2013-11-17 17:58 , edited 2013-11-18 13:41 by LondonCitizen
Stuttering, Freezing, FPS drop - FIX
Hello,
After alot of spent time trying to figure out this problem I finally found a way to fix my Stuttering problem and get smooth gameplay.
I tested this for more than 24 hours and I been able to play BF4 smoothly without any problems (Servers are still crashing, so count on seeing server side issues).
I also tested in different game modes, and high/low populated servers, fix is working in each case.
I been playing on Ultra details in 1920x1200 or 2560x1600 with High or Ultra (set to Custom) settings with 2x Antialiasing.
ISSUE:
BF4 Stuttering, freezing, dropping FPS during gameplay.
Problem would often suddently appear after several minutes of gameplay or after a map change.
Further suttering would continue even after restart of BF4 application. Only way to resolve a problem was fully restart the PC and play again, where after some time stuttering came back and I had to repeat whole reboot process again.
My Hardware:
Windows 8 x64 Pro fully patched
2x Intel Xeon 5150 CPUs
Intel 5000 series chipset mobo
EVGA Geforece GTX 660sc using 331.65 drivers
8GB RAM
OZC Agility 3 SSD - used for OS and BF4 install
Realtek HD Audio
BF4 - 64bit with latest client patch.
FIX:
Empty Standby Memory in Windows, can be done during gameplay, no restart needed.
- Download RAMMAP from microsoft http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinternals/ff700229.aspx [technet.microsoft.com]
- Start Task Manager and go to Memory Section, Notice memory composition. It may look like you have plenty of memory free however the free memory is used by standby data in this case BF4 cached content.
- Run RAMMap which you downloaded from Microsoft.
- Start BF4.
- Once you game starts freezing after map change or during gameplay do following
- Alt + Tab to switch from BF4 to RAMMap. Go to "Empty" on the top of the menu
- Click Empty Standby List, You can also try Empty Priority 0 Standby List.
- Now press Atl + Tab to switch back to game and enjoy smooth gameplay without any freezes or stuttering.
Here is full description on what I've done on my PC to fix stuttering problem from default Windows 8 installation.
STEP A - You need to have more than 4GB RAM in order to do this. BF4 won't run only on 4GB with disabled Pagefile so please skip to STEB B.
1. Disable Page File
- Go to SystemHello,
After a lot of spent time trying to figure out this problem I finally found a way to fix my Stuttering problem and get smooth gameplay.
I tested this for more than 24 hours and I been able to play BF4 smoothly without any problems (Servers are still crashing, so count on seeing server side issues).
I also tested in different game modes, and high/low populated servers, fix is working in each case.
I been playing on Ultra details in 1920x1200 or 2560x1600 with High or Ultra (set to Custom) settings with 2x Antialiasing.
ISSUE:
BF4 Stuttering, freezing, dropping FPS during gameplay.
Problem would often suddenly appear after several minutes of gameplay or after a map change.
Further stuttering would continue even after restart of BF4 application. Only way to resolve a problem was fully restart the PC and play again, where after some time stuttering came back and I had to repeat whole reboot process again.
My Hardware:
Windows 8 x64 Pro - fully patched
2x Intel Xeon 5150 CPUs
Intel 5000 series chipset based motherboard
EVGA Geforce GTX 660 superclocked - using 331.65 drivers
8GB RAM
OZC Agility 3 SSD - used for OS and BF4 install
Realtek HD Audio
BF4 - 64bit with latest client patch.
FIX:
Empty Standby Memory in Windows, this can be done during gameplay, no restart needed.
I have also disabled pagefile, prefetch and superfetch as described further below.
I have tested this only on 8GB ram. Please make sure that you read the full post before making any changes.
- Download RAMMAP from microsoft http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinternals/ff700229.aspx [technet.microsoft.com]
- Start Task Manager and go to Memory Section, Notice memory composition. It may look like you have plenty of memory free however the free memory is used by standby data in this case BF4 cached content (This is only visible once you start BF4) You can see this from details in RAMMap.
- Run RAMMap which you downloaded from Microsoft.
- Start BF4.
