclocks. His Ultra results show some scaling, but the gulf between 1333MHz and 2133MHz in his tests grows noticeably smaller. At Ultra settings the memory is no longer the biggest bottleneck in the system.

Also consider that much has changed with newer drivers from Nvidia and game patches and whatnot. BF4 now is noticeably different from a performance perspective than it was on launch day. Nvidia's latest drivers also put much more strain on the CPU and memory and systems with SLI do require faster memory now to perform at their peak.

8GB 1866MHz is the baseline one should be aiming for these days on overclockable systems. For SLI/Crossfire rigs with modern GPU architectures like Kepler/Maxwell and GCN 1.1 (Hawaii, Bonaire) faster memory is definitely necessary if you want peak efficiency.