Struggling to run games smoothly...

[Charlie P]

I have an RTX 3060 graphics card, intel i7 and 16 GB of RAM. Im also using a 60 hz monitor until I get a new one. I cant seem to run games at a smooth 60 frames without frame drops or stuttering. I wouldn't think this would be the case with a fairly new pc. I noticed my total available graphics memory, dedicated video memory and shared system memory are all low amounts in MB not even 1 full GB. I'm wondering if that's my issue and what I can do to resolve this issue. Please help. I'm pretty new to pc gaming, so bare with me.

[[☥] - CJ -]

a 3060 isnt exactly a 4K capable GPU.. So graphic settings may have to be lowered depending on the game.

[Charlie P]

Messaggio originale di ☥ - CJ -:

a 3060 isnt exactly a 4K capable GPU.. So graphic settings may have to be lowered depending on the game.

Ive tried lowering the settings and sometimes that doesnt even help with certain games. Are you talking about lowering the resolution?

[Charlie P]

Messaggio originale di Illusion of Progress:

While it sounds like you MAY have verified this, let's be SURE before moving onto other considerations.

If you can, get a picture of the back of the PC to show where the display cable is connected.

Also, where are you seeing the amount of dedicated and shared video memory? Task manager, I presume? No RTX 3060 has sub-1 GB of VRAM, and shared VRAM should be half your system RAM (8 GB) plus VRAM. This is probably why the first response had the idea it's possibly connected to your IGP and that's a good guess, so I'm wondering where you found this information. Can you also show a screenshot of whatever it is that is reflecting this information?

Moving onto other considerations, you'll need to more accurately describe the performance issues. Stuttering can be anything. Not everything (actually, almost nothing) performs consistently and equally throughout. Whether the things you're running should at least perform near 60 FPS with minimal variance is another question though. We'd have to know what games/settings you're running.

But again, first rule out that something other than the RTX 3060 is indeed the rendering device because that would absolutely explain both descriptions you gave.

This is the vram info I see showing under 1 GB

https://imgur.com/a/HSffMHc

[Yamantaka]

Try running games in 1920 x 1080 and see how it goes. 3060 is not powerful enough for 3840 x 2160 and will struggle in demanding games.

[CZI]

New PC or fresh installed Windows are not guaranteed to run game smooth. There are so many unwanted services, background process, and scheduled tasks.

So I'd recommend to fine tune for gaming. You can search like "PC gaming optimization". But it's better to aware some configrations create security risks.

I wrote some configurations in my guide before. It is for 3D fighting games. Player really care about frame drops as it is expected to run 60fps flat all the time.

For my case, Telemetry service was tricky.

Ref. "Windows 10 configurations" section of
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2192326393

[Charlie P]

Messaggio originale di CZI:

New PC or fresh installed Windows are not guaranteed to run game smooth. There are so many unwanted services, background process, and scheduled tasks.

So I'd recommend to fine tune for gaming. You can search like "PC gaming optimization". But it's better to aware some configrations create security risks.

I wrote some configurations in my guide before. It is for 3D fighting games. Player really care about frame drops as it is expected to run 60fps flat all the time.

For my case, Telemetry service was tricky.

Ref. "Windows 10 configurations" section of
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2192326393

I'll look into it. Thank you.

[Charlie P]

Messaggio originale di Yamantaka:

Try running games in 1920 x 1080 and see how it goes. 3060 is not powerful enough for 3840 x 2160 and will struggle in demanding games.

Should I go that low res or should I try maybe 1440p?

[Charlie P]

Also can anyone tell just by looking at this pic if everything looks right and is plugged in properly?

https://imgur.com/a/7brXrsz

[Yamantaka]

Messaggio originale di Charlie P:

Messaggio originale di Yamantaka:

Try running games in 1920 x 1080 and see how it goes. 3060 is not powerful enough for 3840 x 2160 and will struggle in demanding games.

Should I go that low res or should I try maybe 1440p?

It's your call, but I'd try 1080p first just to see. Depends entirely on game what performance to expect, but 3060 is in general more of 1080p GPU.

[Charlie P]

Messaggio originale di Yamantaka:

Messaggio originale di Charlie P:

Should I go that low res or should I try maybe 1440p?

It's your call, but I'd try 1080p first just to see. Depends entirely on game what performance to expect, but 3060 is in general more of 1080p GPU.

Ok thanks alot, I'll try it out. I always thought you are supposed to play on your native resolution.

[Illusion of Progress]

Messaggio originale di Charlie P:

This is where my hdmi is pluggedin. 1 of the 4 horizontal ports.

https://imgur.com/a/wwNl7cx

Okay, yeah, that'd be the RTX 3060.

Messaggio originale di Charlie P:

This is the vram info I see showing under 1 GB

https://imgur.com/a/HSffMHc

Those are the correct values though? Every 1,024 MB is 1 GB.

Those are showing a total VRAM pool of 20 GB, consisting of 12 GB dedicated on the graphics card, with up to half your system RAM available along with it (by the way, I said earlier the first value should be 16 GB and the third value should be 4 GB because I had a mental mix up and was calculating for an 8 GB RAM system, but you have 16 GB so the totals are correct).

