Hi! So when Battlefield:2042 had a free weekend, my buddy and I decided to give it a shot. My computer has been able to run just about everything I throw at it, so I expected this to be no different. But when I tried to play, I had constant very low frame rates (what felt like 0.5-1 FPS). I had nothing else running in the background other than what I usually do, being Discord, ICUE, and Steam(obviously). None of these programs have caused me any sort of frame drops or ruined my gaming session because my computer couldn't run them and the game.
After trying to power through that train wreck of an experience, we decided to move on and try to play Apex Legends, a game that I had been playing for quite a while on this laptop before without anything lower than 80 frames in most circumstances. Launching Apex took a little bit longer than usual, but I didn't think much of it. And then even in the lobby, where frame rates are very consistent and smooth, I was barely able to hit 60. Any time I tried to change to a different menu, it would freeze up and not send any frames for a good 1-2 seconds. And then trying to play—which again has been perfectly smooth up until this point—was nearly impossible. Frames down to the low 30's at best, if any at all. As we played it progressively smoothed out to a point I could actually play, but it was still much worse than before.
After that night, I needed some answers. I tried to just do a little bit of googling to try to fix it, but no luck. Either I was too specific to the point nobody else seemed to have this issue (and post about it) or I was too broad and didn't get a proper solution for this issue. The main things I found stated were:
For 1, I already stated that for 1, the apps running in the background have not had an affect on performance at any point before this, and realistically shouldn't suddenly be (using task manager proved this).
For 2, I was unsure. I downloaded BF from steam, which (at least I hope) is a reliable source to download games from—being one of if not the largest game distribution platform—so I had my doubts this was the case. But just to be safe, I ran Windows Defender scans on both of my drives—even the one I didn't download BF to—and got no threats. But to be safe, I found another antivirus software (TotalAV—because it was free and had five stars from TrustPilot) which also gave me no threats.
For 3, I checked GeForce Experience, and sure enough there was an update available (I did this before the antivirus checks) so I downloaded the new drivers. This helped a little bit, but not back to where it was before. I was now able to play sometimes, but it was still choppy. And I didn't want to use a DDU because I don't really know what I'm doing.
I also thought that it could be a potential overheating issue. So I booted up Apex and had task manager running, and it showed my GPU dipping to 0% usage in direct correlation with the frame drops, and that it was also maintaining at most around 64°C, which didn't seem out of the ordinary to me. The outputs from the fans also weren't ever getting any hotter than they typically did when running a GPU intensive task—like Doom Eternal, for example. This dismissed that idea for me.
So this is my issue and what I've done to try to fix it. I couldn't find a solution that actually worked, so I'm asking some other people that might know what to do.
I'm sorry is this is a lot, and if anything needs more explanation I will gladly do so upon request. Thanks ahead of time for the support!
After trying to power through that train wreck of an experience, we decided to move on and try to play Apex Legends, a game that I had been playing for quite a while on this laptop before without anything lower than 80 frames in most circumstances. Launching Apex took a little bit longer than usual, but I didn't think much of it. And then even in the lobby, where frame rates are very consistent and smooth, I was barely able to hit 60. Any time I tried to change to a different menu, it would freeze up and not send any frames for a good 1-2 seconds. And then trying to play—which again has been perfectly smooth up until this point—was nearly impossible. Frames down to the low 30's at best, if any at all. As we played it progressively smoothed out to a point I could actually play, but it was still much worse than before.
After that night, I needed some answers. I tried to just do a little bit of googling to try to fix it, but no luck. Either I was too specific to the point nobody else seemed to have this issue (and post about it) or I was too broad and didn't get a proper solution for this issue. The main things I found stated were:
- Apps running in the background can mess with performance.
- You have malware...maybe.
- Your video drivers are outdated/corrupted.
For 1, I already stated that for 1, the apps running in the background have not had an affect on performance at any point before this, and realistically shouldn't suddenly be (using task manager proved this).
For 2, I was unsure. I downloaded BF from steam, which (at least I hope) is a reliable source to download games from—being one of if not the largest game distribution platform—so I had my doubts this was the case. But just to be safe, I ran Windows Defender scans on both of my drives—even the one I didn't download BF to—and got no threats. But to be safe, I found another antivirus software (TotalAV—because it was free and had five stars from TrustPilot) which also gave me no threats.
For 3, I checked GeForce Experience, and sure enough there was an update available (I did this before the antivirus checks) so I downloaded the new drivers. This helped a little bit, but not back to where it was before. I was now able to play sometimes, but it was still choppy. And I didn't want to use a DDU because I don't really know what I'm doing.
I also thought that it could be a potential overheating issue. So I booted up Apex and had task manager running, and it showed my GPU dipping to 0% usage in direct correlation with the frame drops, and that it was also maintaining at most around 64°C, which didn't seem out of the ordinary to me. The outputs from the fans also weren't ever getting any hotter than they typically did when running a GPU intensive task—like Doom Eternal, for example. This dismissed that idea for me.
So this is my issue and what I've done to try to fix it. I couldn't find a solution that actually worked, so I'm asking some other people that might know what to do.
I'm sorry is this is a lot, and if anything needs more explanation I will gladly do so upon request. Thanks ahead of time for the support!
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