hard drive or ram?

[psyron]

so i have a pretty decent pc - i7 processor, gtx 960 2gb, 8gb ram and 500gb hdd

the problem is in a few games such as in arma 3, gta 5, h1z1 etc,  i have a lot of lags in crowded places/cities and fps drops down to 15-20 from 50+ fps which gets realy frustrating, cant f'ckin survive with that shit. i play on medium-high settings

will upgrading my ram or hdd fix this? or anything else? thanks in advance.

[Blommen]

I would recommend upgrading the Ram for games such as Arma 3 and Gta 5

[TiMoN]

Your specs are enough for all of these games check if you have overheating issues.

[Devin]

Start off by monitoring the system performance with something as simple as task manager performance tab. When you get to the areas that have lag see what the CPU, ram and disk usage look like during those times. That's the easiest way to narrow down the problems.

[brian1996]

There's only 2 things that is causing it.
1. Insufficient supply of RAM, considering 8GB is still somewhat enough these days this is likely not the problem (however upgrading to 16GB wouldn't do any harm tho').
2. Insufficient amount of VRAM on the GPU, this is more likely the case since games like Arma and GTA 5 need to render shitloads of things at the same time in the game. 2GB is frankly not enough so what I suggest is upgrading the GPU first to say a GTX 970, especially if you play on high settings.

[Luke]

There's only 2 things that is causing it.
1. Insufficient supply of RAM, considering 8GB is still somewhat enough these days this is likely not the problem (however upgrading to 16GB wouldn't do any harm tho').
2. Insufficient amount of VRAM on the GPU, this is more likely the case since games like Arma and GTA 5 need to render shitloads of things at the same time in the game. 2GB is frankly not enough so what I suggest is upgrading the GPU first to say a GTX 970, especially if you play on high settings.

Probably what I would have said.
Considering 8GB of ram is the sweet spot in current gaming and general stuff, playing GTA V/Arma 3 your useage shouldn't top more then 5GB of the RAM. The biggest factor would be as Brian said the insufficient amount of VRAM may be your issue as you stated you have a 2GB 960 which is probably where your tripping up on game as when it hits the 2GB cap the overall performance of any game at that level. GTA V is a very demanding game as I have it myself and it does drink most of your GPU usage and at a 970 with (3.5gb hur hur) it just misses the cap point.

[psyron]

so it has nothing to with my hdd? coz my hdd is choked up like all my drives almost full. i read somewhere having the hdd red full causes lags as well

i see my ram usage go as high as 7.9gb while playing games like gta and arma 3, so i assume if i increase the ram, my pc will have more space to breath in (less lags?). i tried my graphics settings with low as well, but same performance, lags heavy in cities etc. so im still in a great dillemma if its actualy my gpu or my ram or something else. i can only make one investment at time, i might as well make the correct one

[psyron]

Start off by monitoring the system performance with something as simple as task manager performance tab. When you get to the areas that have lag see what the CPU, ram and disk usage look like during those times. That's the easiest way to narrow down the problems.

i only have my steam running and the game that im playing and other essentials. skype and everything else are off, still the same shit performance

[Mark]

I usually have huge like spikes whenever my HDD is at full load, pagefile issues ; you should check the hard disk.

[Devin]

If you're hitting over 7gb of ram usage, either try closing background apps, skype and whatever internet browser you have or look at upgrading your ram in that case. Generally speaking after you hit 6gb of memory when you have 8gb in total it will start making use of page file which will lag as it is far slower than ram.

Also try free up some space if possible on the harddrive.