New gaming PC - Titanfall lagging

BenEadir

Hi all,

I built this PC just before Xmas



I loaded Win 8.1 and downloaded and installed Titanfall, Skyrim, Counter Strike Global Offence and Battlefield 3. All played really well on medium to high settings including Titanfall for the first few days but then Titanfall, and only Titanfall, started to really lag. I tried lowering all the the settings to their minimum and it was still lagging. I thought it might be an issue with one or more of the components in the PC (possibly the R9 graphics card) but all other games run fine even on very high settings so I uninstalled Titanfall and reinstalled it from scratch. On start up I could see it was lagging a bit so I reset all the settings to their absolute lowest and it ran fine but as soon as I increased the texture resolution back up to Very High it started lagging again and two minutes later the game crashed with the message "Titanfall.exe has experienced a problem and Windows will message you a solution" <- Not verbatim!!! I should have taken a photo of the message but that's the gist of it.

Anyone got any suggestions as to what I need to do to get Titanfall up and working correctly? I'm tempted to uninstall again, go into downloads and remove anything Titanfall related from Users/Programs etc and try again but as it's a 50GB download I'd prefer if there was a way of fixing what I have rather than repeating what I've already done and expecting a different result.

Cheers in advance.

dreamers75

Do you hae Raptr installed and did it optimize titanfall?

Can you play the tutorial stage of titanfall and see if it runs badly?

degrassinoel

Couple of things..

if it's crashing there's a conflict with either software you have installed or a crappy driver.

When you say it's lagging, do you mean graphic lag?

If it worked fine for a few days and now it's not working fine, try retracing your steps and removing any software or even hardware like printers or scanners etc.. remove anything that was installed back to the point where it did work fine. Try to eliminate the problem.

If other people are using the machine ask them what they've installed/changed in the last few days.

Also, check the specs for Titanfall and make sure there's no hardware in your machine that's specifically incompatible with the game.

If all of the above checks out, install the latest drivers for video and sound and try running it again, other than that i'd say ask on the titanfall official forums about issues like that.

BenEadir

dreamers75 wrote: »

Do you hae Raptr installed and did it optimize titanfall?

Can you play the tutorial stage of titanfall and see if it runs badly?

Hi Dreamers75, No I don't have RAPTR installed, never heard of it. It looks like it automatically matches the game settings to the capability of your PC so you get the best out of both the game and the PC? If that's correct I'll download it but how does RAPTR make money? Is there a license fee I can't see?

I'll try playing the tutorial and revert.

dreamers75

Raptr is installed with AMD graphics cards, its optimize settings can be a bit flakey.

That PC will run Titanfall very easily so i imagine its a setting rather than an issue.

BenEadir

Thanks degrassinoel,

degrassinoel wrote: »

Couple of things..

if it's crashing there's a conflict with either software you have installed or a crappy driver.

It's a brand new build so I initially loaded a few essentials like VLC media player, Carbonite back up (need to re-install family photo's and video's etc from the old PC) and uTorrent but they were all installed day one and Titanfall was running fine for a few days afterwards.

I guess it could be a driver. I didn't update drivers when I built the PC. I guess I should update the drivers for the graphics card? Are there any other drivers I should update? (I assume the best way to update the drivers is via clicking on the respective device in Device Manager and selecting "update driver"?

degrassinoel wrote: »

When you say it's lagging, do you mean graphic lag?

Yes, that's exactly what it is. I make a move via the keyboard or mouse there is a half second delay. Same when I move the mouse over the menu's, they are half a second behind the pointer.

degrassinoel wrote: »

Also, check the specs for Titanfall and make sure there's no hardware in your machine that's specifically incompatible with the game.

Thanks, will check this.

degrassinoel wrote: »

If all of the above checks out, install the latest drivers for video and sound and try running it again, other than that i'd say ask on the titanfall official forums about issues like that.

Is this the one you mean? http://www.titanfall-community.com

BenEadir

dreamers75 wrote: »

Raptr is installed with AMD graphics cards, its optimize settings can be a bit flakey.

That PC will run Titanfall very easily so i imagine its a setting rather than an issue.

