Locked Performance issue

[JioFunny]

Hello,

Before 2 weeks, I installed a msi 3080 gaming z on my system and a seasonic prime px (platinum) 850w in my system. All good with those I think. Just so you know I have modded my case and I have strong and perfectly placed fans. Under load my gpu never exceeds 65degrees and CPU seats around 55. If not less. (i5 9600kf and gigabyte z390 M gaming mobo). Everything in my pc runs very cool.


Now my problem. When I first start my pc and open up a first person shooter, I get about the fps I should be getting with my specs. I am capped on 144fps and it stays there. As I continue to play though, my FPS linearly drops. After 2-3 hours of playing (yes that long) it will end up having huge fps drops to 80fps in some spots but generally operates everywhere lower (120fps and barely be able to keep it there). Talking about 1080p.. which for my system it should be fairly easy to keep a stable 144fps. Just like it does when I first fire up my pc. It happens slowly and linearly as the time passes. I am sure if I would play even longer it would probably reach even 70fps. It gets really bad. If I restart my pc, no problem! 144 stable again. Temperature is perfect like I said in all pc components during gameplay. It is not a temperature issue. I even downclocked GPU and put all CPU settings to stock and even though I was running crazy cool, still. After 2-3 hours of playing.. same problem.

At first I was thinking of the 2 things I upgraded.. (GPU and psu) maybe my psu is faulty and causing that.. But. After I read some things online I see that a characteristic of slow performance drop is that of a faulty memory RAM? I have 32 GB 3200mhz Corsair vengeance. I always run it on xmp profile 1 when I game and now my important note:
I had 16gb RAM a month ago. I had done a loot of testing with it. I was trying to run my game with no paging file and until I minimized windows to the point I could run it without paging file size, my pc had crashed multiple times because it run out of RAM. So before a month I bought two of the exact same RAM modules and now I have quad channel of 32gb. Is there any possibility that I cause failure to my first two RAM modules and it is now showing its wear with the performance drop? How can I test if it is the RAM? Should I remove the two old RAM modules and only leave the two new ones? Meanwhile if only two of the four had failed, wouldn't the other two still keep the pc performance high enough so it can keep same fps like it does initially?

I don't know much and I am at a loss.. and sad at the same time because I cannot enjoy the performance my pc is supposed to have with these specs. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I have Samsung 870 Evo ssd 500gb. It has 300gb empty space. It is empty. All specs mentioned now.

 

[1ntr0v3rt3ch]

Do the Windows Memory Diagnostic or Memtest86 first (remove new rams installed) on your old rams installed to check if there is errors.
Try running also your pc without using the old ram (remove it) and observe the result if problem still persist.

 

[JioFunny]

Thank you. I will do it and post results. But I have one question. Is it not better to run memtest after those 1-2-3 hours of gaming when performance has dropped? Or it doesn't matter?

 

[Surfer_428]

It doesn’t matter. Also, take note of your thermals as gaming for hours can cause thermal throttling and cause your performance to deteriorate. Also, *rarely* if you update Windows it’ll fix the performance issues.

 

[1ntr0v3rt3ch]

it doesn't matter. btw, try enabling pagefile too with old ram installed and check the results

 

[JioFunny]

It doesn’t matter. Also, take note of your thermals as gaming for hours can cause thermal throttling and cause your performance to deteriorate. Also, *rarely* if you update Windows it’ll fix the performance issues.

My thermals are fine even if I would game for 10 hours. And to be honest it doesn't make sense that it takes thermals 3-4 hours to reach peak. Like I said it happens even if I downclock gpu and leave a complete stock bios CPU setup. (Stock setup but fans to full speed.)
Also, because it has happened to me before, in my experience, thermal throttling is much more aggresive. It just hits you and you have a 20 FPS loss for example if not more. My problem now is.. if I could calculate is that I am losing let's say 1 FPS per 5 minutes or so..

My windows version is not updatable. Going to the latest version with a new fresh install is something I will leave for last. Even though this one is pretty fresh.. like 5 months ago.

it doesn't matter. btw, try enabling pagefile too with old ram installed and check the results

I wi do that too. Thank you very much.

 

[JioFunny]

@1ntr0v3rt3ch @Surfer_428
After a lot of thinking.. I think I know what is happening. I am not at home today so tomorrow I will test everything but I believe I found the cause.

