Question Please help me to diagnose my decreased performance over time/sudden extreme lag

[sufficientlysubdued]

First the problem. I have had more than my fair share of problems with Fallout 4, modding it has obviously caused a series of performance issues. But every time I've f'd it up, I've managed to figure out the problem and fix it. Quite recently the performance issues have seemed to get worse, namely lag and occasional freezes. I initially thought this had to be mod nonsense, but now I'm not sure. I've been playing Dying Light on the side with zero issues aside from the occasional mini-freeze/lag. But now it also seems to have very bad lag. The lag is most prevalent the more action is going on, so I suspect hardware.

Second, specs and benchmark. Irritating benchmark: https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/35926260
Irritating because I have a gaming laptop (Acer Nitro AN515-43) with two GPU's. Despite setting it in windows power settings, it won't test my discrete GPU (Radeon RX 560X), only the onboard GPU. When running the test it says: WARN: skipping Radeon RX 560X Series - unable to locate attached display.

Third, what I've already tried. Changing the settings, it seems to make= no difference to either game. Every mod fix you can think of, but happy to hear them again. Buying a cooling pad in case the decrease is due to throttling. Updating drivers and a virus scan.

Last considerations. Fo4 is installed on my SSD, and DL on my HDD. It's possible there are separate issues affecting both of them. But I'm sure it's not a coincidence that they both started to have the same problem at the same time. However, F04's lag is much worse despite being on much lower settings and userbench says that my HDD is underperforming. F04 uses more RAM though.

I'm trying to use afterburner to monitor the performance in-game, but I have no idea what I'm looking for. GPU does spike to 100% often.

I'd really appreciate some help with figuring this problem out. What else can I do to diagnose and or try to fix the issue? Userbench says I would enable XMP for my Memory kit, should I? Could this be the problem? Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[TerryLaze]

Are you keeping the laptop plugged in?
There have been articles about how amd chips lose a lot of performance when they have to run on battery.

 

[Third-Eye]

First the problem. I have had more than my fair share of problems with Fallout 4, modding it has obviously caused a series of performance issues. But every time I've f'd it up, I've managed to figure out the problem and fix it. Quite recently the performance issues have seemed to get worse, namely lag and occasional freezes. I initially thought this had to be mod nonsense, but now I'm not sure. I've been playing Dying Light on the side with zero issues aside from the occasional mini-freeze/lag. But now it also seems to have very bad lag. The lag is most prevalent the more action is going on, so I suspect hardware.

Second, specs and benchmark. Irritating benchmark: https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/35926260
Irritating because I have a gaming laptop (Acer Nitro AN515-43) with two GPU's. Despite setting it in windows power settings, it won't test my discrete GPU (Radeon RX 560X), only the onboard GPU. When running the test it says: WARN: skipping Radeon RX 560X Series - unable to locate attached display.

Third, what I've already tried. Changing the settings, it seems to make= no difference to either game. Every mod fix you can think of, but happy to hear them again. Buying a cooling pad in case the decrease is due to throttling. Updating drivers and a virus scan.

Last considerations. Fo4 is installed on my SSD, and DL on my HDD. It's possible there are separate issues affecting both of them. But I'm sure it's not a coincidence that they both started to have the same problem at the same time. However, F04's lag is much worse despite being on much lower settings and userbench says that my HDD is underperforming. F04 uses more RAM though.

I'm trying to use afterburner to monitor the performance in-game, but I have no idea what I'm looking for. GPU does spike to 100% often.

I'd really appreciate some help with figuring this problem out. What else can I do to diagnose and or try to fix the issue? Userbench says I would enable XMP for my Memory kit, should I? Could this be the problem? Any help would be much appreciated.

Your problem was solved in this ACER forum thread. https://community.acer.com/en/discu...ga-8-acer-nitro-5-laptop-with-ryzen-processor

Basically you just need to make sure you have your graphics set to high performance mode to use the RX 560X in the switchable graphics menu of the AMD Radeon software. I have no idea if you can set that per game or program, so you are not always in high performance mode using all your battery when not plugged in.

Your ram is spec'ed for 2666MT/s, but is currently running at 2400, because it seems the bios either does not allow you to increase the speed past the CPUs limit of 2400 or you just need to set it in the bios to run at 2666. You also have only a single 8GB module so your ram is running in slower single channel mode, which is part of the reason why games are slower when using the Vega iGPU of your CPU (which you currently are using in power save mode).

If you ever add another 8GB module to your laptop, you may want to consider swapping your 1TB Seagate HDD for a 1-2TB SATA SSD. The Samsung 860 Evo 1TB is still currently on sale for $100 (down from $150) during the blackfriday week/ cybermonday week sales. https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Inch-Internal-MZ-76E1T0B-AM/dp/B078DPCY3T/

 

[sufficientlysubdued]

Your problem was solved in this ACER forum thread. https://community.acer.com/en/discu...ga-8-acer-nitro-5-laptop-with-ryzen-processor

Basically you just need to make sure you have your graphics set to high performance mode to use the RX 560X in the switchable graphics menu of the AMD Radeon software. I have no idea if you can set that per game or program, so you are not always in high performance mode using all your battery when not plugged in.

Thank you. But I don't this is the problem, the game runs more smoothly than it would on the dedicated card alone. Also, its simply not possible to fo this on the latest version of Radeon software.

Your ram is spec'ed for 2666MT/s, but is currently running at 2400, because it seems the bios either does not allow you to increase the speed past the CPUs limit of 2400 or you just need to set it in the bios to run at 2666. You also have only a single 8GB module so your ram is running in slower single channel mode, which is part of the reason why games are slower when using the Vega iGPU of your CPU (which you currently are using in power save mode).

If you ever add another 8GB module to your laptop, you may want to consider swapping your 1TB Seagate HDD for a 1-2TB SATA SSD. The Samsung 860 Evo 1TB is still currently on sale for $100 (down from $150) during the blackfriday week/ cybermonday week sales. https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Inch-Internal-MZ-76E1T0B-AM/dp/B078DPCY3T/

Thank you for the advice. I'm really hoping not to spend any more cash on the laptop until I figure out why its not performing as well as it was in the first place. But will definitely look into for the future.