RAPTR installed and Titanfall set to RAPTR optimised settings. Still lagging

Just running the tutorial. Fine in the beginning but noticing a tiny amount of lag in the free running tutorial with double jump but pilot combat was perfect Will finish the rest and revert.

BenEadir

dreamers75 wrote: »

Can you play the tutorial stage of titanfall and see if it runs badly?

No, the game crashed on the "Pilot defeating grunts" tutorial. It flashed up an error message saying Titanfall.exe has stopped working, windows will send a solution if possible etc etc.

I checked the graphics card drivers and they were up to date as were all the other drivers I could update via device manager.

The only visible problem in device manager relates to "Other Devices", see below.

degrassinoel

BenEadir wrote: »

Thanks degrassinoel,

It's a brand new build so I initially loaded a few essentials like VLC media player, Carbonite back up (need to re-install family photo's and video's etc from the old PC) and uTorrent but they were all installed day one and Titanfall was running fine for a few days afterwards.

I guess it could be a driver. I didn't update drivers when I built the PC. I guess I should update the drivers for the graphics card? Are there any other drivers I should update? (I assume the best way to update the drivers is via clicking on the respective device in Device Manager and selecting "update driver"?

Yes, that's exactly what it is. I make a move via the keyboard or mouse there is a half second delay. Same when I move the mouse over the menu's, they are half a second behind the pointer.

Thanks, will check this.

Is this the one you mean? http://www.titanfall-community.com

yep, if anyone has had that issue before with similar hardware/software it's most likely going to be on there.

Eh, that looks like you've got the wrong version (probably a different version of windows driver) of drivers installed for something in the above screenshot, if you're using a PCIe graphics card that might be the problem right there. I'm just guessing though, pretty sure there are more technically minded individuals here who could tell ye more

aligator_am

Is there just the one graphics card in the machine or did you bring an extra one over from an old machine?

Reason I ask is that there seems to be issues with Titanfall and crossfire setups.

Also, try uninstalling the graphics card drivers and sticking on a slightly older version of the drivers (note, you may need to connect monitor lead to the on board video connector when you reboot as there'll be no drivers present for the R9 280).

Let us know the current version of the drivers installed, I find I get prompted a lot to update the AMD graphics drivers and have encountered issues in the past when updates applied so had to roll back to an earlier version.

dreamers75

Smbus etc are the motherboard drivers, did you get a cd with it ?

Grumpypants

Run a dxdiag and make sure everything is up to date a new build could be a few issues most likely it is drivers.

Is titanfall on the solid state drive or sata?
Try create a new Windows user too.

BenEadir

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I'll run through them later on and report back.

BenEadir

dreamers75 wrote: »

Smbus etc are the motherboard drivers, did you get a cd with it ?

Yes I did. I loaded it and installed all the downloads excluding the vapour-ware. Thanks for the suggestion. All drivers etc are now up to date.

BenEadir

aligator_am wrote: »

Is there just the one graphics card in the machine or did you bring an extra one over from an old machine?

.......

Let us know the current version of the drivers installed, I find I get prompted a lot to update the AMD graphics drivers and have encountered issues in the past when updates applied so had to roll back to an earlier version.

Yes, just the one graphics card, no SLI/Crossfire activity going on at all.

I was prompted and updated to "AMD Catalyst Driver 14.12".

EoinHef

Do you have vertical sync turned on in game?
May be called v sync in the graphics options menu.
The problem could be variable frame rates.

BenEadir

Grumpypants wrote: »

Run a dxdiag and make sure everything is up to date a new build could be a few issues most likely it is drivers.

Hi Grumpy, you're not the only Grumpy knockin around here today I can tell you

Ran the dxgiag. I initially didn't see any problems but having saved the full information I can see that Titanfall has been reporting errors. The full results of the dxdiag are here https://www.dropbox.com/s/riv6kh34mwlp5u4/DxDiag.txt?dl=0

Grumpypants wrote: »

Is titanfall on the solid state drive or sata?
Try create a new Windows user too.

I think Titanfall is on the HDD (D drive) rather than the SSd (C drive) but I think we may have messed up as there are "Steam" folders on both drives. The D drive has 47GB in it and the C drive folder has 15GB in it.

