How to improve performance with a bad CPU

[Sterlander]

I more than exceed the recommended requirements for this game, but this prebuilt's dumb and has a pretty bad CPU. An AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core (when the minimum processor is a Ryzen 5 3600X... so like, my processor is just barley below the minimum.)

It causes the game to stutter and freeze sometimes. Doesn't always happen, but when it does it can be kinda devestating.

I've tried all the settings, including lowering the resolution down, nothing seems to get rid of the stutters. Is there anything I could change to stop them?

[Tiger Born]

Have you tried spending money to get better parts?

[Sterlander]

Originally posted by Tiger Born:

Have you tried spending money to get better parts?

I'm going to get better parts soon, but Erdtree comes out today and I'm just now realizing this prebuilt has stutters with Elden Ring. Do you have advice other than the absolute most obvious?

[BingusDingus]

The only real solution is to get a better CPU. You can overclock your CPU, but do that at your own risk.

[=Palynzer=]

Maybe this help: https://store.steampowered.com/app/993090/Lossless_Scaling/

[nfinite.recursion]

OP, you are assuming that your stuttering issues are specifically caused by your CPU.

If you use the Steam forum's search function (or Google), you'll see that there are a bunch of sources of stutter. I'd suggest trying those out before shelling out money for a faster CPU that may not fix your stuttering issues because the source may be something else.

Since this is interrelated, I'll ask: What is your RAM speed? Elden Ring is unusually demanding of RAM bandwidth.

[Sterlander]

Originally posted by BingusDingus:

The only real solution is to get a better CPU. You can overclock your CPU, but do that at your own risk.

I feel like it'd only need to be overclocked ever so slightly. It feels like it's just on the cusp of being able to run it fine.

Never properly dabbled in overclocking though. If I'm gonna get a new CPU anyway, I may as well try it I suppose. Just always been worried that it'll cause collateral damage to other parts.

[Sterlander]

Originally posted by nfinite.recursion:

OP, you are assuming that your stuttering issues are specifically caused by your CPU.

If you use the Steam forum's search function (or Google), you'll see that there are a bunch of sources of stutter. I'd suggest trying those out before shelling out money for a faster CPU that may not fix your stuttering issues because the source may be something else.

Since this is interrelated, I'll ask: What is your RAM speed? Elden Ring is unusually demanding of RAM bandwidth.

I've tried a lot of the stuttering solutions. Then I went and looked at the minimum specs and realized that it might be because my CPU just barely doesn't meet the minimum requirements.

If you've got any solutions / stuttering fixes in particular, I'd love to hear them. A lot of them come from the first couple months of the game's release, so I don't know if they're still relevant or not.

Task Manager says my speed is 2133 MHz. 24 gbs of RAM

[RubyCante]

Originally posted by Sterlander:

Originally posted by nfinite.recursion:

OP, you are assuming that your stuttering issues are specifically caused by your CPU.

If you use the Steam forum's search function (or Google), you'll see that there are a bunch of sources of stutter. I'd suggest trying those out before shelling out money for a faster CPU that may not fix your stuttering issues because the source may be something else.

Since this is interrelated, I'll ask: What is your RAM speed? Elden Ring is unusually demanding of RAM bandwidth.

I've tried a lot of the stuttering solutions. Then I went and looked at the minimum specs and realized that it might be because my CPU just barely doesn't meet the minimum requirements.

If you've got any solutions / stuttering fixes in particular, I'd love to hear them. A lot of them come from the first couple months of the game's release, so I don't know if they're still relevant or not.

Task Manager says my speed is 2133 MHz. 24 gbs of RAM

if you are stuttering in the "open world" then it's the game/engine fault..
i remember back on release i been playing on r5 3600 just fine, can get stable 60 fps inside dungeon.. BUT on open world it's stutter fest with FPS drop all over the place..
here we are some times later, right now im using 5800x3D same exact performance, stable 60 FPS, on open world it depends on the location etc but yea open world still stutter fest..

