Discovering Bottlenecks in PCs Built for Gaming?

QMan asks: "I, like many others here at Slashdot, am an avid gamer. Recently, I've been thinking about upgrading my gaming PC, but with all the mish mash of components in the box, I don't really know which components are slowing down the rest, and would be an ideal candidate for replacement. I'm looking for advice on how to discover the inherent bottlenecks in my system, whether they be from my video card, RAM, CPU, or other components. I've tried various benchmarking utilities, but they generally give an overall performance rating, but not much info on which device(s) had the most impact in limiting that rating. I'd imagine many of you out there have encountered the same problem, and might have ideas on where to start."

Comments

OS? Hardware?

[MyLongNickName]

Perhaps you should give us the OS you are running. That will greatly impact the answer(s) you will get.

For example, if you were running Windows 2000 or greater, there are various performance monitors that will give you a good clue about what is actually going on while your game is playing. Otherwise, you are in a guessing game.

Alternatively, you could swap out components and do observation based tests. However, this tends to be subjective, and less reliable.

Bottom line: give us more details, and someone might be able to help.

Re:OS? Hardware?

[TimCapulet]

Since the poster says he is an avid gamer, it is probably safe to assume that he runs Windows XP.

A site that I have always found helpful is AnandTech. Every couple of months or so they publish a guide on recommended hardware for different performance levels of computers. The systems they recommend are usually designed so that no one piece of hardware is a bottleneck on the performance.

Re:OS? Hardware?

[Bios_Hakr]

Start >> Run >> "perfmon.msc"

You should start recordings for:

Physical Disk >> Reads/sec and Writes/sec

Memory >> Avalable MBytes

Processor >> Priviliged, Processor, and User Time

Now that you have these counters running, fire up a game that you like. After you play a few rounds, you can look back at the charts and see the data. Interpreting the results can be very difficult.

If you are seeing processor usage 100%, then your video card may be holding you back. If you see excessive hard drive activity, maybe more RAM or a RAID0 setup could help.

Just look at the charts and see what jumps and when.

Most games are optimized to use RAM and proc when in-game. But if you see excessive periods where one line is 100% while the other lines are 70~80%, you'll know where the bottleneck is.

Re:OS? Hardware?

[CSMastermind]

Well there might not be a magic utility that will tell you what's the bottleneck in your system....SiSoft's (http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/) Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) (http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/index.html?dir=dload& location=sware_dl_3264&langx=en&a=) program can be a big help. If offers free benchmarking (which from expirence I can tell you is very well done) of most major parts of your system and it offers some tips to make you computer run faster and smoother. It can also generate report files. Also the best bang for you buck will proablly come from getting more ram (just a guess no knowing what hardware you have now) and a good/better graphics card if you don't have one already. Honestly cleaning up your software will proablly help too. Defragging your hard drive and turning off background programs will also offer some boost.

Re:OS? Hardware?

[theqmann]

Note: I posted the original article.
(It's a Windows machine, as the majority of newly released commercial titles don't play well with Linux.)

It's a multi-tiered question. I've built a number of gaming machines in the past, and upgraded various components over the life of each machine. I've always wondered if there is a way to figure out if getting a video card with more texture memory would help much, or upgrading to faster or less latency RAM would help, or all that's needed is just getting _more_ of it. It doesn't really help to get RAM though if the CPU/GPU/HardDisk is the bottleneck. Thats why I was asking the question in the first place. I'm sure a lot of people who upgrade their gaming machines might get help from this as well. This is for all of us who want to upgrade, but are not quite sure which component needs it the most.

For reference, I've been building machines on a medium budget, getting middle to upper class hardware. I've got a gig of 3-3-3 PC3200 RAM, a nice SATA RAID0 array, a GeForce 6800, and an Athlon64 3200+ rig. I know that most components I have could be upgraded, but not intrinisically which ones are the most crucial to performance. I play all sorts of games, from RTS (AoE, Empire Earth, etc) games, to FPS (Quake 4, UT2004), to simulations (SimCity 4).

-QMan

Heat is killer

[macdaddy357]

What are you using to keep your gaming PC cool?

I need advice on this too!

