Background apps causing better fps

[johvannys95]

Disclaimer - I'm not a pc guy and unfortunate don't have any information on the specs of my pc

About 5 years ago, I used to play GTA2 on my old laptop. The game ran sluggish, definitely well below the intended fps. There was one day I decided to play music in the background, so I opened iTunes, set the music to play, and then opened GTA2, to find out that it was running at optimal fps! After testing, I realized it was faster because I had iTunes open, and so I always played it like that.

Fast forward to today, I was playing a fan game made on a Game Editor program, which was running sluggish. I then opened the internet to put the game and youtube side by side (watch videos while I also play) and the game ran at 60 fps! After testing, it turns out opening Youtube made it run smooth!

Why does this happen?

 

[hang-the-9]

You should be able to start the games in Full Screen or Windowed Mode, check those and see if one of those works better for you. Really need system specs, is this still a laptop? Dual video cards? Could be that your higher powered card is not working in game, then activates when you go to another program.