I'm beginning to think that the best thing I can do is go back to a blank canvass i.e. reformat both drives, reinstall Win 8.1 from the bootable USB drive and try and set things up a bit better.

I'm also concerned that the Carbonite backup restore I'm doing (to reload family photo's and video's etc onto the D drive) may be contributing to these problems as I've noticed old user accounts from the previous PC have been restored to the C drive on this new machine and unfortunately my son had an account on both with the exact same user name so it's possible some of his old user settings have been restore to this new machine and is somehow corrupting this new machine.

Man this is a learning curve!!

challengemaster

BenEadir wrote: »

I think Titanfall is on the HDD (D drive) rather than the SSd (C drive) but I think we may have messed up as there are "Steam" folders on both drives. The D drive has 47GB in it and the C drive folder has 15GB in it.

Not an issue really, steam supports having steam folders in multiple locations. I've games scattered over about 5 different hard drives.

I'm beginning to think that the best thing I can do is go back to a blank canvass i.e. reformat both drives, reinstall Win 8.1 from the bootable USB drive and try and set things up a bit better.

If you do decide to reinstall windows - copy all the latest drivers to a USB stick and you can install those straight off the bat rather than installing the outdated drivers provided with the products.

Also disconnect the second hard drive when going through the windows install process. Windows apparently tends to dump boot information on every connected hard drive. If the HDD fails down the line or you replace it, you could end up with having to repair boot issues. Best option is just install on the SSD, then connect the HDD later.

BenEadir

I think I'm going to do a fresh re-install tomorrow and see if I can avoid whatever it is that's causing these problems.

BTW, here's the error messages I keep getting



And on Skyrim I'm also getting

Headshot

Try a repair on Titanfall and that Skyrim issue is somthing to do with memory. Were you running any other programs that require memory usage in the back ground?

What does your window log files say about the that skyrim issue?

challengemaster

Have you 64bit windows installed by any chance?

A quick google of that crash error shows its exceeding the amount of RAM required to load the levels. Unless you're running a crapload of other programs taking up all your RAM, the only other thing I can think of is you've 32 bit Windows installed so you only have access to 3.2gb of RAM despite having 8gb installed. Those games would use more than 3bb of RAM to run alone

BenEadir

Thanks lads,

Running 64 bit Win 8.1 and even on restart with just Titanfall running the errors are occurring. The Skyrim error may well be because there were other apps open but the problem is also affecting Minecraft etc now so a reinstall is prbably the best/easiset way to go, especially as the machine is only a week old so there isn't a whole lot on it that can't be put back fairly quickly.

I suspect the Carbonite restore (or more correctly the way I have chosen to so the restore) is the root problem but one way or another a clean install with latest drivers etc followed by loading just Titanfall and testing that for a day or so then slowly adding applications and testing as I go should do the trick.

The only question I really have at this point which I'd appreciate some more help with is how should I re-format the HDD and SSD? As Win 8.1 is on the SSD I assume I'll format the D drive first (FAT 32? NTFS? Other?) and that a quick format will suffice? Once the D drive is reformatted do I just repeat the exact same exercise with the C drive SSD? Same FAT32/NTFS format option as the D drive?

Once both drives are formatted I'll disconnect the D drive and load Win 8.1 from the bootable USB and off I'll go reloading drivers etc etc.

Sound like a plan?

challengemaster

Reformat the to NTFS, then disconnect the hard drive. Boot up the windows bootable USB and format the ssd from the windows install.

Have all the latest drivers on a separate USB to install

BenEadir

challengemaster wrote: »

Reformat the to NTFS, then disconnect the hard drive. Boot up the windows bootable USB and format the ssd from the windows install.

Have all the latest drivers on a separate USB to install

Thanks Challengemaster.

Is formatting the SSD an option during Windows install? Will the PC not automatically boot from the SSD rather than the USB? How can I get it to boot from the USB rather than the SSD?

Lastly, can you tell me how I can save all the latest drivers to a USB? Are they all in one folder somehwere?

Headshot

if it was me I do a clean install and just download the drivers again. Just go to your mobo site and download again.

