FPS drops and game crashes on New PC

xNirdoc · June 20, 2023

Hey guys! I did a new PC build a few days ago (MSI Z790 Tomahawk Wifi, I9 13900K, Asus RTX 4070Ti Strix OC, 2x16GB Corsair DDR5 6400MHz CL32, 1xSSD Samsung 990 Pro, 2xSSD Samsung 970 Evo from my old PC that were working fine, I've installed Windows 11 Pro on one of them).
Before I was playing Jedi Survivor on a 9900K + 3080TI with no issue, not even 1 crash. After trying it on this build, I get frequent FPS drops and crashes. I have to mention that I've monitored the temps during gameplay and they are pretty low (45-50 C on CPU and 60 C on GPU).
a) When starting the PC and play for 1-2 hours, everything works fine. After some time, I see some FPS drops during gameplay. I've monitored the GPU during these FPS drops and I've noticed that the power goes from around 200+W to <80W, then it slowly increases back, alongside with the FPS.
b) If I alt tab, the chance of starting the FPS drops is increased.
c) If I try to share screen on Discord and play, the drops are getting started pretty quick and if I alt tab, the game crashes. I think something is going on with the GPU driver in this case, because my mic stops working on discord (I'm using Nvidia Broadcast). To fix this, I have to restart discord. More on this, after the first crash, I cannot even share my screen on discord without restarting the PC (the other side only sees the loading black screen).
d) After alt tabbing back into the game, FPS is starting low and slowly increases (takes around 3-4s to get at normal values).

I've tested this on Star Wars Jedi Survivor and Far Cry 6, both are the same. I've noticed that before games are crashing, the FPS is decreasing to 10-15 for a few seconds, then the crash happens.

I've tried to stress test the system with multiple tools, no crash in these. I've tried the RAM with and without XMP on (there is no OC on the other components). I've tried to go for a lower frequency RAM. I've tried to set the PCIE version to 3 in BIOS. I have the GPU vertically mounted with a PCIE 4.0 from Lian Li, I even tried to mount it directly to the MB.

I do not get any blue/black screen, just game crashes.

At the beginning, I started to think the RAM is the issue, because, after installing and setting everything up (without testing anything performance related), I've installed 2 additional RAM sticks and I got lots of blue screens. So I ended up with returning 2 of them.
BIOS is default, besides XMP on and DRAM Voltage 1.4V.

I don't know if there is a hardware or software issue, I ran out of ideas. I'm crying inside because my old PC was more stable than this one...

Vishera · June 20, 2023

Your formatting of the text makes it unreadable, so i fixed it:

22 minutes ago, xNirdoc said:

Hey guys!

I did a new PC build a few days ago:

Intel Core i9 13900K

2x16GB Corsair DDR5 6400MHz CL32

Asus RTX 4070Ti Strix OC

MSI Z790 Tomahawk Wifi

1xSSD Samsung 990 Pro

2xSSD Samsung 970 Evo from my old PC that were working fine (I've installed Windows 11 Pro on one of them).

Before I was playing Jedi Survivor on a 9900K + 3080TI with no issue, not even 1 crash.

After trying it on this build, I get frequent FPS drops and crashes.

I have to mention that I've monitored the temps during gameplay and they are pretty low (45-50 C on CPU and 60 C on GPU).

a) When starting the PC and play for 1-2 hours, everything works fine. After some time, I see some FPS drops during gameplay.

I've monitored the GPU during these FPS drops and I've noticed that the power goes from around 200+W to <80W,

then it slowly increases back, alongside with the FPS.

b) If I alt tab, the chance of starting the FPS drops is increased.

c) If I try to share screen on Discord and play, the drops are getting started pretty quick and if I alt tab, the game crashes.

I think something is going on with the GPU driver in this case, because my mic stops working on discord (I'm using Nvidia Broadcast).

To fix this, I have to restart discord. More on this, after the first crash,

I cannot even share my screen on discord without restarting the PC (the other side only sees the loading black screen).

d) After alt tabbing back into the game, FPS is starting low and slowly increases (takes around 3-4s to get at normal values).

I've tested this on Star Wars Jedi Survivor and Far Cry 6, both are the same.

I've noticed that before games are crashing, the FPS is decreasing to 10-15 for a few seconds, then the crash happens.

I've tried to stress test the system with multiple tools, no crash in these.

I've tried the RAM with and without XMP on (there is no OC on the other components).

I've tried to go for a lower frequency RAM.

I've tried to set the PCIE version to 3 in BIOS.

I have the GPU vertically mounted with a PCIE 4.0 from Lian Li, I even tried to mount it directly to the MB.

I do not get any blue/black screen, just game crashes.

At the beginning, I started to think the RAM is the issue, because, after installing and setting everything up (without testing anything performance related),

I've installed 2 additional RAM sticks and I got lots of blue screens. So I ended up with returning 2 of them.
BIOS is default, besides XMP on and DRAM Voltage 1.4V.

I don't know if there is a hardware or software issue, I ran out of ideas. I'm crying inside because my old PC was more stable than this one...

JLssg4 · June 20, 2023

[The following popped into my head after the first few sentences...but as I read further along it seemed to get less and less applicable. I'll share the thought for the minuscule probability it might help.]
I'm there with you suspecting memory could be the culprit. Just this past weekend I decided to enable 'memory context restore', only to find games would CTD. Reverted back and everything worked as before. (MCR seemingly bypasses memory timing configuration that usually happens every post on AM5...here's our first divergence, as this same phenomenon might not be applicable to Intel cpus and XMP at boot.)

Is there a comparable memory bios setting for Intel/XMP? Could disabling it and allowing a full memory 'calibration' on boot have any positive effect?
I truly don't know, but it's a seemingly harmless/easy thing to test.

[The CTD's I have had on this PC are a bit novel to me, but all have come down to memory; either the context restore or having >10GB page file...I'm used to games freezing, getting a windows non-responsive program error, going to task manager to kill...these memory related issues have been instantaneous 'drops' of the program with no evidence it was ever running. It could be coincidence, but I'm left thinking that type of crash is a symptom of a memory issue...now whether you're seeing that is another story...]