The easiest culprit to identify; graphics cards are a prominent cause of lag in gaming systems.When you move to a new, graphically intensive area and your frame rates drop, the graphics card is normally at fault.<\/p>\n
How to test:<\/span> Reduce graphics settings to their minimum and enter the new area again. If the lag persists, the problem lies with another component. If the game is now lag free, you’ve found your bottleneck.<\/p>\n The nice thing about testing graphics cards is, with so many graphics settings, testing is relatively quick and painless.<\/p>\n CPU<\/strong><\/p>\n If you have persistent lag in numerous games, chances are your CPU is the component that needs upgrading.<\/p>\n A jittery or erratic frame rate is another warning sign that your CPU can’t keep up with the game’s demands.<\/p>\n That said, most current mid- to high-end CPUs are powerful enough to handle resource heavy triple A titles without a sweat.<\/p>\n How to test:<\/span> Load up games that are very CPU intensive, such as a large scale RTS (Supreme Commander comes to mind) or an FPS with large open environments such as Crysis or Far Cry. Make sure you lower graphics setting to eliminate potential graphics card lag.<\/p>\n RAM<\/strong><\/p>\n “You don’t have enough RAM dude!”<\/p>\n Not having enough RAM was a huge issue for gamers over the last few years, though with the advent of second generation DDR3 RAM, prices have tumbled; now everyone can afford at least 4GB of RAM.<\/p>\n If you’re a gamer, 4GB of RAM should be enough if you’re the type to run one game at a time.<\/p>\n How to test:<\/span> Similar to the CPU test, load up an intensive RTS or FPS and drop your graphics settings down low. If you notice some minor lag, load up RAM intensive tasks such as a web browser with multiple tabs.<\/p>\n When left in the background, web browsers aren’t very CPU intensive, but they do hog RAM. If the lag gets worse after you’ve loaded up the browser, you may have a RAM bottleneck… but probably not.<\/p>\n Hard drive<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong>Hard drives are a bottleneck; there aren’t many ways around this.<\/p>\n If you’re experiencing slow level loading times, or your frame rates drop dramatically before returning to normal, chances are the hard drive is cause the lag.<\/p>\n How to test:<\/span> If you’re an RPG gamer, constantly move to new areas that may not yet be cached in your RAM. Is there lag as explained above? Then your hard drive is causing the bottleneck.<\/p>\n There are other, more in-depth ways to test for and pinpoint what is causing lag in your gaming system, though they are seldom necessary.<\/p>\n If your system isn’t lagging badly enough for the above techniques to pinpoint what is causing the issue, it probably isn’t lagging bad enough to warrant an upgrade.<\/p>\n![](\"\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/Voodoo_2_old_graphics_card_829100233.jpg\")
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