I'm mostly playing Diablo 4 and getting stutters and FPS drops when lots of enemies or animals appear, during teleport loading screens, and sometimes when opening my inventory. My system has 16GB of RAM in a 2x8GB configuration, and memory usage reaches around 95% while playing. GPU usage is only about 14%, while CPU usage is roughly 70%. Would replacing the memory with 2x16GB for 32GB total make the game smoother, or is the issue more likely related to my processor, graphics card, or storage? I'm currently using one SSD and usually only have Chrome open in the background. My hardware is an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER 6GB, an MSI Z490-A PRO motherboard, an Intel Core i5 running at 2.60GHz, and 16GB of RAM.
3 Answers
16GB is generally enough for Diablo 4, so I wouldn’t buy more RAM immediately. First check what is using the remaining memory in Task Manager, including background programs and the game itself. If memory usage stays near 95% and the system starts paging to disk, moving to 32GB could reduce hitching, but it may not solve the underlying problem. Since you’re already using an SSD, storage is less likely to be the main issue.
Low GPU usage during an FPS drop usually means the graphics card is waiting on something else rather than being fully overloaded. Watch the CPU core graphs, RAM usage, disk activity, and frame-time graph while the stutter happens. If one CPU core is maxed out, the processor may be the limit. If RAM is genuinely full and disk activity spikes, then 32GB is a reasonable upgrade, but identify the memory usage first so you’re not just masking another issue.
The exact CPU model matters a lot here. “Intel Core i5 at 2.60GHz” isn’t enough information because different generations and variants can perform very differently. Also check CPU usage per core, not just the overall percentage. A game can heavily load one core while the total CPU usage looks moderate, especially when it is handling enemy AI, physics, and other game logic.
I should have clarified that my CPU usage is about 70%, while the GPU is around 14%. I don’t know the exact processor model yet, so I’ll look it up and check the individual cores.
I normally only have Chrome open besides the game, and I’m using a single SSD. I’ll check the detailed memory list instead of just looking at the taskbar.