At this point, since you've confirmed it's connected to the GPU and that is it indeed in order, it probably just comes down to adjusting expectations.

Running at 4K certainly isn't helping. That's not to say you can't do it. But 4K can be very demanding.

And as I said earlier, things aren't always going to perform 100% consistently. Someone made a post not long back about about performance woes, and a video they followed up with was a video of almost consistent 144 FPS with some drops to still above 100 FPS. That's just how it can go. I know you're numbers are lower than that example, but sometimes you need to adjust expectations.

Messaggio originale di Charlie P:

Messaggio originale di Yamantaka:

It's your call, but I'd try 1080p first just to see. Depends entirely on game what performance to expect, but 3060 is in general more of 1080p GPU.

Ok thanks alot, I'll try it out. I always thought you are supposed to play on your native resolution.

For quality reasons, you do want to yes, but it's not necessarily a case of "should". In your case, you're going to have to decide upon a performance/visual settings/resolution balance, and if resolution is the one you personally choose to concede rather than the other two, then there's no objective reason you "shouldn't" run at non-native if you're okay with it. Like it won't hurt the hardware.

And things like FSR or DLSS exist which may help in this area. Even higher end hardware can struggle with 4K, so upscaling has been a focused area of development.

By the way, the consoles don't necessarily do native 4K either, so when expecting to get better performance than them, keep that in mind. You can't make a 1:1 comparison. A console would probably also tend to perform better than what would be a close hardware equivalent anyway.

On the PC side, 4K is best saved for if you have a lot of funds to keep throwing at hardware if you're wanting high performance because it's just that demanding. TVs have basically all moved towards 4K but on the PC side, 1440p is a better sweet spot. On a 4K panel, you can experiment with 1080p as 4K it evenly divides into it (1440p doesn't) so feel free to try both and don't be afraid to drop "all the way" down to 1080p as you might not lose much if any quality (and might gain some) in place of using 1440p.

[Charlie P]

Messaggio originale di Illusion of Progress:

Messaggio originale di Charlie P:

This is where my hdmi is pluggedin. 1 of the 4 horizontal ports.

https://imgur.com/a/wwNl7cx

Okay, yeah, that'd be the RTX 3060.

Messaggio originale di Charlie P:

This is the vram info I see showing under 1 GB

https://imgur.com/a/HSffMHc

Those are the correct values though? Every 1,024 MB is 1 GB.

Those are showing a total VRAM pool of 20 GB, consisting of 12 GB dedicated on the graphics card, with up to half your system RAM available along with it (by the way, I said earlier the first value should be 16 GB and the third value should be 4 GB because I had a mental mix up and was calculating for an 8 GB RAM system, but you have 16 GB so the totals are correct).

At this point, since you've confirmed it's connected to the GPU and that is it indeed in order, it probably just comes down to adjusting expectations.

Running at 4K certainly isn't helping. That's not to say you can't do it. But 4K can be very demanding.

And as I said earlier, things aren't always going to perform 100% consistently. Someone made a post not long back about about performance woes, and a video they followed up with was a video of almost consistent 144 FPS with some drops to still above 100 FPS. That's just how it can go. I know you're numbers are lower than that example, but sometimes you need to adjust expectations.

Messaggio originale di Charlie P:

Ok thanks alot, I'll try it out. I always thought you are supposed to play on your native resolution.

For quality reasons, you do want to yes, but it's not necessarily a case of "should". In your case, you're going to have to decide upon a performance/visual settings/resolution balance, and if resolution is the one you personally choose to concede rather than the other two, then there's no objective reason you "shouldn't" run at non-native if you're okay with it. Like it won't hurt the hardware.

And things like FSR or DLSS exist which may help in this area. Even higher end hardware can struggle with 4K, so upscaling has been a focused area of development.

By the way, the consoles don't necessarily do native 4K either, so when expecting to get better performance than them, keep that in mind. You can't make a 1:1 comparison. A console would probably also tend to perform better than what would be a close hardware equivalent anyway.

On the PC side, 4K is best saved for if you have a lot of funds to keep throwing at hardware if you're wanting high performance because it's just that demanding. TVs have basically all moved towards 4K but on the PC side, 1440p is a better sweet spot. On a 4K panel, you can experiment with 1080p as 4K it evenly divides into it (1440p doesn't) so feel free to try both and don't be afraid to drop "all the way" down to 1080p as you might not lose much if any quality (and might gain some) in place of using 1440p. [/

Messaggio originale di Illusion of Progress:

Messaggio originale di Charlie P:

This is where my hdmi is pluggedin. 1 of the 4 horizontal ports.

https://imgur.com/a/wwNl7cx

Okay, yeah, that'd be the RTX 3060.

Messaggio originale di Charlie P:

This is the vram info I see showing under 1 GB

https://imgur.com/a/HSffMHc

Those are the correct values though? Every 1,024 MB is 1 GB.