- Once your game starts freezing after map change or during gameplay do following
- Alt + Tab to switch from BF4 to RAMMap. Click "Empty" on the top of the RAMMap menu
- Click Empty Standby List (You can also verify in Task Manager that you Standby Memory usage is none or very low)
- Now press Atl + Tab to switch back to the game and enjoy smooth gameplay without any freezes or stuttering.
Here is full description on what I've done on my PC to fix stuttering problem from default Windows 8 installation.
STEP A
1. Disable Page File
- Go to System
- Go to Advance System Settings
- In Performance section click on Settings and click Advanced tab.
- In Virtual memory section click on Change... button
- Select each disk enabled with Paging and set setting to No Paging file and hit Set button
- Now all your listed disk should show Paging File Size as "None"
- Press OK button to exist from the menu
- We will reboot pc later once we change more settings, there is no need to restart the PC now.
2. Disable Superfetch
- Open run and type services.msc from run or win8 start screen (make sure applications on right menu is selected) or open services console by other means.
- Find Superfetch service, right click it and go to properties
- In General tab select startup type as disabled.
- We will reboot pc later once we change more settings, there is no need to restart the PC now.
3. Disable Prefetch
- Open registry editor, type regedit (You need to have admin rights)
- Navigate to following key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters\
- Right click and select Modify on "EnablePrefetcher" and set Value data: to "0" click ok
- Right click and select Modify on "EnableSuperfetch" and set Value data: to "0" click ok
4. Restart your PC.
Notes: I found that my PC was stuttering, freezing every time my disk usage on SSD jumped to almost 100% utilization.
100% utilization have been caused by paging BF4 content. Why is system constantly paging with when I have 8GB of memory?
My memory was hardly utilized I got 8GB and BF4.exe only used 1.2 - 2 GB in processes yet still it was paging.
I decided to get rid of page file to minimize disk usage.
After I minimized my disk usage I noticed game would still freeze after several minutes or when map changes, so I analysed memory composition and found
a problem with Standby Memory. You will have to empty standby memory whenever your PC starts freezing.
STEP B
1. Empty Standby Memory in Windows (this can be done during gameplay no restart of PC necessary)
- Download RAMMAP from Microsoft http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinternals/ff700229.aspx [technet.microsoft.com]
- Start Task Manager and go to Memory Section, Notice memory composition. It may look like you have plenty of memory free however, free memory is used by standby data
- Run RAMMap which you downloaded from Microsoft.
- Start BF4.
- Once you game starts stuttering after map change or during gameplay do following
- Alt + Tab to switch from BF4 to RAMMap. Go to Empty on the top of the menu
- Click Empty Standby List
- Now press Atl + Tab to switch back to game and enjoy smooth gameplay without any freezes or stuttering.
Notes: I was watching memory usage and memory composition and noticed that even windows is reporting I have 5GB of memory available during BF4 game, the Free memory was actually only 256MB.
After some time the free memory reached 0 and standby memory was fully used. This is completely normal with Windows 7 or Windows 8.
Windows will assume that your standby memory is free to use and is available to system at any time, it is always reported as free memory.
BF4 however is using standby memory to cache up a lot of assets, textures, objects.
After each test my stuttering started shortly or after my standby memory reached maximum amount. As soon as I emptied standby memory, BF4 re-cached only required content leaving some free memory and stuttering stopped.
I have not yet found automated way to empty standby memory and also this cannot be disabled in OS.
I seen some 3rd party exe files or utilities which can empty standby memory from cmd. You could possibly automate this and create scheduled task or batch script to execute and empty standby memory on the PC at certain time intervals.
This would save you trouble from switching from BF4 to RAMMap and back each time.
I have not tested these 3rd party files and cannot guarantee if they are trustworthy or safe to use
If I find any way to automate process I will post update.
It would be great if you could post feedback whether this is working for you or if you get any different results.
I have tested this so far only on mine PC. If you need help let me know, if this works for more people we can make better tutorial or look further to automatic this task.
London Citizen
- Go to Advance System Settings
- In Performance section click on Settings and click Advanced tab.
- In Virtual memory section click on Change... button
- Select each disk enabled with Paging and set setting to No Paging file and hit Set button
- Now all your listed disk should show Paging File Size as "None"
- Press OK button to exist from the menu
- We will reboot pc later once we change more settings, there is no need to restart the PC now.