Yes the option to format the ssd is during the bootable usb

hmm im slightly worried thats your having issues with other games now. I wonder could it be a ram issue but I would try the clean install first

challengemaster

BenEadir wrote: »

Thanks Challengemaster.

Is formatting the SSD an option during Windows install? Will the PC not automatically boot from the SSD rather than the USB? How can I get it to boot from the USB rather than the SSD?

Lastly, can you tell me how I can save all the latest drivers to a USB? Are they all in one folder somehwere?

There should be a button to press on boot to select what to boot from. Or you can set it in the bios

Just copy all the installers you downloaded

BenEadir

Crap crap crap!

Formatted the D drive -> powered off -> disconnected the D drive -> plugged in the bootable USB -> powered back on and all fires up except the screen. Not a budge out of it. Tried powering up without the USB plugged in, tried powering up with the D drive plugged back in, tried hitting F2 during boot up etc etc but no joy. It's as though the graphics card is looking to the D drive and isn't getting any instructions because it's now been reformatted.

Any suggestions anyone?

challengemaster

BenEadir wrote: »

Crap crap crap!

Formatted the D drive -> powered off -> disconnected the D drive -> plugged in the bootable USB -> powered back on and all fires up except the screen. Not a budge out of it. Tried powering up without the USB plugged in, tried powering up with the D drive plugged back in, tried hitting F2 during boot up etc etc but no joy. It's as though the graphics card is looking to the D drive and isn't getting any instructions because it's now been reformatted.

Any suggestions anyone?

Not possible - it ain't how a PC works. Screen will come on anyway for the POST and to allow access to the BIOS. All of that has nothing to do with the hard drives. Make sure everything is connected properly, and make sure the screen is connected again.

Headshot

Have you confirmed the monitor is turned on?
Have you confirmed the video cable is connected firmly?
Have you confirmed the Bios has PCIE as primary selected
Disconnect the GPU and use the onboard GPU, do you see the picture?

BenEadir

challengemaster wrote: »

Not possible - it ain't how a PC works. Screen will come on anyway for the POST and to allow access to the BIOS. All of that has nothing to do with the hard drives. Make sure everything is connected properly, and make sure the screen is connected again.

You'd be surprised what I can do!!!

I unplugged the HDMI cable which was connected to a port on the R9 Graphics Card and plugged it into the HDMI port on the motherboard and that did the trick.

Got into BIOS, changed the order to boot so the USB drive was #1 and the install started. I chose the option to format the SSD before installing Win 8.1 and now it's in the process of doing a 100% fresh install with the D drive currently unplugged.

I just wasted an hour trying to figure out how to get the bloody screen to display

Thanks for your help BTW challengemaster, you've been very supportive and somehow your last message prompted me to look for a different HDMI port to try!!

dreamers75

The cd that came with the motherboard is the most important thing in the world, **** windows updates run that 1st.

BenEadir

Headshot wrote: »

Have you confirmed the monitor is turned on?
Have you confirmed the video cable is connected firmly?

Got all that sorted now thanks.

Headshot wrote: »

Have you confirmed the Bios has PCIE as primary selected

Not sure what this means.

Headshot wrote: »

Disconnect the GPU and use the onboard GPU, do you see the picture?

You're on the money thanks. I eventually figured out that trick.

Headshot

In the bios there's a setting that decides whats your primary GPU. Usually if you have a GPU installed, it will automatically use that GPU but I would suggest to go into the bios and changed it to PCIE.

By right your 280 should be working now. Its not right that your using the onboard graphics to get a display. Can confirm that you connected the HDMI cable from the 280 to the monitor and get no display?

If your still getting no display, confirmed the GPU is installed properly. Can you see the drivers in device manager?

BenEadir

Headshot wrote: »

In the bios there's a setting that decides whats your primary GPU. Usually if you have a GPU installed, it will automatically use that GPU but I would suggest to go into the bios and changed it to PCIE.

By right your 280 should be working now. Its not right that your using the onboard graphics to get a display. Can confirm that you connected the HDMI cable from the 280 to the monitor and get no display?

