HOW TO IDENTIFY A BOTTLENECK AND FIX IT | Beginner's guide
So you built a new gaming pc and put your old rusty core2duo beast aside, You start up the pc launched your favorite game, and spend hours on it.
But while playing a game you noticed a sudden FPS drop from time to time and If you observe carefully, these sudden FPS drops occur when you kill an entire wave of enemies at once, or when you used your special attack to take enemies down, or when you were escaping from the bad guys in
a plane and you experienced an FPS drop but after a second your FPS stabilized.
what is this happening to me? Am I cursed?
why I can't get those satisfying kill streaks?, or those flick Headshots? You ask,
Well, maybe we can help, Maybe you are experiencing a CPU Bottleneck or GPU Bottleneck. What is CPU/GPU
Bottleneck? you ask, Well let's discuss that.
WHAT EXACTLY IS BOTTLENECK?
A bottleneck occurs when the limit on how much data is being sent for processing or how
much data can be processed at the same time. In other words, if there is a huge difference in processing speed
one or the device will cause a bottleneck.
Bottlenecks occur between CPU(Processor) and the GPU(Graphics card). and sometimes RAM(Random Access Memory) but those are rare.
CPU Bottleneck:
CPU Bottleneck occurs when the Processor/CPU isn't fast enough to process and send the data to the GPU for processing. But the GTX 1080 Ti you bought should run your favorite games with graphic details at high FPS,
However, the intel i5 3470 you got can't keep up with the processing speeds of your Beast GPU, This causes CPU bottleneck.
GPU Bottleneck:
CPU Bottleneck and GPU Bottleneck aren't that different from each other. It happens when your GPU can't process the data fast enough and your CPU is waiting for GPU to finish the processing before sending any more data. Let's say we have an i9-7920X and we pair it with GTX 750 Ti. The Core i9 CPU can spit out data really fast but our GTX 750 Ti just can't handle the data fast enough.
But I built my pc with fairly balanced components. You say,
Well let's talk about what is really causing Bottleneck in your PC, So the games we play, In-game settings
we use can also cause a bottleneck.
WHAT???
Some games that are known to to be CPU(Processor) Dependent are:
typically your CPU Usage stays high while playing them.
- Civilization V or VI
- Assassin's Creed: Black Flag
- Minecraft
- Cities: Skylines
Some games that are known to to be GPU(Graphics card) Dependent are:
typically your GPU Usage stays high while playing them.
- Far Cry 5
- Final Fantasy XV
- Crysis 3
- The Witcher 3
HOW CAN YOU CHECK YOUR PC FOR CPU OR GPU BOTTLENECKS:
You can use this Online tool Bottleneck Calculator before you build your PC so you can save your self from Potential bottlenecks.
but you've built your pc and you feel like you are experiencing bottleneck. In this case, we will use MSI AFTERBURNER. It allows us to monitor our CPU and GPU usage when Gaming. If your CPU shows high usage with low GPU usage, You are experiencing a CPU Bottleneck. On the other side, If your GPU shows high usage and low CPU usage, You are experiencing GPU Bottleneck.
now, After identifying the bottleneck we need to fix it.
HOW TO FIX BOTTLENECK:
if you are experiencing a GPU bottleneck, You will have to sacrifice Graphics quality for high FPS just turn down Textures, Effects, Anti Aliasing settings in the game. This will help you get high FPS but at the cost of Graphical details. and GPU Bottleneck is present in almost 50-60% of the PC builds.
And if you are experiencing CPU bottleneck things start to get a bit worse, generally CPU Bottlenecks cause a whole lot of new problems, Ex: hiccups when a new area is rendering, the weird type of lag even if your FPS is 60+, etc. So here are some tips to fix the CPU Bottleneck:
- Increase the game’s resolution - it puts more load on the GPU instead of CPU.
- Overclock the CPU - the most effective way to reduce CPU bottleneck but a risky one too.
- Stop unnecessary background process - like Discord, Chrome, etc it will help reduce CPU usage.
- Overclock the RAM - yup you read that right overclocking you RAM actually helps with CPU Bottleneck.
I hope this helps you to identify and fix the bottleneck. Cheers.