[Anonymous Coward]

My 386sx 16 is just not not enough to handle Falcon 4.0! The box specs IBM PC compatible, 286 min, 640k and an Ad Lib sound card ... and I am at least 1.5 those specs. I mean WTF man??!!

My Personal Experience

[suspected]

In my personal experience, I've found that upgrading the video card impacted the performance within video games more than any other upgrade. The only exception would be in the case of RAM; RAM is one of those things where if you have enough, everything goes well, but if you're lacking, it can really hurt. Just be sure to have 1gb of RAM and then upgrade your video card if you're looking for the biggest bang for your buck in terms of performance within a video game.

Re:RAM matters most, hard disks are slow

[gad_zuki!]

Do not turn off swap file. Windows will not remotely work right without one. You can knock it down to 512 or 256 megs if you life. Windows generally won't use it until you're out of memory. Generally.

Other than the obvious suggested already, disk management is often overlooked. After you uninstall or install a game, defrag the drive. Applying a patch? Defrag. Changing the size of your swap file? Defrag.

Shut off indexing. Shut off any service you don't need or use.

Clean out /local settings/temp periodically. Defrag.

Reboot every 48 hours or so.

None of you are answering the question...

[tengennewseditor]

The poster is asking for utilities that will help him discover the bottleneck in his gaming machine. He is not asking how to improve performance for a particular setup, and that is why he did not post specs for his system. He probably should have posted what OS he is using, but since this question is about gaming you can assume that he's using Windows, or at least has access to a Windows boot.

I wanted to clarify the original question because I'm looking for this kind of utility myself and was getting annoyed at everyone simply asking for specs.

Re:None of you are answering the question...

[GuyverDH]

Unfortunately, there are NO magic utilities that will wave it's magic wand and *poof* out pops a list of the 10 recommended steps to ultimate gaming perforgasm.

It's called trial and error, and it takes time to figure things out for yourself.

Don't try the all encompassing, single pass, benchmark utilities as they are too general.

#1 - Memory - It's been repeated here multiple times - Gaming takes memory - I won't play on a gaming rig with less than 2GB RAM. Disable virtual memory (as stated earlier as well) - try downloading TweakXP from totalidea - it has some nice memory tweaking settings that take the guesswork out of things.

#2 - Benchmarking / Tweaking / Re-benchmarking...

SiSoft Sandra (as mentioned earlier in this thread) is a good start. It has several modules, which can be run individually.

Go through your memory benchmarks - tweak settings in the BIOS (if they are available for tweaking), then re-run - DOCUMENT your changes, 1 change at a time - it's time consuming as hell, yet it's the only way to truly know what changes caused what differences in performance.

Run the disk benchmarks, tune the cache settings in the registry, re-run the disk benchmark, then re-run the memory again to see what impact having changed the disk cache has on memory performance.

Networking - if you are using a motherboard, with an embedded network interface, and it's not a hardware (ie seperate chip) implemented network interface - replace it with a card - software based network interfaces, running from chipset/cpu ruin system performance.

Places like http://www.dslreports.com/ under the tools section have some decent tools for examining your system settings, and suggesting changes to optimize throughput.

Playing with QOS settings may also effect network performance.

#3 Video - what games are you planning on playing, what refresh rate does your monitor support?

If your monitor only supports 60hz refresh, then it doesn't do a lot of good to go out and get that 80fps monster video card (unless you plan on replacing the monitor). The only place this isn't true, is in the digital realm of LCD monitors, where the faster you can refresh the image, between syncs, the better off you are.

Monitor - if using an LCD, what's your black to black / white to white delay? Replace the monitor if it's over 8ms - as that may introduce ghosting while playing. (I personally use a Viewsonic VX922 - with 2ms black to black / white to white - it's awesome IMNSHO)

HTH

Re:None of you are answering the question...

[strider44]

I won't play on a gaming rig with less than 2GB RAM. *Looks down at my puny 1GB rammed computer and sobs* Anyway I want to add another point (and I'm adding this as a 3D developer rather than a game player as such!) that really what's bottlenecking your system depends on the application/game rather than the actual system. Sure some setups might do better than others just generally, but considering a generally well rounded system then really it almost totally depends on which game.

