I've had my same Windows install for a while, over a bunch of computer upgrades. I knew there might be driver issues or something, but didn't notice anything specific and so I never bothered to reinstall. I never upgraded to Windows 10, because I heard bad things about the privacy and file paths and figured I could just wait for Windows 11, which was, conveniently, released recently. For a long time, I had basically nothing game-breaking happen, but in recent months, my computer started to crash at random. Usually it was more common if I left my computer on for a long time or was doing something CPU-intensive, but sometimes it would just crash at random.
That, plus the amount of games and software being released that no longer work on Windows 7 and 8, made me think it was time to upgrade. And while the crashing was fixed, and all my newest games run great, my computer would have drastic input lag instead. Just like the crashes, now when my PC is on for too long or doing anything too CPU-intensive, my PC will, regularly, hang for 1-2 seconds, emit a small beep, and then resume standard function. This will repeat constantly, every minute, or sometimes as little as 10 seconds between hangs. Resetting my computer helps, but on top of it not being a practical solution it doesn't help when I'm playing a game that instantly puts my PC in "hang mode" (for lack of a better term) every time I load it up.
So I figured the current install was a lost cause. Years worth of software and something finally broke. I put in a new SSD and put in a clean install of Windows 11. I copied over whatever files I could from my old drive and got to reinstalling all my software. It worked great...except now the same modern games that wouldn't run on Windows 7/8 (not exclusively, some games that wouldn't run on Windows 7/8 are fine and some games that would run on Windows 7/8 don't work, but generally the same sort of modern, big-budget, games) won't run on my clean install of Windows 11. I thought I made a mistake with the driver install, or screwed something up by copying the files over, but even when I formatted my drive and performed another clean install, I had the same problem. And it's a different error for each game. Some games won't load up at all, some games crash as soon as they load up, some games hang on the first frame. I've tried it with a bunch of games, using different engines, and I've made sure to reinstall them in case it didn't recognize my new computer or something. Nothing works. There are no clues as to what could be going wrong.
So I have 2 core drives right now, with Windows 11 installed, that mostly work great. Each drive has a different problem, the first one will have horrible input lag while the other one just flat-out won't run modern software. I have no clues as to what either of the problems could be caused by, but resolving either of the problems will mean I don't have to worry about the other. My specs are:
OS: Windows 11 Pro x64 Version 21H2 (OS Build 22000.739/22000.708, for First/Second drives)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 2700X Eight-Core Processor 3.70 GHz
RAM: 24.0GB Dual-Channel Unknown @ 1066MHz (15-15-15-36)
Motherboard: Micro-Star International Co. Ltd. B350 TOMAHAWK (MS-7A34) (AM4)
Graphics: 8176MB ATI Radeon RX Vega (ASUStek Computer Inc)
PSU: EVGA Supernova 850 G2
EDIT: I managed to solve the problem for my more recent install. Apparently, all the modern games I was trying had the same dependency on Windows Media Foundation, an optional add-on I must have disabled when doing a fresh install. I never used any default video players, so I thought I wouldn't need WMF. But, for some unexplained reason, a lot of modern games require an installed Media Foundation in order to run their logo cutscenes.
Still have no idea what went wrong with my old install, it could be any number of things. It doesn't matter, it's easy to copy over all my preferences.
That, plus the amount of games and software being released that no longer work on Windows 7 and 8, made me think it was time to upgrade. And while the crashing was fixed, and all my newest games run great, my computer would have drastic input lag instead. Just like the crashes, now when my PC is on for too long or doing anything too CPU-intensive, my PC will, regularly, hang for 1-2 seconds, emit a small beep, and then resume standard function. This will repeat constantly, every minute, or sometimes as little as 10 seconds between hangs. Resetting my computer helps, but on top of it not being a practical solution it doesn't help when I'm playing a game that instantly puts my PC in "hang mode" (for lack of a better term) every time I load it up.
So I figured the current install was a lost cause. Years worth of software and something finally broke. I put in a new SSD and put in a clean install of Windows 11. I copied over whatever files I could from my old drive and got to reinstalling all my software. It worked great...except now the same modern games that wouldn't run on Windows 7/8 (not exclusively, some games that wouldn't run on Windows 7/8 are fine and some games that would run on Windows 7/8 don't work, but generally the same sort of modern, big-budget, games) won't run on my clean install of Windows 11. I thought I made a mistake with the driver install, or screwed something up by copying the files over, but even when I formatted my drive and performed another clean install, I had the same problem. And it's a different error for each game. Some games won't load up at all, some games crash as soon as they load up, some games hang on the first frame. I've tried it with a bunch of games, using different engines, and I've made sure to reinstall them in case it didn't recognize my new computer or something. Nothing works. There are no clues as to what could be going wrong.
So I have 2 core drives right now, with Windows 11 installed, that mostly work great. Each drive has a different problem, the first one will have horrible input lag while the other one just flat-out won't run modern software. I have no clues as to what either of the problems could be caused by, but resolving either of the problems will mean I don't have to worry about the other. My specs are:
OS: Windows 11 Pro x64 Version 21H2 (OS Build 22000.739/22000.708, for First/Second drives)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 2700X Eight-Core Processor 3.70 GHz
RAM: 24.0GB Dual-Channel Unknown @ 1066MHz (15-15-15-36)
Motherboard: Micro-Star International Co. Ltd. B350 TOMAHAWK (MS-7A34) (AM4)
Graphics: 8176MB ATI Radeon RX Vega (ASUStek Computer Inc)
PSU: EVGA Supernova 850 G2
EDIT: I managed to solve the problem for my more recent install. Apparently, all the modern games I was trying had the same dependency on Windows Media Foundation, an optional add-on I must have disabled when doing a fresh install. I never used any default video players, so I thought I wouldn't need WMF. But, for some unexplained reason, a lot of modern games require an installed Media Foundation in order to run their logo cutscenes.
Still have no idea what went wrong with my old install, it could be any number of things. It doesn't matter, it's easy to copy over all my preferences.
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