fps dips New high-end PC - FPS drops in CS:GO

[Mikkle]

Recently completed my new high-end build and putting it through its paces on a few games. Seeing some unexpected behaviour in CS:GO, while other more demanding titles run perfectly (Forza Horizon 4 for instance). When not limited, frame rate in CS:GO levels off around 400-450 FPS, which is roughly what I would expect with my  hardware. However, occasionally seeing huge frame rate dips to 40-50 FPS, for 1/2 second or so. Happens about once every couple of minutes, but very unpredictable. Often happens when encountering other players but the correlation is not quite definitive enough to say that’s the cause...

 

I’ve tried all combinations of running with adaptive sync on/off, running at low settings, limiting FPS, and keeping an eye on system resources while playing. Sometimes the issue is much less frequent, but hard to tell if that’s actually related to anything I’m doing. Not seeing any weird resources behaviour... GPU doesn’t seem overly taxed and the CPU runs under load at 45-50degC (CPU package is more like 50-60). 

Build Specs:

CPU: Ryzen 5 5600x

CPU cooler: Corsair H80i V2

VGA: Gigabyte RX 6900XT - connected via PCIE 3.0 riser cable 

MOBO: Asus ROG STRIX B550-i gaming

RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB DDR4 3600Hz

SSD: WD SN850 2TB M.2

PSU: Cooler Master V850 SFX

CASE: Phanteks Evolv Shift 2 Air

 

Monitor 1 (primary gaming): ASUS VG27AQ 1440p 165 Hz

Monitor 2 (productivity, no gaming): Dell U2520D 1440p 60Hz

 

Internet: 850 Mb/s down/950 Mb/s up, speed tests show ping of 1ms

 

Wondering if anyone can provide insight, or has had similar experiences? Is this normal behaviour in CS:GO? Possible server-side lag? Hoping it’s not a hardware issue, because I really can’t tell what it would be. I don’t see any obvious bottlenecks, and the PC can handle much heavier games with ease. 

[NelizMastr]

Could be the riser cable. They can be a source of problems if they're faulty or not fully connected properly.

Also try setting your motherboard to force PCIe 3.0 if you can.

 

Other than that, no ideas. Limiting CS:GO might be a good idea. 400fps offers no benefits over 300 for instance, which will lower CPU utilization.

[Mikkle]

Just now, NelizMastr said:

Could be the riser cable. They can be a source of problems if they're faulty or not fully connected properly.

Also try setting your motherboard to force PCIe 3.0 if you can.

 

Other than that, no ideas. Limiting CS:GO might be a good idea. 400fps offers no benefits over 300 for instance, which will lower CPU utilization.

Yup, had to force gen3.0 just to get the PC to POST... with my hardware it detects gen4.0 compatibility, but the cable won’t do it - luckily I knew to do this on while testing components pre-build, because otherwise I’d have to fully disassemble to get the card in the slot on the mobo. 
 

I have tried reseating the riser cable - it seems to be well connected. I considered that it might be faulty, but it runs perfectly in more graphically demanding games. Unfortunately, options are limited for 3rd party riser cables - the Shift 2 has a bracket they need to fit into to mount graphics card. 
 

Half wondering if the high FPS is too much for the CPU to keep up with... I don’t know if that’s a thing. Some threads show sustained high activity, but it’s not getting that hot under load... tried limiting the FPS to 300 and 165, but if anything it ran better unlimited. 

[Mark Kaine]

Could be drivers. 

10 minutes ago, NelizMastr said:

Could be the riser cable.

One of which can be easily excluded from equation. 

 

 

2 minutes ago, Mikkle said:

if the high FPS is too much for the CPU

Well, check CPU usage on each core,  use Afterburner OSD,  don't use taskmanager (it's unreliable)

[Mikkle]

1 minute ago, Mark Kaine said:

Could be drivers. 

One of which can be easily excluded from equation. 

Running latest drivers, on a fresh install

[Mark Kaine]

Just now, Mikkle said:

Running latest drivers, on a fresh install

right,  I edited since you posted,  check cpu usage on each core,  might be onto something 

[Mikkle]

Just now, Mark Kaine said:

right,  I edited since you posted,  check cpu usage on each core,  might be onto something 

Will give this a try tonight. I was using Resource Monitor previously to watch individual cores

[Mikkle]

So, I think I may have figured out what's causing this issue and let me tell you, it is stupid.

 

By default, I have my desktop wallpapers on a slideshow rotation -- that's 2x 1440p monitors, which are set to change wallpapers once a minute. I realized that this (being managed by Windows itself) might be hogging some kind of resources, so I fired up CS:GO, ran windowed and walked around, waiting for the wallpaper to change. And whaddya know? The FPS dip coincided precisely with the wallpaper change. Since then, I've had the wallpapers set to "Picture" and the game has been running perfectly. This is annoying but not totally surprising - on the old PC, the changing wallpaper would often weird little hiccups - though I never played much CS:GO before, and certainly nothing would have been able to run as smooth as this rig is capable of, so perhaps the FPS impact just flew under the radar.

 

Just for kicks, I tried raising the FPS limit to 1000 and (sporadically) saw rates as high as 680 FPS, on all high settings. I know it's only CS:GO but my god, the RX 6900 XT has some grunt! 

 

I also realized I had been running on a "Balanced" power plan... it's been so long since I had to think about changing the power plan, it didn't even occur to me to do so. It's now on "Turbo"... presumably that will do something.

 

I did also try monitoring things the CPU/GPU with Afterburner - while it gave me slightly different numbers than Resource Monitor did, there was really nothing out of the ordinary. Even when the wallpaper was changing, the apparent performance hit wasn't distinguishable. 

 

I like having my wallpapers change (it's slideshow of my own landscape photography) so I'll keep looking into why this is causing such a hiccup... for now I think we can largely chalk this up to Windows not having the best optimization for its animations and graphics. Maybe the upcoming 21H2 Sun Valley UI updates will tackle this sort of BS... not likely though.