If your still getting no display, confirmed the GPU is installed properly. Can you see the drivers in device manager?

Cheers, I'll check the BIOS next time I boot up.

I ran the motherboard CD and straight way I switched the HDMI cable to the R9 280 and it's working fine now.

Headshot

Great stuff. Weird you didn't get a display via the 280 originally but at least it's going now. Hopefully you won't have any further issues

First game to install is Titanfall

BenEadir

Headshot wrote: »

First game to install is Titanfall

100%

Get it set up etc tonight and then Titanfall tomorrow!!

BenEadir

Hi all,

Thanks for your help last night.

I completed the clean reinstall of windows 8.1, updated all drivers etc and loaded Titanfall which is now playing smooth as butter. I'll keep the machine as is for a day or two before adding back other programs etc and test as I go.

Two interesting observations:-

1. Although I successfully formatted the D drive and disconnected it before loading Win 8.1 onto the SSD C drive when I reconnected it and started using it there was still one folder left on it from the Carbonite backup. It was as if the folder had some special permissions which survived a reformat. Everything else was totally gone bar that one folder. Weird!! I immediately deleted it.

2. I updated the R9 280 graphics card driver to the latest 14.12 version using the AMD Catalyst software but it keeps alerting me that I need to update to the latest 14.12 version already installed. Really annoying!!

Thanks again everyone. It's been a steep but enjoyable learning curve and I'm sure it's not over yet.

aligator_am

BenEadir wrote: »

Hi all,

Thanks for your help last night.

I completed the clean reinstall of windows 8.1, updated all drivers etc and loaded Titanfall which is now playing smooth as butter. I'll keep the machine as is for a day or two before adding back other programs etc and test as I go.

Two interesting observations:-

1. Although I successfully formatted the D drive and disconnected it before loading Win 8.1 onto the SSD C drive when I reconnected it and started using it there was still one folder left on it from the Carbonite backup. It was as if the folder had some special permissions which survived a reformat. Everything else was totally gone bar that one folder. Weird!! I immediately deleted it.

2. I updated the R9 280 graphics card driver to the latest 14.12 version using the AMD Catalyst software but it keeps alerting me that I need to update to the latest 14.12 version already installed. Really annoying!!

Thanks again everyone. It's been a steep but enjoyable learning curve and I'm sure it's not over yet.

I get that a lot, is it a black rectangle with red writing in the lower right hand corner of the screen? I think it's the RAPTR software which doesn't seem to twig that the latest drivers are currently installed.

I think there's an option to "skip this update", should save you smashing something in frustration

BenEadir

Feckin thing is bog slow again. The only applications i installed are uTorrent and Privateinternetaccess but somehow they seem to have slowed the gaming performance right down. Uninststalled both and rebooted but have still lagging. Really pissed off.

Will ill sleep on it before doing another clean install!!

dreamers75

turn everything down to low, and work upwards.

once all your drivers installed its a settings issue.

BenEadir

dreamers75 wrote: »

turn everything down to low, and work upwards.

once all your drivers installed its a settings issue.

Thanks Dreamers,

The thing I can't figure out is why it was running smooth as butter on the RAPTR optimised settings and then suddenly it's lagging again. Really frustrating.

TerrorFirmer

Titanfall would run at 1080p ultra on a 280 effortlessly really, so any lag has to be down to some software issue.

Have you checked your ram? Something up there? When the game is lagging, have you checked ram/cpu usage?

Have you installed FRAPs to check your FPS? What's happening, is the game actually lagging, or chugging at a low framerate? Is it chugging constantly, or is it alternating between high and low FPS?

There is no point doing clean install after clean install hoping it'll magically fix it to be honest!

Raptr optimised settings is a load of ****e also

BenEadir

Hi TF,

Thanks for the suggesitons. My system info is recognising the full 8GB of RAM with 7.87 seen as Total Physical Memory. Is there a way to monitor RAM usage other than looking at Task Manager?

I took this screenshot just now with no games running etc.



I'm surprised to see 28.9% CPU load and 22% of RAM being used. The things that immediately stick out are igfxEM Module which is hogging the full 28.9% of the CPU and all the versions of Goggle Chrome that are running. I can confirm that Google Chrome is indeed open but only one copy of it is open and in that there are 4 tabs running. Google Chrome is taking up over 200mb of RAM on it's own!!

