Question Longer loading times in games on Windows 11 ?

[kamild_]

I switched to Windows 11 a few weeks ago (clean installation).
First games I tried are TF2, CS:GO and modded Minecraft. In all of them, I see increased loading times (booting up, loading a map/world etc.) compared to Windows 10. CS:GO seems like the worst offender, with some loading times doubled if not tripled.
I made sure Core Isolation is disabled, as well as GameDVR. I see no excessive CPU or disk usage in Task Manager, overall I still have less apps running in the background compared to my previous Windows 10 installation.

PC specs:
Ryzen 7 3700X,
32GB RAM DDR4-3733,
GTX 1070,
ADATA SX8200 Pro 2TB SSD

What else could I check to find the cause of this problem?

 

[Colif]

Ryzen 7 3700X, 32GB RAM DDR4-3733, GTX 1070, ADATA SX8200 Pro 2TB

what motherboard?
Do you have newest chipset drivers?

 

[kamild_]

what motherboard?
Do you have newest chipset drivers?

ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming 4. Latest chipset drivers from AMD's site.

 

[Colif]

well, i don't see any driver software for the nvme so its not that. there is a firmware update, it might help.
https://www.xpg.com/us/xpg/583?tab=downloads

have you got the Asrock App shop? I think its meant to update drivers as well, I would run it if you haven't.
https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/X570 phantom Gaming 4/index.asp#Download

newest non beta bios? strange they didn't make a Win 11 BIOS update like most other makers have. All they did was turn on ftpm and secure boot anyway.

I have similar PC
Aorus X570, R5 3600XT, 32gb ram, RTX 2070 S, Samsung 970 Evo plus 1tb

but i haven't clean installed win 11 yet, it feels the same as 10 was. So much so I stopped looking for differences months ago.

 

[kamild_]

Thanks a lot for the suggestions.
Looks like my SSD's firmware is already up to date, and the APP Shop didn't find any drivers to update other than Intel LAN.
I'm using the latest BIOS (4.20). And yeah, I've seen most other modern motherboards getting updates for Windows 11 specifically, shame this one didn't. I already enabled Secure Boot and fTPM myself.

 

[Colif]

You could try running this and see if drive is okay
https://m.majorgeeks.com/files/details/adata_ssd_toolbox.html

so its only games that are playing up? Everything else is fine?

 

[kamild_]

You could try running this and see if drive is okay
https://m.majorgeeks.com/files/details/adata_ssd_toolbox.html

The drive seems to be in good health. Quick and full diagnostic scan returned nothing (although I'm not sure the full scan works, it's supposed to take hours but it finished in like 10 seconds for me). SMART data below.

so its only games that are playing up? Everything else is fine?

Yeah, I'm not seeing any other issues. Any other performance metrics seem fine if not better than on W10.

 

[Colif]

I don't know if this has been fixed but it appears to mainly be for write speeds, not read speed - https://www.xda-developers.com/windows-11-ssd-performance-downgrade/

Is win 11 fully updated? was meant to be fixed in an update in December.

 

[kamild_]

I don't know if this has been fixed but it appears to mainly be for write speeds, not read speed - https://www.xda-developers.com/windows-11-ssd-performance-downgrade/

Is win 11 fully updated? was meant to be fixed in an update in December.

I've heard about this problem. My OS is fully updated right now.

 

[Colif]

try a clean boot, it might be a start up program getting in the way

Try a clean boot and see if it changes anything - make sure to read instructions and make sure NOT to disable any microsoft services or windows won't load right - https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/929135/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows
it doesn't delete anything, just stops them running at startup

if clean boot fixes it, it shows its likely a startup program. You should, over a number of startups. restart the programs you stopped to isolate the one that is to blame.

i ran a benchmark scan on my NVME and its speeds were up on recent months, prior to that I had stopped running it as it had dropped in July last year by 70k random writes and I didn't want to know, its still not as good as its best but its closer than recently.

 

[kamild_]

try a clean boot, it might be a start up program getting in the way

Unfortunately not. With a clean boot, all non-MS services disabled, no startup items in Task Manager, I see only a small improvement in loading times - but still nowhere close to Windows 10 levels.

As for SSD performance, I honestly never really measured it. But even if it did degrade over time, I would be surprised if it suddenly decided to cut read performance so hard I'd feel it in game loading times.

 

[Colif]

Can you download and run Driverview - http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/driverview.html
All it does is looks at drivers installed; it won't install any (this is intentional as 3rd party driver updaters often get it wrong)
When you run it, go into view tab and set it to hide all Microsoft drivers, will make list shorter.

Can you take a screenshot from (and including)Driver name to (and including)Creation date.
upload it to an image sharing website and show link here

Just curious if I can see anything that might give me a clue.
I would get you to check safe mode but games don't run well without drivers.

shame the values in the adata picture are in hex, I wonder if you can change that in options. But then its tests seem to indicate drive is okay.
Problem with nvme is you can never really tell.

most of the fixes for speeding up games on win 11 don't apply to your PC (get an ssd, get more ram)

people reporting CSGO slow to load on win 11 - link
MInecraft - link
I don't find anything for TF2

 

[kamild_]

Can you download and run Driverview - http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/driverview.html
All it does is looks at drivers installed; it won't install any (this is intentional as 3rd party driver updaters often get it wrong)
When you run it, go into view tab and set it to hide all Microsoft drivers, will make list shorter.

