Experiencing fps stutter in alot of games.

[Lamorak]

Hopefully somebody here can help shed some light on my problem since i've had no success looking for answers.

I've been experiencing fps stutter in alot of my games in the past few weeks, i first noticed it while playing Tomb Raider (steam copy) were the game would just stutter for a couple of seconds every now and then but for the most part the game is very playable, and after few hours i noticed it seemed to happen when the TR auto save icon popped up, and with Star Craft 2 it happens when the game checkpoints, with WoW its sort of random when it happens since the game doesnt really have any sort save points, but it did happen when an achievement pops up.

My first assumption was it could be the new HDD i recently bought, the few games that were still on my primary HDD didnt seem to show any signs of this stutter that i could tell.

But i reinstalled my Tomb Raider onto my primary HDD to test my theory and sadly it still does this stutter.

I have done the basic maintenance that alot of sites say do like check for viruses/dust+heat buildup and general cleaning of your system, but none of it seemed to help there is no improvement that i can see.

My system is a prebuilt system from a site called Arbico although i upgraded the GPU and added the new HDD since i bought it.

Specs are
i5 3570 3.4ghz - win7 64bit
GTX 670 ftw
8gb Corsair 1600mhz
600w Corsair
MSI Z77A-G43 motherboard
I play at 1920x1080 resolution
the new HDD i bought was a 1tb WD Caviar green.

Hopefully somebody on here can see the solution and end my suffering , and if i've missed any info that needs to be shared let me know.

[vesseblah]

Caviar Green is known to cause stutter on games that are run from it, but it should not affect games on other discs. That's one of the drawbacks from low cost low power low speed discs.

[potis]

So,you shutter when the game has to write stuff on the disk.

Isnt it rather obvious when you said it yourself?

Apart from TR, try some other game on the primary HDD.

Either way, green is only for storage and media, anything else on them is just meh.

[Lemmiwink]

You should order yourself a Blue disk to write your games to tbh. Your stuttering is most likely caused by the HDD. Great disk for almost everything apart from OS and games.

[chazus]

What was the old HDD that isn't the Green?

I'm also a little confused... It sounds a lot like you're installing programs on two separate HDDs for some reason.

[Lamorak]

Well that is some great news in that it is in fact the new HDD thats the problem, my friend said i might have a memory leak problem. And i do plan on trying a few other games on my primary HDD just to triple check.

Gives me a reason to buy an SSD HDD then, i have been holding off on buying one for a while but now seems to be a good time, quick question for anyone that may still check this thread out will my current PSU be fine handling all im using now + the added SSD when i get it?.

[vesseblah]

will my current PSU be fine handling all im using now + the added SSD when i get it?.

Two SSDs use about as much power as one case fan.

Alternatively 20 SSDs use as much power as one HDD.

So yeah... PSU is the least of your worries with SSD.

[Lamorak]

What was the old HDD that isn't the Green?

I'm also a little confused... It sounds a lot like you're installing programs on two separate HDDs for some reason.

By old one you mean my primary HDD?, i have 2 HDD, my main one that came with the PC when i bought it and the new one i bought separately because my main drive was filling up to quickly and planned on using the new one purely for games and my main drive for everything else.

The new one is the Caviar green, the other one i have no clue what it is but since non of my Origin games that i left on that HDD experience the stutter i would assume its not a green one.

Two SSDs use about as much power as one case fan.

Alternatively 20 SSDs use as much power as one HDD.

So yeah... PSU is the least of your worries with SSD.

Thats good to know, thanks .

[chazus]

But i reinstalled my Tomb Raider onto my primary HDD to test my theory and sadly it still does this stutter.

If your "main" or "primary" drive is the old one, and still experiences stutter, doesn't that rule out the Green drive being the issue? I'm assuming this stutter did not happen in the past on that same drive.

[Bremmon]

Get a SSD and load/play all your games off of that... I have a very similar set up, I have no trouble what so ever. A 250gig SSD is cheap, no excuse not to have one.

[Lamorak]

If your "main" or "primary" drive is the old one, and still experiences stutter, doesn't that rule out the Green drive being the issue? I'm assuming this stutter did not happen in the past on that same drive.

It didnt no, one of the reasons that made me think my new drive was the problem, and going off the replies i was right, wish i had researched the whole colour scheme before buying it but ah well its not wasted, just not good for games.

---------- Post added 2013-04-01 at 01:15 AM ----------

Get a SSD and load/play all your games off of that... I have a very similar set up, I have no trouble what so ever. A 250gig SSD is cheap, no excuse not to have one.

Depends on what you'd class as cheap , for me and were i buy most of my parts which is a site called Scan.co.uk, they are not what i'd class as cheap, for a 240gig SSD the cheapest is £120 and money is tight right now, but i will get one though it will just take a month or 2.

[chazus]

It didnt no, one of the reasons that made me think my new drive was the problem, and going off the replies i was right, wish i had researched the whole colour scheme before buying it but ah well its not wasted, just not good for games.

But you said that your old drive, which isn't a green, has the same problem.

[Deleted]

going out on a limb here, when did you buy the computer and if it was some time ago, take a look at temps on your cpu and gpu, dunno if theres a chance of overheating, some components throttle when reaching high temps, this needs to be checked when gaming and not idle, you could be in a dusty room and heat sinks clogged with dust, seen it happen before