Those are showing a total VRAM pool of 20 GB, consisting of 12 GB dedicated on the graphics card, with up to half your system RAM available along with it (by the way, I said earlier the first value should be 16 GB and the third value should be 4 GB because I had a mental mix up and was calculating for an 8 GB RAM system, but you have 16 GB so the totals are correct).

At this point, since you've confirmed it's connected to the GPU and that is it indeed in order, it probably just comes down to adjusting expectations.

Running at 4K certainly isn't helping. That's not to say you can't do it. But 4K can be very demanding.

And as I said earlier, things aren't always going to perform 100% consistently. Someone made a post not long back about about performance woes, and a video they followed up with was a video of almost consistent 144 FPS with some drops to still above 100 FPS. That's just how it can go. I know you're numbers are lower than that example, but sometimes you need to adjust expectations.

Messaggio originale di Charlie P:

Ok thanks alot, I'll try it out. I always thought you are supposed to play on your native resolution.

For quality reasons, you do want to yes, but it's not necessarily a case of "should". In your case, you're going to have to decide upon a performance/visual settings/resolution balance, and if resolution is the one you personally choose to concede rather than the other two, then there's no objective reason you "shouldn't" run at non-native if you're okay with it. Like it won't hurt the hardware.

And things like FSR or DLSS exist which may help in this area. Even higher end hardware can struggle with 4K, so upscaling has been a focused area of development.

By the way, the consoles don't necessarily do native 4K either, so when expecting to get better performance than them, keep that in mind. You can't make a 1:1 comparison. A console would probably also tend to perform better than what would be a close hardware equivalent anyway.

On the PC side, 4K is best saved for if you have a lot of funds to keep throwing at hardware if you're wanting high performance because it's just that demanding. TVs have basically all moved towards 4K but on the PC side, 1440p is a better sweet spot. On a 4K panel, you can experiment with 1080p as 4K it evenly divides into it (1440p doesn't) so feel free to try both and don't be afraid to drop "all the way" down to 1080p as you might not lose much if any quality (and might gain some) in place of using 1440p.

Thank you for your detailed responses, you've been very helpful. So you're saying my ram and vram is fine? Also as far as expectations, Im not saying anything should run perfect but this just isnt what I would expect games to run like on a decent pc. Its not like im saying im dropping a couple of frames and complaining about it. Its just very choppy on screen and falling into low 50s and 40s fps. You would have to see it to understand where im coming from I guess. Its not running even as smooth as a playstation would, so I have to be doing something wrong because that shouldnt be the case. I lowered my resolution to 1080p also tried 1440 and it really didnt fix anything. Getting a decently powered pc to run as a smooth experience at 60 fps isnt really a high expectation and shouldnt be this hard of a task, especially at 1080p.

[Agent]

3060 and 4k is the most likely reason. The card is meant for 1080p and can manage 1440p 60 FPS if you tweak the settings.

[AmaiAmai]

Either your expectations are misplaced, or there is actually an issue.

One thing you can do is check NVIDIA Control Panel , go to "Manage 3D settings" , and on Global change the power management mode to "Prefer Maximum Performance".

On most installs, the setting will be optimum power saving in Nvidia control panel by default or let Windows manage the GPU.


Picture: https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3130/~/setting-power-management-mode-from-adaptive-to-maximum-performance


If Windows is managing the GPU you can try adding the game under "Graphics Settings" in Windows settings (you can use the search function), and adding a profile there.

Some versions of Windows 10 and 11 already ignore Nvidia Control Panel, and since I have no idea what you are running and it's not a big deal for you to do this, try both of them and see which method works for your situation.

If neither of those work, maybe your expectation is too high...or there is some other issue

[[☥] - CJ -]

What NVIDIA driver do you have installed as i previously asked before?
did you install it yourself or let windows install it?

Install MSI Afterburner
Go into the settings and ENABLE the MONITORING and On Screen Display settings.
Under Monitoring
Click on Framerate and click the box for "Show in On Screen Display"
Do thee same thing for GPU Temperature, Core Clock, GPU Usage, Memory Usage and Memory Clock, then hit OK to save the changes.

For the On Screen Display tab, set the button combo to show/hide the OSD when in game.

Go into a game you're having issues with, turn on the OSD and take a screen shot of the stats shown and show it to us.

^^^^^ BEFORE DOING THE BELOW DO THE ABOVE FIRST ^^^^^
If you let Windows install it, download DDU and run it in Windows Safe mode to clean uninstall the driver, when it asks you to turn off Windows automatic driver installs ACCEPT IT, otherwise it'll do the same thing after you reboot.

Its easier to have the latest driver downloaded to your desktop beforehand so you dont have to wait

When installing the NVIDIA Driver
Choose DRIVER ONLY, then CUSTOM INSTALL, Uncheck everything EXCEPT PhysX, the driver and PhysX are the only things to be installed to help avoid issues.

The GPU IS at least being detected and showing the correct amount of VRAM so thats something.

One last thing

Would you mind explaining why you have the BIOS version of the GPU hidden? Absolutely no reason to hide it.