2. Disable Superfetch
- Open run and type services.msc from run or win8 start screen (make sure applications on right menu is selected) or open services console by other m
Hello,
After alot of spent time trying to figure out this problem I finally found a way to fix my Stuttering problem and get smooth gameplay.
I tested this for more than 24 hours and I been able to play BF4 smoothly without any problems (Servers are still crashing, so count on seeing server side issues).
I also tested in different game modes, and high/low populated servers, fix is working in each case.
I been playing on Ultra details in 1920x1200 or 2560x1600 with High or Ultra (set to Custom) settings with 2x Antialiasing.
ISSUE:
BF4 Stuttering, freezing, dropping FPS during gameplay.
Problem would often suddently appear after several minutes of gameplay or after a map change.
Further suttering would continue even after restart of BF4 application. Only way to resolve a problem was fully restart the PC and play again, where after some time stuttering came back and I had to repeat whole reboot process again.
My Hardware:
Windows 8 x64 Pro fully patched
2x Intel Xeon 5150 CPUs
Intel 5000 series chipset mobo
EVGA Geforece GTX 660sc using 331.65 drivers
8GB RAM
OZC Agility 3 SSD - used for OS and BF4 install
Realtek HD Audio
BF4 - 64bit with latest client patch.
FIX:
Empty Standby Memory in Windows, can be done during gameplay, no restart needed.
- Download RAMMAP from microsoft http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinternals/ff700229.aspx [technet.microsoft.com]
- Start Task Manager and go to Memory Section, Notice memory composition. It may look like you have plenty of memory free however the free memory is used by standby data in this case BF4 cached content.
- Run RAMMap which you downloaded from Microsoft.
- Start BF4.
- Once you game starts freezing after map change or during gameplay do following
- Alt + Tab to switch from BF4 to RAMMap. Go to "Empty" on the top of the menu
- Click Empty Standby List, You can also try Empty Priority 0 Standby List.
- Now press Atl + Tab to switch back to game and enjoy smooth gameplay without any freezes or stuttering.
Here is full description on what I've done on my PC to fix stuttering problem from default Windows 8 installation.
STEP A - You need to have more than 4GB RAM in order to do this. BF4 won't run only on 4GB with disabled Pagefile so please skip to STEB B.
1. Disable Page File
- Go to SystemHello,
After a lot of spent time trying to figure out this problem I finally found a way to fix my Stuttering problem and get smooth gameplay.
I tested this for more than 24 hours and I been able to play BF4 smoothly without any problems (Servers are still crashing, so count on seeing server side issues).
I also tested in different game modes, and high/low populated servers, fix is working in each case.
I been playing on Ultra details in 1920x1200 or 2560x1600 with High or Ultra (set to Custom) settings with 2x Antialiasing.
ISSUE:
BF4 Stuttering, freezing, dropping FPS during gameplay.
Problem would often suddenly appear after several minutes of gameplay or after a map change.
Further stuttering would continue even after restart of BF4 application. Only way to resolve a problem was fully restart the PC and play again, where after some time stuttering came back and I had to repeat whole reboot process again.
My Hardware:
Windows 8 x64 Pro - fully patched
2x Intel Xeon 5150 CPUs
Intel 5000 series chipset based motherboard
EVGA Geforce GTX 660 superclocked - using 331.65 drivers
8GB RAM
OZC Agility 3 SSD - used for OS and BF4 install
Realtek HD Audio
BF4 - 64bit with latest client patch.
FIX:
Empty Standby Memory in Windows, this can be done during gameplay, no restart needed.
I have also disabled pagefile, prefetch and superfetch as described further below.
I have tested this only on 8GB ram. Please make sure that you read the full post before making any changes.
- Download RAMMAP from microsoft http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinternals/ff700229.aspx [technet.microsoft.com]
- Start Task Manager and go to Memory Section, Notice memory composition. It may look like you have plenty of memory free however the free memory is used by standby data in this case BF4 cached content (This is only visible once you start BF4) You can see this from details in RAMMap.
- Run RAMMap which you downloaded from Microsoft.
- Start BF4.
- Once your game starts freezing after map change or during gameplay do following
- Alt + Tab to switch from BF4 to RAMMap. Click "Empty" on the top of the RAMMap menu
- Click Empty Standby List (You can also verify in Task Manager that you Standby Memory usage is none or very low)
- Now press Atl + Tab to switch back to the game and enjoy smooth gameplay without any freezes or stuttering.