Can you take a screenshot from (and including)Driver name to (and including)Creation date.
upload it to an image sharing website and show link here

Just curious if I can see anything that might give me a clue.
I would get you to check safe mode but games don't run well without drivers.

shame the values in the adata picture are in hex, I wonder if you can change that in options. But then its tests seem to indicate drive is okay.
Problem with nvme is you can never really tell.

most of the fixes for speeding up games on win 11 don't apply to your PC (get an ssd, get more ram)

people reporting CSGO slow to load on win 11 - link
MInecraft - link
I don't find anything for TF2

Screenshot from DriverView:

https://imgur.com/x4nmjPF

View: https://i.imgur.com/x4nmjPF.png


I think I've seen this thread about slow loading in CS:GO when I was researching this problem on my own, but not the Minecraft one. Yep, no one seems to have a clue as to what could be causing this...

 

[Colif]

try running this and see if newer Intel lan drivers - https://www.intel.com.au/content/www/au/en/support/intel-driver-support-assistant.html
if they internet games, it could be lan drivers

your bluetooth is rather old but i doubt its involved
strange seeing drivers from 2022. keep forgetting what year it is.

 

[kamild_]

try running this and see if newer Intel lan drivers - https://www.intel.com.au/content/www/au/en/support/intel-driver-support-assistant.html
if they internet games, it could be lan drivers

your bluetooth is rather old but i doubt its involved
strange seeing drivers from 2022. keep forgetting what year it is.

Just updated my LAN drivers and also updated the Bluetooth driver from Windows Update since it showed up as an optional update, but it isn't much newer (2015). No dice 🙁

 

[Colif]

I am running out of ideas here. Its 4.30am, I might have a new idea after I wake up tomorrow.

 

[kamild_]

No worries, so far you have been the only person to actually attempt to help me out with this conundrum, and I've asked in lots of places. Huge thanks regardless

 

[Colif]

You don't have another drive you could run games off and see if it makes any difference?

Are they all steam games?

Are you using game mode? https://www.thewindowsclub.com/windows-11-gaming-settings

 

[kamild_]

You don't have another drive you could run games off and see if it makes any difference?

I have a mechanical hard drive. I moved CS:GO to the HDD for testing and measured startup times with a stopwatch in hand, that's when I noticed something interesting. It seems like on both the SSD and HDD the game takes exactly 20 seconds to launch, which seems suspicious. Outside of that, loading times for map changes is even slower on an HDD.
I'll also test TF2 in a minute.

Are they all steam games?

Well, there's Minecraft, but outside of that I don't have any other game to test with, which I played regularly enough to tell with full confidence they were loading at certain speeds.

Are you using game mode?

No. Toggling it on and off doesn't seem to make a difference.

 

[Colif]

that 20 seconds is not just you - https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...start-up/72e1661d-db8d-4cf9-87af-a4e1c97e0f26
another one

looks to me its the game somehow, I don't know why. But no point looking on your PC for an answer to that one.

Outside of that, loading times for map changes is even slower on an HDD.

that is normal really.

 

[kamild_]

that 20 seconds is not just you - https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...start-up/72e1661d-db8d-4cf9-87af-a4e1c97e0f26

Interesting. I'll leave a message there, will see what they suggest.

Also, not sure what happened, but my loading issues with TF2 and Minecraft seem to be gone now. The recent things I've done is update Intel LAN and Bluetooth drivers, and also grabbed a 2022-01 cumulative update. When I tested for any changes right after the reboot, I haven't noticed an immediate improvement for some reason, only now.

That leaves the CS:GO long bootup issue...

 

[Colif]

the cumulative update could have fixed the other 2 games.
changes may have occured after the restart. Updates just install the changes, its possible it had to replace some files after boot.

could be another update might fix CSGO. Its happening to enough you would think its either steam or MS that has to fix it.

 

[kamild_]

Nevermind, games other than CS:GO are still having loading issues. After one of the reboots it started happening again, and I don't recall changing anything about my system in the meantime.

 

[Colif]

right click start
choose windows Terminal (admin)
if it opens as command prompt, click the drop down arrow in title area and click powershell
type SFC /scannow and press enter

once its completed, copy/paste this command into same window:

Repair-WindowsImage -Online -RestoreHealth and press enter

SFC fixes system files, second command cleans image files, re run SFC if it failed to fix all files and restart PC

that just check windows,

could check in reliability history and see if you got any updates on the day it changed after the reboot

After one of the reboots...

are the reboots planned?

 

[kamild_]

The sfc command informed me of find and fixing corrupted files, while Repair-WindowsImage haven't found any problems.

could check in reliability history and see if you got any updates on the day it changed after the reboot

Outside of Defender definitions, the last installed update was another culminative one (KB5008353). Uninstalling that didn't fix the problem, so I reinstalled it back.

are the reboots planned?

Yes, it's just me shutting down my PC for the night or rebooting due to updates or a newly installed program asking me to do so (I did try to delete that program after I noticed the issue happen again, but that didn't fix it).

EDIT: I have also tried a few more things, but of course, fruitless just like all else.

• Disabling fTPM
• Updating nVidia drivers to yesterday's release (511.65) but also using NVCleanInstall to install them without any telemetry or other Experience garbage, also disabled HDCP and enabled MSI.
• Updating AMD chipset drivers to newest (just recently found out about this - apparently manufacturers' motherboard support pages have more recent drivers compared to what AMD publish on their own website, that includes ASRock and chipset drivers for my motherboard)

I have also noticed there's a beta BIOS update for my board which comes with AGESA 1.2.0.5, but I would like to attempt the update later instead of right now since it can take some time due to the risk of losing BIOS settings and potentially having to tweak my RAM OC so it remains stable (which yes, I have also suspected - running on base 2400 MHz settings with default timings also didn't solve the problem 😗).

EDIT #2: BIOS update didn't help 😔