Even though I have beyond excellent air flow in my case and GPU and CPU are always cool under load, well there is a problem. Like I said this is happening after I got my rtx 3080. Well that makes sense.. this gpu is almost twice as big as my previous rtx 2060 ventus xs oc.. it is long with three fans. In a motherboard that is Micro atx. And my case is a modded thermal core v21. What this means is that my memory modules have a lot less air flow from the side now that there is a super long gpu blocking the way and because RAM positions is right over gpu.. any heat dissipating from the gpu now will be heating up the RAM modules, let alone it is 37 degrees warm outside here. So the combination of warm weather (summer) and the GPU swap, is causing the RAM modules to overheat. Even though CPU still remains cool same for gpu. First thing I will do tomorrow is add a fan on the side or somewhere that it will push air towards ram modules and then I will remove oc (xmp profile 1 from bios) and will go game for hours and see if there will be a performance drop. I will then come back here for the report.

 

[JioFunny]

Ok I am here for the report. Bad news.. It is surely ram related. It is NOT temperature issue. Downclocked them and put a fan in the perfect spot they get tons of airflow now.
I did a mem test without removing the two old ram modules and there were no errors.

So. As I am playing Warzone, weirdly enough it starts when I first open up the game to use 8-9gb of ram. But. As I continue to play, and performance continually drops, RAM usage increases and it reached last I checked 18gb. But still. Where is the problem? I have 32gb of ram.. I don't use page file size, and this is what I was doing before I swapped gpu and power supply (both suuuper cool temps).
So it is what I have always had.. but performance never dropped like that. Why is this happening? Plus 18gb shouldn't be a problem for 32gb of RAM.

And it doesn't make sense anyway, because EVEN when I had 16gb in the past, when playing the same game, even when I was running it on the limits without RAM space.. because again was testing without page file size, even 5 minutes before it would crash, Performance never dropped.

So, putting the fact that the problem can be the game itself because it is a mess anyway and that perhaps because it is a mess if I would enable page file size it would probably fix my issue to the side,
Is there any possibility that it is still hardware related? Like.. could the RAM be worn out or something? I really don't think it could be anything else than the RAM IF it really is hardware related.

 

[1ntr0v3rt3ch]

it seems you're experiencing bottleneck issue. your processor can't handle the gpu when used too long, there's a possibility so better check it. try to remove your gpu and leave 32gb ram without page file and do the testing again.

 

[JioFunny]

it seems you're experiencing bottleneck issue. your processor can't handle the gpu when used too long, there's a possibility so better check it. try to remove your gpu and leave 32gb ram without page file and do the testing again.

You got me confused. My CPU surely cannot handle the gpu. But how does this relate to the RAM increasing and performance dropping when everything runs super duper cool? Would you please explain a bit further?
How does a bottleneck connect with a decreasing performance over time? Shouldn't it be the same performance decrease from the moment I open up the game till I finish? I am not just lacking performance here.. I am lacking stability even though I am running in ALL components extremely cool.

If I remove my gpu, As I am running a 9600kF (no integrated graphics) I won't be able to run the game to test (not that I can run this game with integrated graphics..).. no?

 

[JioFunny]

it seems you're experiencing bottleneck issue. your processor can't handle the gpu when used too long, there's a possibility so better check it. try to remove your gpu and leave 32gb ram without page file and do the testing again.

it doesn't matter. btw, try enabling pagefile too with old ram installed and check the results

I just want to let everyone know.. that I found the cause. To my surpirse it is Nvidia drivers themselves. 511.79 causes crazy much memory leaking in Warzone.
Second last older standard driver 471.96 does not only cause no memory leaking at all, but with this one game uses about 2gb less RAM.

516 newer Nvidia driver does not cause memory leaking either!! And because it outperforms 471.96 in average frames per second, I will go with newer 516.
I tested multiple times. I clean installed multiple times 511.79 and every single time huge stuttering after long time of playing because game keeps using more and more ram. I use ddu every time I uninstall drivers.

I have two questions..

1. How is it possible GPU drivers cause a memory leak?

2. How can a driver use that much (more or less 2gb) less RAM than another to open the same application?

This post can be closed even if my questions are not answered. Thank you all very much.