Here is full description on what I've done on my PC to fix stuttering problem from default Windows 8 installation.
STEP A
1. Disable Page File
- Go to System
- Go to Advance System Settings
- In Performance section click on Settings and click Advanced tab.
- In Virtual memory section click on Change... button
- Select each disk enabled with Paging and set setting to No Paging file and hit Set button
- Now all your listed disk should show Paging File Size as "None"
- Press OK button to exist from the menu
- We will reboot pc later once we change more settings, there is no need to restart the PC now.
2. Disable Superfetch
- Open run and type services.msc from run or win8 start screen (make sure applications on right menu is selected) or open services console by other means.
- Find Superfetch service, right click it and go to properties
- In General tab select startup type as disabled.
- We will reboot pc later once we change more settings, there is no need to restart the PC now.
3. Disable Prefetch
- Open registry editor, type regedit (You need to have admin rights)
- Navigate to following key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters\
- Right click and select Modify on "EnablePrefetcher" and set Value data: to "0" click ok
- Right click and select Modify on "EnableSuperfetch" and set Value data: to "0" click ok
4. Restart your PC.
Notes: I found that my PC was stuttering, freezing every time my disk usage on SSD jumped to almost 100% utilization.
100% utilization have been caused by paging BF4 content. Why is system constantly paging with when I have 8GB of memory?
My memory was hardly utilized I got 8GB and BF4.exe only used 1.2 - 2 GB in processes yet still it was paging.
I decided to get rid of page file to minimize disk usage.
After I minimized my disk usage I noticed game would still freeze after several minutes or when map changes, so I analysed memory composition and found
a problem with Standby Memory. You will have to empty standby memory whenever your PC starts freezing.
STEP B
1. Empty Standby Memory in Windows (this can be done during gameplay no restart of PC necessary)
- Download RAMMAP from Microsoft http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinternals/ff700229.aspx [technet.microsoft.com]
- Start Task Manager and go to Memory Section, Notice memory composition. It may look like you have plenty of memory free however, free memory is used by standby data
- Run RAMMap which you downloaded from Microsoft.
- Start BF4.
- Once you game starts stuttering after map change or during gameplay do following
- Alt + Tab to switch from BF4 to RAMMap. Go to Empty on the top of the menu
- Click Empty Standby List
- Now press Atl + Tab to switch back to game and enjoy smooth gameplay without any freezes or stuttering.
Notes: I was watching memory usage and memory composition and noticed that even windows is reporting I have 5GB of memory available during BF4 game, the Free memory was actually only 256MB.
After some time the free memory reached 0 and standby memory was fully used. This is completely normal with Windows 7 or Windows 8.
Windows will assume that your standby memory is free to use and is available to system at any time, it is always reported as free memory.
BF4 however is using standby memory to cache up a lot of assets, textures, objects.
After each test my stuttering started shortly or after my standby memory reached maximum amount. As soon as I emptied standby memory, BF4 re-cached only required content leaving some free memory and stuttering stopped.
I have not yet found automated way to empty standby memory and also this cannot be disabled in OS.
I seen some 3rd party exe files or utilities which can empty standby memory from cmd. You could possibly automate this and create scheduled task or batch script to execute and empty standby memory on the PC at certain time intervals.
This would save you trouble from switching from BF4 to RAMMap and back each time.
I have not tested these 3rd party files and cannot guarantee if they are trustworthy or safe to use
If I find any way to automate process I will post update.
It would be great if you could post feedback whether this is working for you or if you get any different results.
I have tested this so far only on mine PC. If you need help let me know, if this works for more people we can make better tutorial or look further to automatic this task.
London Citizen
- Go to Advance System Settings
- In Performance section click on Settings and click Advanced tab.
- In Virtual memory section click on Change... button
- Select each disk enabled with Paging and set setting to No Paging file and hit Set button
- Now all your listed disk should show Paging File Size as "None"
- Press OK button to exist from the menu
- We will reboot pc later once we change more settings, there is no need to restart the PC now.
2. Disable Superfetch
- Open run and type services.msc from run or win8 start screen (make sure applications on right menu is selected) or open services console by other m


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