Games "Feel" Laggy when watching stream on 2nd monitor

[pounced]

Hello Tom's Hardware, I'm coming here to see if anyone can help me with an issue I'm having. First thing, a bit about my setup.

Currently I'm Running 64-bit Windows 8.1. My Monitor is a Benq xl2420TE 144hz gaming monitor for my main monitor and my second monitor is an Asus monitor that is 60 HZ 24" not exactly sure the model of it.

My Rig contains an i5-2500k Overclocked to 4.4 Ghz with 16gb of Gskill Ripjaws Ram @ 1866mhz along with a r9 290x stock AMD graphics card. PSU is 750 Watt and the motherboard is asrock extreme 6 z77 Motherboard.

Now for the issue. Currently when I'm playing a game such as Counter strike Global offensive for example. If I'm playing without anything else running I will be Around 300-400 FPS since it's not that demanding of a game. My Monitor can run 144 FPS though so It is as smooth as butter to me. But when I turn on a stream or a youtube video my FPS will drop to about 230-300 FPS which is still well above 144hz. Thing is that the game just starts to feel extremely laggy like I'm getting sub 60 fps type of Lag. It's almost like the game is frame skipping or something it's really hard to describe but I don't understand why it all the sudden changes like this when my performance is still above the maximum of my FPS.

Counter strike isn't a very demanding game at all and I swear my frames NEVER drop bellow 230 FPS while in game.

If anyone knows what could be causing these issues I'd appreciate the input. I've tried to completely remove all AMD drivers by uninstalling and using a driver removing tool from tech power up I think it was. Doing a fresh install of Both the Beta drivers 14.7 and the stable release 14.4 drivers but nothing is working.

 

[DarkSable]

Have you tried locking the framerate?

You should know that producing much at all over your monitor's refresh rate is just a bloody silly thing to do. You're trading the production of a whole mess of extra heat and stress on your GPU for what, bragging rights?

If you lock the framerate at, say 150fps, there will be a lot more GPU oomph for other tasks, and there will be no difference to the game.

 

[trapper]

Have you tried vertical sync? It will reduce you to 144fps, but might help get rid of the stuttering your system gets when recording/streaming.

 

[pounced]

Have you tried locking the framerate?

You should know that producing much at all over your monitor's refresh rate is just a bloody silly thing to do. You're trading the production of a whole mess of extra heat and stress on your GPU for what, bragging rights?

If you lock the framerate at, say 150fps, there will be a lot more GPU oomph for other tasks, and there will be no difference to the game.

I will try doing this and see if it yields any results although I don't see why It would change anything. I'm keeping above 230 FPS at all time stream/video on or not but it's only when I turn them on when the "Lag" happens and there is no explanation as far as numbers go.

 

[pounced]

Have you tried vertical sync? It will reduce you to 144fps, but might help get rid of the stuttering your system gets when recording/streaming.

Turing Vsync on reduces the response time or creates input lag doesn't it? I really don't want to do that especially when playing a FPS. Most pros keep vsync off and they don't have the issue I'm having.

 

[pounced]

I just don't know if It's some kind of settings or something but I don't understand how a solid 230+ FPS can all the sudden feel laggy. It's like I'm getting Bad FPS or something

 

[trapper]

You have to remember that your FPS doesn't always mean smoothness. Say you have 10 blocks in a 1 second window (an example only). For the first 8 blocks you average 20 frames, and in the last 2 you get hung up on other processes and get 0 frames. All together you're getting 160fps! But at the same time 1/5th of your time is spend frozen, creating a laggy performance.


As for vertical sync creating input lag? I've never noticed it. It's normally one of the first things I turn on because I notice screen tearing or jumpy graphics when I have it turned off. With modern hardware my input is just as smooth.

 

[pounced]

You have to remember that your FPS doesn't always mean smoothness. Say you have 10 blocks in a 1 second window (an example only). For the first 8 blocks you average 20 frames, and in the last 2 you get hung up on other processes and get 0 frames. All together you're getting 160fps! But at the same time 1/5th of your time is spend frozen, creating a laggy performance.


As for vertical sync creating input lag? I've never noticed it. It's normally one of the first things I turn on because I notice screen tearing or jumpy graphics when I have it turned off. With modern hardware my input is just as smooth.

Tried it out still does not fix the problem. There is something going on that shouldn't If I'm seeing 230+ FPS constant with a video or stream open it should display that on my monitor. I have no idea why it feels like it slows down with the hardware I run.

 

[kasper3390]

Hello @pounced.

I have the exact same problem as you, and it is so anoying! i can't stream, watch steam, watch videos, or even have a browser on my second monitor without this problem happens.

i7 6700K 4.2ghz - 16gb 3200mhz ram - GTX 1070 8gb - Asus z170 pro gaming sli.

I really hope you have found a fix for this problem.

From Kasper Mogensen

 

[slettenmortenas]

THE SOLUTION I FOUND : Finally it seems I've found a solution... It simply consist of disabling windows transparency (Right Click on the desktop > Personalize > Window color > Uncheck "Enable transparency" > Save Changes).

Then I can immediately note the lag is gone !
Even after a reboot, no problem so far.

 

[kasper3390]

@slettenmortenas Mine has always been disabled, and i still have the issue 🙁

 

[Isokolon]

Could it be that it's just tearing?

Is your second screen also 144Hz?
Bcs if not, might be that there's some refresh rate issue like your 144Hz running at 60hz and therefore feel laggy

 

[kasper3390]

No it's a 60hz, It kinda feels like it drops to 60hz when i have video's running on my second monitor.

 

[.tv/RnG_Hazed]

SOLUTION!

Modern web browsers use GPU acceleration to get their videos to run smoothly. Discord does too. The way Windows is set up restricts frame rates to the lower one that the GPU is using. So if you were playing a game on one monitor and using any GPU acceleration on the other, your game would be played at the same refresh rate the GPU accelerated software is. You can fix this by disabling GPU acceleration on all of your apps running.