[SOLVED] Low FPS/Stuttering when playing games on TV via HDMI

[YoungStarDC]

Hey everyone,

I'm experiencing a strange issue. I have a MSI GS75 running a 2080 Max-Q, and I tried gaming on my TV for the first time today. However, even very simple games like Overcooked 2 will hover between 20~50 FPS and rarely ever hit 60 or higher. I've also tried A Way Out (co-op game) and while it shows over 100 fps at times, it's still stuttering and also frequently drops as low as 15 fps. My GPU usage hovers between 10~50% and won't go higher, which I suspect is the cause of this issue. Correct me if I'm wrong though!

When gaming directly on my laptop, I can play any game I've tried, including high end games, maxed out with high framerates across the board. It just performs fantastically.

The TV is 4K but the games are set on 1920x1080. It's a Philips 43PUS6501. https://www.displayspecifications.com/en/model/d33610c8 > This seems to be the panel used in the TV, though I might be wrong.

I've already tried:

• Updating to the latest nVidia Drivers
• Switching vSync on/off (don't know if it's related to something like this, but I figured I'd try)
• Using the eGPU as the preffered graphics card in the nVidia Control Panel
• Trying different HDMI cables
• Switched TV to Game Mode
• Switching between duplicate screen, extending screen and second screen only modes in Windows
• Checking temps, they average between 75-80 degrees when gaming on the CPU and a max of 73 while gaming, which is excellent for a laptop

Unfortunately I don't have another TV or monitor to try.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your time!

 

[Phaaze88]

My guess is that it's a combination of:
-The 2080 Max-Q's power limits, which depending on the model is either 80w or 90w. The Mobile 2080(not Max-Q) has a power limit of 150w.
-That card simply isn't capable of running @ 4k. The 2080 Max-Q is on par with the GTX 1070, and that card performed poorly @ 4k as well.

 

[YoungStarDC]

My guess is that it's a combination of:
-The 2080 Max-Q's power limits, which depending on the model is either 80w or 90w. The Mobile 2080(not Max-Q) has a power limit of 150w.
-That card simply isn't capable of running @ 4k. The 2080 Max-Q is on par with the GTX 1070, and that card performed poorly @ 4k as well.

It's indeed a 90w version. But if the game is set to 1920x1080, does it still run in 4k?

 

[Phaaze88]

The screen should be surrounded by HUGE black boxes if this is the case.
If not, then I think you need to adjust the resolution scaling in windows, or Nvidia Optimus - whichever of the 2 is the dominant program.

 

[YoungStarDC]

The screen should be surrounded by HUGE black boxes if this is the case.
If not, then I think you need to adjust the resolution scaling in windows, or Nvidia Optimus - whichever of the 2 is the dominant program.

Then it's indeed 4K, it seems. However, if that's the case, why is the GPU usage so low? It doesn't go anywhere near 100% utilization.

 

[Phaaze88]

If it's not overheating, then it's because you're hitting the card's power limits, which were set by the manufacturer.

 

[YoungStarDC]

If it's not overheating, then it's because you're hitting the card's power limits, which were set by the manufacturer.

Can I monitor if it's hitting the power limit using afterburner? I've also undervolted, could that impact it?

The undervolt is super stable on my laptop, but I've never connected it to a 4K TV to game.

One last thing I noticed after playing with some settings (can't remember which cause I was messing around a lot), is that if I duplicate the display, it locks to 59 fps on the TV , but still drops semi frequently. If I switch to only on the TV, it drops immediately.

 

[Phaaze88]

Can I monitor if it's hitting the power limit using afterburner?

Both Msi Afterburner and Gpu-Z can monitor power consumption.

I've also undervolted, could that impact it?

Depends on how big the undervolt is.

One last thing I noticed after playing with some settings (can't remember which cause I was messing around a lot), is that if I duplicate the display, it locks to 59 fps on the TV , but still drops semi frequently. If I switch to only on the TV, it drops immediately.

That's Windows doing something funny, I don't understand it myself.
If I go to Display > Advanced Display Settings, Windows will show my monitor has having 143hz. Manually selecting 144hz and hitting Apply doesn't do anything. Doesn't really matter, I guess. NVCP shows the correct number though.

With the exception of still images, browsing, movies/Youtube - the light duty stuff, the card can't smoothly run @ 4k - although they'll advertise it as 4k capable. It's nowhere near the performance of an RTX 2080(desktop).

What kind of cable do you have connected to the TV?
DP 1.2, 1.4? HDMI 1.4, 2.0?

 

[YoungStarDC]

Both Msi Afterburner and Gpu-Z can monitor power consumption.


Depends on how big the undervolt is.


That's Windows doing something funny, I don't understand it myself.
If I go to Display > Advanced Display Settings, Windows will show my monitor has having 143hz. Manually selecting 144hz and hitting Apply doesn't do anything. Doesn't really matter, I guess. NVCP shows the correct number though.

With the exception of still images, browsing, movies/Youtube - the light duty stuff, the card can't smoothly run @ 4k - although they'll advertise it as 4k capable. It's nowhere near the performance of an RTX 2080(desktop).