I'll install FRAPS and see what I can find out ref the frame rates etc.

To use FRAPS to get data on whats happening I assume I tick FPS, Frametimes and MinMaxAvg and hit F11 to start the benchmarking? Once I've captured some data of the game lagging I hit F11 again to stop the data capture and FRAPS produces a file with the relevant data?

Do I need to capture screen shots also?

TerrorFirmer

That is strange, I think that's intel integrated graphics software or something similar. Nearly 30% CPU usage is insane, so I think you could have found your problem, whatever the reason, it maybe be ramping up further during games.

Manually kill that process and then try playing Titanfall.

I assume that you are using the 280 exclusively - your monitor is connected to the 280 card and not the onboard video connectors on the motherboard, and you do not have Intel video drivers installed? They would have come on the motherboard's CD, but you obviously don't need or want them when you have a dedicated card. If they're listed in programs, uninstall them.

BenEadir

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

I assume that you are using the 280 exclusively - your monitor is connected to the 280 card and not the onboard video connectors on the motherboard, and you do not have Intel video drivers installed? They would have come on the motherboard's CD, but you obviously don't need or want them when you have a dedicated card. If they're listed in programs, uninstall them.

My monitor is connected to the 280 card all right but I also had Intel's graphics drivers installed (possibly from the motherboard CD) so I've now un-installed the Intel graphics drivers and whilst igfxEM is still running it's taking up 0% CPU.

I'll see if that does the trick. Fingers crossed.

BTW, I uninstalled Chrome 32 bit and replaced it with Chrome 64 bit thinking that would be more efficient but it's now running 10 times and taking up over 500mb of RAM. What's the story with Chrome running so many time concurrently and using so much RAM? Should I revert to 32 bit or does it make any difference?

BenEadir

Problem not solved I'm afraid.

Titanfall plays super for a while with frame rates between 35 and 60 then lags all of a sudden (frame rates 12-17) or crashes all together.

Here are some screen shots of what's going on







One of the error messages Titanfall throws up when it crashes is "Couldn't create a world static vertex buffer" which seems from the research I've done to relate to the fact that the game wants huge amounts of RAM i.e. 4-5gb's to create maps and crashes as a result. One potential solution is to increase the size of the page file enabled which enables the SSD and/or HDD to act as temporary extra RAM. See http://www.reddit.com/r/titanfall/comments/1y0jqz/crashing_immediately_on_map_load_couldnt_create_a/, http://www.reddit.com/r/titanfall/comments/20dyxh/crashing_on_map_load_couldnt_create_a_world/ and http://www.ehow.com/how_7196859_enable-file-windows.html

I'll give that a crack and see if it makes any difference.

dreamers75

Have you tried to run it as admin?

Click on the actual EXE and right click compatability run as admin.

BenEadir

dreamers75 wrote: »

Have you tried to run it as admin?

Click on the actual EXE and right click compatability run as admin.

Run Titanfall as administrator?

dreamers75

yup

but it has to be done the actual exe so you dont have to do it everytime.

TerrorFirmer

Are you sure the full amount of ram is being used....monitor says 75% of RAM being used, which is at odds with 8GB being available.

Sounds like the game is running out of available memory for whatever reason.

Titanfall could be exceeding, say, 3GB, and then it's using pagefile to make up the difference which would explain major FPS drops when that happens.

I assume you have a 64-bit operating system?

Hibernosaur

Whats your Page file size set to? Make sure it's set on your SSD to a system managed size, to get the best performance. With no Page file on your HDD. (Not needed)

Are you using Xfast Ram or any overclocking utility for you graphics card / Processor?

Is your BIOS Clock speed for the Processor set correctly?

Are you using a 64 BIT Operating System?

How is your internet connection? (If you are playing online and you connection is dropping/lagging this can cause crashes too)

Personally I would recommend installing Windows 7 64 BIT professional because Windows 8 is horrible but that's just me.

Your system should be able to handle this game and more without issue.

Could be faulty hardware.