Is your expensive gaming computer having frame dips or just generally underperforming? Try these tips first!

[twitchytanner]

Hello! It seems like I was experiencing the same issues a lot of people on these internet forums were experiencing. Over the past two weeks I've scoured the forums of LTT and Tom's Hardware for tips and tricks of how to get rig of pesky lag spikes, frame dips, or just overall underperformance of my expensive PC. Granted these are in no way a guarantee to fix your issue but it's a good place to start and I feel like it would be nice to have a list of things to try that might fix your particular issue instead of searching far and wide like I did. If you have any tips or trick please comment below and I will add it to my list (and credit you of course). 

 

Before I start, I want to say I am by no means an expert in this field and have only been working in IT for a little over 2 years. If anyone would like to correct me I encourage you to do so, I am always willing to learn and be challenged on my knowledge, thank you!

 

I will start with what I think solved my particular issue: 

1. Disabling NVIDIA Overlay in games. I should have known something was off with it before; it would make my mouse extremely lagging after games when it would pop up with my replays and make it almost impossible to close. I might try to do a fresh install of GeForce Experience and see if that fixes that issue, but for now it works a lot better and doesn't seem to have large spike of FPS drops in game as much. 
2. BIOS Update. This is one people commonly suggest. This was a problem many years ago I had when I was much less technologically inclined than I am today. I had never updated my BIOS after I built my system for a whole year after I made it. I had never owned a gaming computer before so I just thought random frame drops in Rocket League were normal. Along with several other issues I had, I felt pretty dumb after I fixed it. Regardless, I was happier with my setup. 
3. Chipset drivers. I had never updated my chipset drivers either. My AMD 2700x seemed like it was slightly underperforming out of box and wasn't sure why. I did a User Benchmark before and after and the results were slightly better. I am not sure if this had anything to do with remedying my stuttering or not since this was done alongside me disabling NVIDIA overlay. 
4. Graphics card drivers. This might seem like an obvious one to a lot of you guys but as a noobie trying to troubleshoot back in the day, I knew very little and this definitely was forgotten a few times until I wondered to myself why my games were sucking more than usual. 
5. Windows OS corrupt files. I have seen a few instances of corrupt operating system files causing performance decreases in games, or even just general weird bugs in windows. A few of my games would randomly crash and one of my friends suggested checking my system files. You can run a command through command prompt called sfc /scannow. This has pulled corrupt windows files on a few occasions for me and has fixed them. You will have to run command prompt by searching for it in windows search bar, right click on it and hit run as administrator, type the command above and it should take about 5 minutes or so. Alternatively, you can go to your file explorer and check all your drives independently. Go to "This PC," right click on the drive you want, click on the tools tab, then click the "Check" option under "Error Checking." Any drive that does not contain the OS Windows will tell you that it doesn't need to check it but it honestly doesn't hurt.
6. Windows "Game Mode"  This might be a big one. I might be wrong, but I think this is set to on by default. According to Techspot, this is a pretty substantial one and could be your golden ticket to better FPS... who knows? Try disabling by searching for Game Mode in Windows search bar.
7. HAGS or Hardware accelerated GPU Scheduling This setting can also be found on the same page as "Game Mode." This setting may or may not help but it seems to be on a case by case basis. It's a newer feature in the NVIDIA driver update. From what I have read online It may help gaming performance in CPU bound situations.
8. Windows 10 Power Plan This one might be less about fixing stuttering and more about getting better performance. Under "Power Options" you can change your systems power options. Go to your systems "Power and Sleep" settings and on the right side click "Additional power settings." Choose "Ultimate Performance." (would not recommend if on a gaming laptop)
9. Disabling Dynamic Tick A number of user's have been helped by this one and it seems generally safe bet to help with stuttering frame rates. Right-click the Start menu and select Command Prompt (Admin). First, enter bcdedit /set disabledynamictick yes and press Enter. Then input bcdedit /set useplatformclock true in the Command Prompt, and press the Enter key. Thereafter, enter bcdedit /set tscsyncpolicy Enhanced in the Prompt and press Enter. Close the Command Prompt window and restart the system.
10.  

[WhitetailAni]

One change I would make to this post:

Clarify that it is an expensive modern rig.

I have an expensive gaming rig that runs Windows 98. It's worth about ~$2000 USD parted out.

And I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think that this would help.

Just saying

[Mark Kaine]

On 11/18/2020 at 12:38 AM, twitchytanner said:

Disabling NVIDIA Overlay in games.

I have no issues with GFE overlay, I even have additionally the precision x1 overlay running... 

Steam overlay however... Always turn it off as it tends to make issues. 

 

On 11/18/2020 at 12:38 AM, twitchytanner said:

BIOS Update. 

Right, sure, however sometimes, if your hw is 1-2 years old there might not be any new ones available (I'm pretty sure they stopped doing them for my mobo some time ago) 

 

On 11/18/2020 at 12:38 AM, twitchytanner said:

Chipset drivers

Same thing. 

 

 

On 11/18/2020 at 12:38 AM, twitchytanner said:

Graphics card drivers. 

Delicate subject, for me, newest drivers will generally perform worse, currently on driver from January, anything newer makes my games lag, I don't like that! 

 

On 11/18/2020 at 12:38 AM, twitchytanner said:

Windows OS corrupt files.

Yeah... It might help. 

 

On 11/18/2020 at 12:38 AM, twitchytanner said:

Windows "Game Mode"

Always turn this off, it's horrible and makes games laggy af, even when I had a low tier Ryzen 2200G with no dGPU *shudders*

 

On 11/18/2020 at 12:38 AM, twitchytanner said:

HAGS or Hardware accelerated GPU Scheduling 

Seems weird why this is even a thing, but I cannot comment further on it, never used it. 

 

On 11/18/2020 at 12:38 AM, twitchytanner said:

Windows 10 Power Plan 

Also a major one and a weird one, tried *all* available power plans, benchmarked with several benchmarks and games (superposition, timespy, firestrike, ROTTR, MHW, Tekken 7, Final Fantasy benchmark...) 

 

"Windows balanced" in all cases gave me best performance and least issues.

 

 

On 11/18/2020 at 12:38 AM, twitchytanner said:

Disabling Dynamic Tick

Cannot really comment on it, seems weird, similar to "disable full screen optimization" which also never improved anything for me. 

 

 

Know what fixed my issues? 

 

... 

 

 

Remove Seagate Barracuda drive, replace with Toshiba x300

 

Fix, aka "power cycle" Kingston A400 (twice, as recommended) 

 

Remove all windows update features and services. (this one was tricky, but I did it!) 

 

 

But, what did absolutely the most to improve my gaming experience and reduce "stutters" and dips was 

 

Intelligent 

Standby 

List 

Cleaner 

 

(in no particular order I did the ISLC first however) 

 

 

Note: im not saying these things you said are wrong, but I do believe it really depends on many factors, for me most of these suggestions have been detrimental, and I do believe the ISLC and similar programs have helped many people to get their rigs running more smoothly, as the "windows 10 memory bug" seems rather widespread (not many understand it however and often dismiss the fix therefore right away)