What kind of cable do you have connected to the TV?
DP 1.2, 1.4? HDMI 1.4, 2.0?

Alright, I'll monitor it and report back when I get the chance. May take a while due to a vacation though!

The undervolt is - 0.125v. I'm using Throttlestop and a scheduled task to apply it at start up/login.

It's connected through an HDMI cable, I assume 1.4.

 

[YoungStarDC]

Both Msi Afterburner and Gpu-Z can monitor power consumption.


Depends on how big the undervolt is.


That's Windows doing something funny, I don't understand it myself.
If I go to Display > Advanced Display Settings, Windows will show my monitor has having 143hz. Manually selecting 144hz and hitting Apply doesn't do anything. Doesn't really matter, I guess. NVCP shows the correct number though.

With the exception of still images, browsing, movies/Youtube - the light duty stuff, the card can't smoothly run @ 4k - although they'll advertise it as 4k capable. It's nowhere near the performance of an RTX 2080(desktop).

What kind of cable do you have connected to the TV?
DP 1.2, 1.4? HDMI 1.4, 2.0?

Alright, so I'm having a more severe issue now. My laptop has been running games flawlessly, but after playing on the TV, something is wrong.

For example, in the Forza Horizion 4 benchmark, I got a average of 128fps with everything on ultra. Now, I get locled 72fps. It looks like it's capped there, because the FPS average looks just fine. I didn't change any settings, either.

I've already used DDU to rollback to the initial driver that ran great, but to no avail. What should I check/do? I'm getting a bit desperate..

I ran Fire Strike and the results there seems fine, but in games, it's not.

 

[Phaaze88]

In the first image:
It's because the benchmark preset has Vertical Synchronization(V-Sync) on as default.
Right there below Setting Preset Ultra.

 

[YoungStarDC]

In the first image:
It's because the benchmark preset has Vertical Synchronization(V-Sync) on as default.
Right there below Setting Preset Ultra.

Alright, so turning off V-Sync does not fix the problem. I think it's related to GPU utilization when gaming. During Fire Strike, it's being pretty much completely utilized. However, when playing games, it only utilizes around 50~60%. This is with V-Sync turned off. The games I tested so far:

• Spyro Reignited Trilogy
• Batman Arkham Origins
• Dark Souls 3
• Forza Horizon 4

All these games used to run flawlessly. Now, the frame rate fluctuates heavily and GPU usage doesn't come close to 100%, except for in Forza sometimes. Do you have any idea what might have changed, or is there something I can run to help you diagnose the issue?

I've already tried removing the undervolt, but that yields the same results. Wouldn't expect that to be the issue because it's been stable for months.

I also ran a AIDA64 stress test, and the CPU runs just fine:

 

[Phaaze88]

Sounds like a driver issue. You got the drivers from Msi, right?
Where are your gpu results from those tests? You only posted 3 images of HWINFO and AIDA64 for the cpu.

Windows Game Bar and Game Mode are off?

 

[YoungStarDC]

Sounds like a driver issue. You got the drivers from Msi, right?
Where are your gpu results from those tests? You only posted 3 images of HWINFO and AIDA64 for the cpu.

Windows Game Bar and Game Mode are off?

Alright, so this is a screenshot after using AIDA64 to test the GPU:

And this is one after playing The Witcher 3, Ultra with Hairworks off for about 20 minutes:

It was no surprise that AIDA64 tested fine, since Fire Strike did well too. I am surprised about The Witcher 3 though. It seems like all problems magically disappeared in that game. Ran flawlessly at well over 100+ fps average. All on Ultra, Hairworks off.

Game Mode and Windows Game Bar both disabled, as well as a lot of other bloatware (but that's been the case for months).

As for the driver, I am currently using the last driver that worked properly for me, which is 431.60. If I recall correctly, I pulled it straight of of nVidia's website. MSI lists 431.70: https://www.msi.com//Laptop/support/GS75-STEALTH-9SG#down-driver.

Since Batman: Arkham Origins uses PhysX, I was wondering if I should let it utilize my CPU or GPU? It's set to auto by default in the nVidia Control Panel.

 

[Phaaze88]

PhysX: the gpu is easily capable of handling that itself, but there's nothing wrong with experimenting and seeing what happens.

Was the 431.70 driver not playing nice, and then you went to 431.60?


If you're really using an HDMI 1.4: it does not provide enough bandwidth to run 4k 60, instead it does 4k 24hz.

 

[YoungStarDC]

PhysX: the gpu is easily capable of handling that itself, but there's nothing wrong with experimenting and seeing what happens.

Was the 431.70 driver not playing nice, and then you went to 431.60?


If you're really using an HDMI 1.4: it does not provide enough bandwidth to run 4k 60, instead it does 4k 24hz.

That would explain the HDMI issue. I'll confirm that when I'm back from vacation.

As for the driver: I have not tried that specific driver. I was on 431.60 before I updated to 436.60 to see if it would resolve the issues I had playing on the TV, which it didn't. When I then also experienced the issues while playing games on the laptop (as we're currently discussing) I rolled back to 431.60 using DDU because that was stable for me before.