[SOLVED] Extreme FPS drops while playing games ?

[SoshiNinja]

For the past month or so I have been getting severe fps drops (1-15) that rarely improve over time. I've noticed that it happens in some games more than others such as Outer Wilds where I'll usually get about 8 fps.

I have a pretty beefy PC and it should be able to handle just about any game on the highest settings with relative ease, but now even when I lower the settings as much as possible, the fps doesn't change.

I've updated all of my drivers, verified file integrity, reinstalled games, changed individual settings, lowered all settings, checked power options, changed monitor refresh rate, etc, but nothing seems to work.

Some games are noticeably worse in areas that look more graphically intensive/larger and other games function perfectly. Some high quality games like Deathloop will run fairly smoothly whereas lower quality visuals like Inscryption will not.

The case I'm most familiar with is Outer Wilds since it was working normally before the newest dlc release. I tested a legacy patch and while the fps was lower than normal, it was still playable unlike the current version.

No one else seems to have this problem so I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with the update itself. Most notably there is a tremendous amount of water physics at play in the new update which is why I assume there is an issue, but again, my system should be able to handle it.

It might just be a coincidence, since I'm clueless on the subject, but I think the problems may have started around the time I enabled TPM 2.0 in preparation for windows 11. At this point I'm at my wits end.

My specs are:
CPU - Intel core i7 10700KA 3.8GHz 8 core
GPU - RTX3070 Vision
RAM - 32GB DDR4 (2x16) G.Skill 3200MHz Ripjaws V
SSD - 1TB Crucial P! m.2 PCI3 SSD
HDD - 6TB Seagate 3.5" 5400rpm SATA 6Gb/s BarraCuda HDD
PSU - 750 Watt Corsair RM750 80 Plus Gold Midular Power Supply
Cooling - MSI MAG CORELIQUID 240R ARGB Liquid CPU Cooler + several fans
Motherboard - Gigabyte S1200 ATX Z490 AORUS ELITE DDR4 Motherboard
BIOS - F20
OS - Windows 11
Monitor - 27" ASUS VG27AQ IPS WQHD FreeSync/G-Sync 165Hz TUF Gaming Monitor
Case - MSI ATX MPG GUNGNIR 110R RGB Tempered Glass Mid Tower Black
DirectX Version - 12

I've had the PC since May, but it only started acting up ~September/October and I haven't overclocked anything yet.

 

[rgd1101]

check cpu/gpu temp and usage during game?
how full is the ssd and hdd?

 

[SoshiNinja]

If I start playing Outer Wilds, my CPU is 38C, GPU is 45C, and my FPS is 8
CPU usage varies from ~8%-14% though it spikes for a fraction of a second when I click away to about 34%...
GPU usage is 0% for whatever reason... Which sounds like it could be the culprit, but I don't know how to fix that.
SSD - 430GB/929GB
HDD - 3.31TB/5.45TB

 

[Zerk2012]

Run thi

If I start playing Outer Wilds, my CPU is 38C, GPU is 45C, and my FPS is 8
CPU usage varies from ~8%-14% though it spikes for a fraction of a second when I click away to about 34%...
GPU usage is 0% for whatever reason... Which sounds like it could be the culprit, but I don't know how to fix that.
SSD - 430GB/929GB
HDD - 3.31TB/5.45TB

Run this with nothing else running and post the link to the results.

Please click the green human to continue - UserBenchmark

 

[SoshiNinja]

https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/48289620

UserBenchmarks: Game 157%, Desk 103%, Work 159%
CPU: Intel Core i7-10700K - 99.3%
GPU: Nvidia RTX 3070 - 158.4%
SSD: Crucial P1 3D NVMe PCIe M.2 1TB - 208.9%
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 6TB (2017) - 76.7%
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws V DDR4 3200 C16 2x16GB - 101.7%
MBD: Gigabyte GA-Z490 AORUS ELITE

 

[geofelt]

I am not familiar with Outer wilds.
Are there some game settings that might be relevant?

Some games of that type are largely single threaded.
Your processor has 16 threads. If all you ran was one single threaded task, your cpu usage would show as 6-7%.
Windows will spread the activity of a single task across all available threads.

I don't know how to really test this possibility.
One way might be to turn off hyper threading. That will slightly improve single thread performance and demonstrate that many threads are not needed for your game.

Or, in windows power management, reduce the max cpu % from 100 to 50% and see what effect that has.

Usually, modern processors do best with allowing the turbo mechanism to do the job.
Overclocking is a possibility.

 

[SoshiNinja]

I tried the power management change and it didn't make a difference. I might try the hyper threading suggestion later to see if it works, but it should be running fine without it since I've played the game without issues before.

 

[geofelt]

What has changed since "before" ?
My reading indicates that enabling tpm 2.0 should have no impact on performance.
Have there been any other changes since all was well?
Perhaps a windows update?
Can you use system restore to reset back to when all was well?

 

[SoshiNinja]

I would assume there has been at least one windows update since "before", but I imagine I don't have a system restore point of it.

 

[geofelt]

I would assume there has been at least one windows update since "before", but I imagine I don't have a system restore point of it.

In system restore, you will see the most current checkpoint, but there is a box that lets you go back to many previous restore points.
Windows may have turned off system restore. I call that nasty.
You can configure it yourself and take user checkpoints. I do that from time to time, or before I apply an update.

 

[SoshiNinja]

The furthest restore point seems to only be from the 18th of November... So I doubt that'll help

 

[geofelt]

The Nov. 18 restore point is there because windows did some sort of an update.
I would give it a try

 

[SoshiNinja]

I can confirm that disabling hyper threading didn't change anything. I can also confirm that the Nov 18 system restore didn't make a difference as expected, seeing as though the problem existed long before then.

 

[geofelt]

I can confirm that disabling hyper threading didn't change anything

One thing it does show is that you do not need all 16 threads to do the job.

Can you run hwmonitor or such?
If you see a max of 100c. you would have throttled at some point and slowed down the cpu.
It is my understanding that the MSI AIO coolers have problems due to the pump being with the radiator.

 

[SoshiNinja]

By 100c, are you referring to the temperature? If so, my avg max is 79C and the greatest value being 87C on core #2

 

[geofelt]

By 100c, are you referring to the temperature? If so, my avg max is 79C and the greatest value being 87C on core #2

87c. on one core is very good. Throttling of the cpu is not the issue.

I am out of ideas.

 

[SoshiNinja]

I finally managed to resolve this problem.

For those that may find this thread in the future, the issue was being caused by 'Citrix' an application I use to remotely access my work computer from home. I discovered this by repeating a few clean boots with different processes enabled in msconfig.

Thank you to those that tried to assist me; there may not have been any successful solutions, but I did learn quite a lot from you.

 

[camahule]

I finally managed to resolve this problem.

For those that may find this thread in the future, the issue was being caused by 'Citrix' an application I use to remotely access my work computer from home. I discovered this by repeating a few clean boots with different processes enabled in msconfig.

Thank you to those that tried to assist me; there may not have been any successful solutions, but I did learn quite a lot from you.

Created an account just to say thank you! Frustrated for months why I couldn't get Jedi fallen order to run at more than 10 FPS (even though my PC should be smashing it and CPU/GPU both stuck around 15%). Couldn't find any answer that worked, till started having same issue with inscryption and found this thread.

Uninstalled Citrix and both now running perfectly!!