For example, one app/game (say your average FPS) might have the polygons and maps neatly optimised in memory (assuming you have enough) just loaded at the start of the level while you might also play a flight simulator which will be constantly streaming data from the hard drive. For the first game getting a 1337 SCSI hard drive won't help a bit, but it'll probably make things easier on the flight simulator.

For memory, having 2GB vs 3GB on a game that only uses 1GB of memory won't do you any good. Having less than required would be horrific though, especially if you don't have that 1337 SCSI hard drive to cope with all of the swapping from disk. Having extremely quick 2GB memory might help compared to slow 3GB memory, however for games like RTSs where the units are probably all held on display lists on the video card anyway there won't be much streaming of memory to the video card so having faster memory won't help *all* that much (don't get me wrong, it will help, just not as much as you might hope).

I'd guess that most games now-a-days would be a balance between an uber video card and an uber CPU. Of course each different game would have a different optimum balance so I guess you're stuffed there.

Wow, looking back at my message I realised that I said lots of interesting things that didn't help one bit in answering the question except by saying "Nice try mate, but it's not that simple". Anyway I'll stop now.

Some simple things to do

[humblecoder]

Here are some simple steps that you can take to figure out where the bottleneck is:

1. If you see the disk activity LED lit up a lot, you probably need more memory. The system is trying to extend the memory of the system by swapping data from RAM to disk and back. If you had more memory, the system would be able to keep more data in RAM. You can also confirm this by looking at the memory usage statistics in Task Manager (assuming this is a Windows box).

2. Another thing you can see from Task Manager is the CPU utilization. If it maxed out at 100%, the CPU is probably the bottleneck, so you may benefit from having a faster processor.

3. If neither of these things is the issue and the game you are running has a lot of complex graphics going on, then the issue could be your Video Card.

In my limited experience with benchmarking games, these seem like the three most common bottlenecks.

Lights

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you should add flashing lights. Maybe one of those fishtank windows. Don't forget to paint your case and don't buy a power supply unless it's painted black.

Be sure all the fans you buy have LEDs in them, and your front panel should be covered by a motorized door that you can open by remote control.

Then you will have a "gaming rig" instead of just some workstation with a video card in it.

General performance guide

[GMC-jimmy]

It really doesn't matter if I know your PC specs or not. Me knowing isn't going to change what's in your box. Different game publishers make use of different hardware optimizations and performance will vary from one machine to the next. But these general tips will still apply to most situations. Knowing what hardware your chosen game was optimized for will help too. Video games make such extensive use of all your hardware that it's more like finding a team for the job than just one individual. There's no one magic do-all piece of hardware that runs all games. Here's a few basic tips to keep in mind while making hardware choices. Other than the usual 3D accelerator card perks, watch for things like...

• CPU / RAM speeds. Make sure your CPU and RAM can talk to each other as fast as possible. They communicate via the FSB (Frontside Bus). When buying RAM, buy it all at once. Don't mix and match old and new peices of different speeds. Games make more use of the CPU/RAM combo than anything else. While a highend video card helps video, the CPU/RAM are left to work on audio, network (for online play), and physics as in games like Half Life 2. 1 gig of DDR400 memory will far out perform 2 gigs of 133MHz SDRAM with the same CPU.
  
  
• Minimize harddrive access time. Harddrives are the usual bottleneck when a PC doesn't have as much RAM as a game needs to cache those enormously bloated textures. Harddrive performance is usually rated by spindle speeds and seek time. Higher spindle speeds and lower seek times are generally better.
  
  
• Spend a few extra bucks on a decent audio card. Avoid onboard audio whenever possible. And the same goes for the network card. If you have too few slots for all this, it's better to go with onboard network than onboard audio.

Outside those general things, another thing to keep in mind is the more hardware devices like printers and scanners that you have plugged into your machine the more often the CPU polls those devices during each cycle. Also allowing third party applications to automatically launch and idle while you play will hurt performance.

Hope this help. Game on.

Re:RAM matters most, hard disks are slow

[gad_zuki!]

>Perhaps the parent tried disabling his swapfile when he only had 128MB of RAM?

Nope, theres a long list of apps that wont work without a pagefile. MS advises against it too. I wouldnt suggest this without telling people that they will run into weird problems.

God Mode

[TubeSteak]

Whatever happened to God Mode in real life?

It's called Cocaine, but the effects are temporary and the come down is a bitch.