What is causing my lag?

[jrieder]

Hello everyone, I'm trying to figure out why my pc is having trouble running Advanced Modern Warfare 2, even on low settings. It's just too choppy.

Will I have similar problems running new games, like Far Cry 4, and the new Assassins Creed?

If so, what is causing my lag?

Here is my computer:

Motherboard MSI socket am3
Processor Athlon II x4 640
Ram 4 gb
Hard drive old fashioned and slow
video: gtx 460
psu 550

 

[Nohr]

If you meant to say Advanced Warfare, it looks like your CPU and RAM are below the minimum system requirements.

Advanced Warfare Minimum System Requirements:
Processor: Intel® Core™ i3-530 @ 2.93 GHz / AMD Phenom™ II X4 810 @ 2.60 GHz
Memory: 6 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTS 450 @ 1GB / ATI® Radeon™ HD 5870 @ 1GB

And it's even worse for the new Assassin's Creed..

Assassin's Creed Unity Minimum System Requirements:
Processor: Intel Core i5-2500K @ 3.3 GHz or AMD FX-8350 @ 4.0 GHz
Memory: 6 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 or AMD Radeon HD 7970 (2 GB VRAM)

I'm afraid it might be time to consider upgrading your system.

 

[mfenn]

I'm afraid it might be time to consider upgrading your system.

I agree. With the system that the OP has, there are a few things that are probably causing issues:

- Low RAM leading to swapping => macro scale framerate variability
- Fairly weak CPU causing =>micro scale framerate variablity
- Older midrange GPU => low average framerates

 

[inachu]

I remember back in the day I put a $600 video card into a similar pc setup and the pc still bottle necked the speed. You can tweak the pc to death and it still will not be any faster.

 

[jrieder]

Just wanted to say thank you for the helpful posts. The information you provided me was very informative, and a result, will be buying a new machine. Thanks for saving me from wasting my money upgrading my existing build.

 

[axlrose87]

Ubisoft can be attributed to a lot of your in-game lag as well...

 

[Cerb]

Ubisoft can be attributed to a lot of your in-game lag as well...

Some, maybe, but FC4 is just FC3 with new content, so should run fine, at least on the GTX 460 and Athlon II (not sure about RAM, as I never played such games w/ 4GB).