[Sterlander]

This prebuilt is wack and also has a really weird thing where it'll constantly bluescreen unless I lower the Minimum and Maximum processor states down to 90%. I troubleshooted the bluescreening in every way I could, this is basically the only way It stops crashing. Certainly isn't helping my performance, I'll try bumping it up to 93% and hoping it doesn't crash.

[Sterlander]

Originally posted by RubyCante:

Originally posted by Sterlander:

I've tried a lot of the stuttering solutions. Then I went and looked at the minimum specs and realized that it might be because my CPU just barely doesn't meet the minimum requirements.

If you've got any solutions / stuttering fixes in particular, I'd love to hear them. A lot of them come from the first couple months of the game's release, so I don't know if they're still relevant or not.

Task Manager says my speed is 2133 MHz. 24 gbs of RAM

if you are stuttering in the "open world" then it's the game/engine fault..
i remember back on release i been playing on r5 3600 just fine, can get stable 60 fps inside dungeon.. BUT on open world it's stutter fest with FPS drop all over the place..
here we are some times later, right now im using 5800x3D same exact performance, stable 60 FPS, on open world it depends on the location etc but yea open world still stutter fest..

It runs at 30fps low settings on my Steam Deck with no stutters.. it kinda does feel like a game engine problem, yeah.

No idea if the Steam Deck's processor is better than this one though. If it is then that's pretty funny

[RubyCante]

Originally posted by Sterlander:

This prebuilt is wack and also has a really weird thing where it'll constantly bluescreen unless I lower the Minimum and Maximum processor states down to 90%. I troubleshooted the bluescreening in every way I could, this is basically the only way It stops crashing. Certainly isn't helping my performance, I'll try bumping it up to 93% and hoping it doesn't crash.

dude, check the CPU COOLER, that sounds like the "prebuilt" FORGOT to take off the plastic of the CPU COOLER

[nfinite.recursion]

Originally posted by Sterlander:

Task Manager says my speed is 2133 MHz. 24 gbs of RAM

Your RAM speed is too slow and you're using mismatched DIMMs which keeps your RAM from running in dual channel mode.

[NECROCANNIBAL]

3600 and 3600x are basically the same. And I play just fine with 2600x. If it stutters (which is rare after I changed my GPU to 6600XT) just alt+tab and it works great again.
And you know, FROM was never great about optimisation of their games on PC , except (ironically) DS2.

[Sterlander]

Originally posted by nfinite.recursion:

Originally posted by Sterlander:

Task Manager says my speed is 2133 MHz. 24 gbs of RAM

Your RAM speed is too slow and you're using mismatched DIMMs which keeps your RAM from running in dual channel mode.

Sh*t, I never really thought about that. This thing came with 3 sticks plugged in.
https://imgur.com/a/MhhEevd
Would I just need to take one of the sticks out? Or is there a way to manually run it in dual channel mode?

[nfinite.recursion]

Originally posted by Sterlander:

Originally posted by nfinite.recursion:

Your RAM speed is too slow and you're using mismatched DIMMs which keeps your RAM from running in dual channel mode.

Sh*t, I never really thought about that. This thing came with 3 sticks plugged in.
https://imgur.com/a/MhhEevd
Would I just need to take one of the sticks out? Or is there a way to manually run it in dual channel mode?

Yeah, you can try taking one of them out. I'd recommend removing the one that's different from the other two. I'm assuming the PC was originally built with a 2 stick RAM kit and then another 8GB stick was added.

Keep in mind that in order for dual channel mode to be activated that the remaining 2 sticks need to be in the proper slots. For most motherboards they have to be placed in every other slot, not right next to each other.

EDIT: the 2 stick RAM kit might support a speed higher than 2133MT/s. Hopefully they support 3000MT/s or higher. You'll probably have to enable DOCP in BIOS, which is AMD's version of XMP.