FPS issues and stuttering in StarCraft II

[LeBIE]

Hello Tom's Hardware!

I bought myself a new laptop a few months ago, and I have recently been having FPS issues in StarCraft II. I re-installed windows, and after installing everything, my FPS is lower than every before. I run on approximately 60-70 FPS with no action on-going, as the game progresses I will see further drops in FPS.

My specs (using speccy):

Summary

Operating System
Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit

CPU
Intel Core i3/i5/i7 4xxx @ 2.40GHz 57 °C (Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4700MQ CPU @ 2.40GHz)
Haswell 22nm Technology

RAM
8,00GB Single-Channel DDR3 @ 798MHz (11-11-11-28)

Motherboard
Notebook W350STQ/W370ST (SOCKET 0) 59 °C

Graphics
Generic PnP Monitor (1920x1080@59Hz)
SyncMaster (1920x1080@59Hz)
Intel HD Graphics 4600 (CLEVO/KAPOK Computer)
2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M (CLEVO/KAPOK Computer) 45 °C

Storage
232GB Samsung SSD 840 Series (SSD) 38 °C

Optical Drives
Slimtype DVD A DS8A9SH

Audio
High Definition Audio Device

Speccy on my GPU

Speccy on my CPU

Starcraft is running in the background in both instances, but isn't active.

In-side the game the temperature of the CPU and the motherboard both read 70 (75 top) degrees celcius from approximately 55-60. The graphic card barely scrapes 50 degrees celcius. Outside of the, the graphics card doesn't even display a temperature (isn't enabled).

3D settings for SCII in NVIDIA Control Panel

NFO-file (UPLOADED ON PEECEE.DK)

If there is any missing information, please do inform me,

Kind regards, LeBIE.

EDIT 1: Formatting

EDIT 2: Temperatures

 

[derekullo]

I think i understand ...

You bought your laptop months ago with windows 8.0
You then reinstalled windows 8 and updated to 8.1
There may be another thing going on but microsoft did say that they have issues with gaming under 8.1, mouse lag etc.

 

[LeBIE]

This is correct, yes. I purchased the laptop with 8.0, and recently I re-installed, then updated to 8.1. I was however running on 8.1 without FPS issues, so I don't think this is of relevance.

 

[derekullo]

You said you were getting 60 - 70 fps then your fps became lower.
How much lower?

 

[LeBIE]

It will drop as far as 20 or so.

 

[derekullo]

"I run on approximately 60-70 FPS with no action on-going, as the game progresses I will see further drops in FPS."
You probably already know this being a starcraft player, but when the game starts there is very little action going on. As the game progresses it becomes much more cpu intensive and more gpu intensive. Which causes your fps to drop.

 

[LeBIE]

I am aware of this, yes, but as far as I am concerned, my computer should be more than capable of running the game. Benchmarks state I should be able to achieve 250 FPS on low settings, and I have, with this same setup, before the re-installation, been running the game without FPS issues.

EDIT: Just to be clear, I don't expect the FPS to stay as high as the game progresses, but it shouldn't drop as far as 20 or 30, rendering the game nearly unplayable.

 

[derekullo]

http://www.notebookcheck.com/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-765M.92906.0.html
No clue why it is in German i can't find the English version but it's easy enough to read.

mittel (Minimum): 125 fps
hoch (medium): 92 fps
max (...Maximum): 35 fps
So depending on settings i could see the game dip into the 20s if you were at max settings.

 

[LeBIE]

Oh, wow, sorry. I forgot to mention that I was testing on the lowest settings possible, reaching a top of 90 FPS.

 

[derekullo]

Going from 90 fps to 20 fps is indeed a massive drop.
You measured temperatures when "Starcraft is running in the background in both instances, but isn't active." This is not very helpful. The game presumably runs at 90 fps at that time which is great. What you need to do is monitor temperatures when you have terrible fps. It could be the cpu/gpu under-clocking itself. Clean the case, remove cable clutter inside case ...

 

[LeBIE]

It's a laptop, so cable clutter is no issue. I don't have screenshots, and I cannot run a test until tomorrow. The cpu/gpu under-clocking, is this in any way related to temperatures? I was running the GPU-Z program, and it bugged out on me. When it was working however, it was showing some odd numbers, as far as I am concerned, quite possible below what they should be. This could hint towards a faulty card, no? I don't think that should be the issue though, seeing as the machine is only a few months old (2-3), and it happened just after a re-install. I can run more tests tomorrow.

 

[derekullo]

Also make absolutely sure your Intel HD Graphics 4600 is not doing the graphics. LOL

 

[derekullo]

Even on a laptop make sure to remove dust if you can.

 

[derekullo]

Yes when the cpu / gpu gets too hot it will under-clock itself. When it under-clocks itself your fps goes down, way down. Your temperature numbers you gave were when the game was idle. You might as well have been measuring temperatures while running Microsoft Word.

 

[LeBIE]

I am fairly certain it is not the Intel HD Graphics 4600 doing the graphics. I disabled my NVIDIA driver for a bit, and there was a huge drop in FPS as, so clearly it was running on the correct graphics.

 

[derekullo]

A faulty card can give low fps but most likely it would show graphic anomalies like strange textures or bad colors or cause the computer to blue screen of death.

 

[derekullo]

Besides overheating there aren't many things that will cause a game to run great at the start (90 fps) and then massively fail (20 fps) at the end. If the card was truly faulty it would give bad fps at all times.

 

[LeBIE]

I will run some tests tomorrow, as soon as possible. I appreciate you taking your time to look at my issue, it's a great help, even if the solution hasn't been solved as of yet! So thanks a ton!

 

[initiald64]

whats with the choice of cpu and graphic card choice? sc2 tend to have memory leak and its becoming an issue. dont know if they fixed it yet. drop in fps must be their server . is this campaign ?

 

[LeBIE]

I play only multi-player. As with the choice of graphics and cpu, I am not sure what to answer, this is what my budget allowed in a laptop. I just got the chance of running a test:

In the game, my CPU and motherboard temperatures rise from 55 to approximately 70 (topping at 75). My graphics remain seemingly untouched, just sitting around 46-50, which seems a bit odd to me, and makes me question whether it actually does use the right graphics or not. Is there a way to make sure with a test? I disabled the NVIDIA driver, ran the game, and saw dramatic differences, but does this ensure that I am running it correctly. I have checked my NVIDIA control panel configuration many times aswell, and everything SHOULD be fine, as far as I am concerned.

EDIT: Looking at Speccy again, I see no temperature next to the graphics card at all outside of the game, indicating that it was in fact being used during the game. Could it be running underclocked regardless, perhaps?

 

[initiald64]

ah make sense its a notebook, it tends to get very hot and fps will slow. dont forget the server in mutiplayer especially when u play mineralz , graphic is more demanding as well as processing which will make a drop of fps. i even got to 5fps once and that was playing notd

 

[LeBIE]

I primarily play 1v1 on ladder, and I don't know if the temperatures are an issue, but I posted them in the thread. It's also a relatively new PC, so I really do not hope that it's not capable of running SC2 on low settings with the specs that it has.

 

[initiald64]

laptop on sc2 are a pain to run its either the server slows down performance cause people are using wifi to play and thier cpu is an i3 or i5. i mine could not handle cause i hate it when it heats up on my laptop and blue screen of death has become too common.

 

[initiald64]

last but not least, run it with the lowest setting in sc2. yes it does improve fps, as i have done with a pc not laptop

 

[derekullo]

My impression is that he is running at lowest settings and in the beginning getting 90 fps and as the game continues it goes down to 20ish fps.