High-End Gaming (GTX 1080 TI / i7-7700k) Rig Experiencing Seemingly Random Frame Rate Drops in Benign Game Situations

[jeremynixon1221]

Hi,

My specs are as follows:
EVGA GTX 1080 TI FTW3
i7-7700k (not overclocked currently)
Asus Prime z270-a
Samsung 850 pro 250gb SSD (For OS and select games)
External 4tb Seagate HDD
Windows 10 (64-bit)

Recently, I've been experiencing issues with my rig. Games (Borderlands 2 most specifically) have been, somewhat randomly, dropping frames on a relatively consistent basis. The game will be running fine, when all of a sudden the GPU usage drops to 2% or so, and the FPS basically comes to a halt at 0 FPS for a short time before both FPS and GPU usage return to a normal operating state, which for the FPS is around 150 FPS and the GPU usage around 46%. This eventually leads to the game outright crashing after so many occurrences, rendering it unplayable and mildly disconcerting. I've monitored the temps of the GPU and CPU, as well as load %, and neither seems to be out of the ordinary, aside from the previously mentioned issue with the GPU. I've tried multiple fixes to this, including uncapping frame rate, capping frame rate, turning on v-sync and messing with the settings, running various malware scans from multiple different programs, as well as searching online for someone having even a remotely similar issue and I've been unable to obtain an answer to this point. Any suggestions or possible solutions to this issue would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Dunlop0078]

This only happens in borderlands 2? If so I would look at the game as the cause of the issue. Physx effects are broken in that game from what I remember, it causes all kinds of issues, I would try disabling physx and see if that does anything.

If this happens in many different games then I am not sure whats causing it. I would like to see a graph showing CPU usage, cpu clocks, and cpu temps. As well as GPU usage, GPU clocks, GPU temps, and GPU power % when the frame drops occur. You can use something like msi afterburner or any other tool that will provide those graphs.

Is borderlands on the SSD? A very slow HDD can cause hitching in games, which might be exactly what you are describing.

 

[jeremynixon1221]

Thanks Dunlop, turning off PhyX has seemed to work. However, I still don't understand why this doesn't affect everyone. Seems like if it affects the highest end rigs, it would affect most people. It still lags when I near a save station however, I don't know how to fix that.

 

[Dunlop0078]

Thanks Dunlop, turning off PhyX has seemed to work. However, I still don't understand why this doesn't affect everyone. Seems like if it affects the highest end rigs, it would affect most people. It still lags when I near a save station however, I don't know how to fix that.

Open nvidia control panel, in the column on the left look for "configure surround physx". On the right under physx settings make sure your 1080 ti is set to be the processor not the CPU. If it was already set that way which it should be then I am not sure why it is performing poorly with physx enabled. If I remember correctly I used low physx with mostly max settings on my 1060 6gb and it ran okay, high would totally cripple performance.

If you have another decent GPU you can use it as a dedicated physx processor, that might allow you to use physx on high with a decent framerate. You would just select that GPU for physx in the same place I told you to go to make sure the GPU was selected.