Question Please Help - Bipolar Gaming Performances

[qneptune]

Been going crazy the past month trying to troubleshoot similar issues across different games with no luck so far. For some reason, Arc Raiders and Marathon (especially online multiplayer games, but not all of them) are completely unstable and bipolar regarding performances. Sometimes i'll be able to launch and play these games properly, without any hitches whatsoever. Everything loads fast and runs fine. But everytime I turn my off my PC and then ON again (or if I restart) a dice is rolled that suddenly decides those games will run poorly and always crash when loading into matches. I can already tell by the main menu loading times and fps when I launch them if it'll actually run or not, because the difference is crystal clear. Sometimes the resulting errors are slightly different, usually something related to GPU performance (Time Skew Max - low fps for too long is unsustainable so the game kicks you out itself) or a straight crash. Other times it'll appear related to connection issues. But clearly there is an underlying issue here. Always happens when loading into the actual matches/runs/raids; not on startup or the menu. The games CAN run fine, proven by the fact they do indeed run properly many times. got 50 hours on Arc. And my connection/internet speed isn't ever an issue outside of these specific games. Other heavier games, both singleplayer and multiplayer ones, run perfectly fine aswell. Nothing seems to permanently fix this dice roll; Reinstalling the game, verifying files, etc. all common fixes have been tried. All drivers are updated. All games installed on an SSD. What the hell is going on?

Specs: Acer Nitro 5

GPU: GTX 1650
CPU: i5 10300H
8GB RAM (Slightly lower than minimum for Arc but somehow the game can sometimes run perfectly fine for hours straight?)

 

[Zed Clampet]

Been going crazy the past month trying to troubleshoot similar issues across different games with no luck so far. For some reason, Arc Raiders and Marathon (especially online multiplayer games, but not all of them) are completely unstable and bipolar regarding performances. Sometimes i'll be able to launch and play these games properly, without any hitches whatsoever. Everything loads fast and runs fine. But everytime I turn my off my PC and then ON again (or if I restart) a dice is rolled that suddenly decides those games will run poorly and always crash when loading into matches. I can already tell by the main menu loading times and fps when I launch them if it'll actually run or not, because the difference is crystal clear. Sometimes the resulting errors are slightly different, usually something related to GPU performance (Time Skew Max - low fps for too long is unsustainable so the game kicks you out itself) or a straight crash. Other times it'll appear related to connection issues. But clearly there is an underlying issue here. Always happens when loading into the actual matches/runs/raids; not on startup or the menu. The games CAN run fine, proven by the fact they do indeed run properly many times. got 50 hours on Arc. And my connection/internet speed isn't ever an issue outside of these specific games. Other heavier games, both singleplayer and multiplayer ones, run perfectly fine aswell. Nothing seems to permanently fix this dice roll; Reinstalling the game, verifying files, etc. all common fixes have been tried. All drivers are updated. All games installed on an SSD. What the hell is going on?

Specs: Acer Nitro 5

GPU: GTX 1650
CPU: i5 10300H
8GB RAM (Slightly lower than minimum for Arc but somehow the game can sometimes run perfectly fine for hours straight?)

One thing I would suggest is that you keep an eye on your RAM before you launch the game, and the reason that this could be a problem right after turning your computer back on is because of Windows Fast Startup. What this does is immediately start to move things into your RAM as soon as you turn on your PC. Fast Startup can be disabled.

The other thing is just to make sure that everything else on your PC is closed before you start the game. With you starting off without enough RAM, things like Chrome storing 1 GB of info in RAM just in case you come back to it is very unhelpful in your situation where you need more RAM. Use Task Manager to see what is using your RAM and shut them down (also with task manager). If you don't know what something is, ask CoPilot. It will let you know what it does and whether it is safe to turn off.

Unfortunately, thanks to AI companies, RAM now costs hundreds of dollars more than it did last year at this time, so now is not a great time to be having RAM problems. HOWEVER, there is a fix for people who absolutely don't have enough RAM (the standard right now for PC gaming is 16 GB minimum) and that is to get DDR3 RAM. This RAM is old enough that it isn't being impacted by the AI RAM crunch. But the truth is that having enough RAM is better than having the latest RAM.