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- Joined
- 1 Aug 2020
- Posts
- 5
Hello,
I've got a very strange FPS drop issue that is beyond my level of understanding, so I've come in search of brainy people for help! Sorry if I've posted in the wrong section but I felt this was the best fit.
Apologies in advance for the long read, you might need some caffeine.
Original components;-
NZXT S340 Elite case
Asus Strix Z370-F motherboard
i3-8350k CPU
Arctic Liquid Freezer 120mm AIO CPU cooler
Crucial 256Gb M.2 SSD C drive with Windows 10 Pro 64
Palit RTX 2070 Dual GPU
EVGA B3 550W PSU
WD 1Tb M.2 SSD D drive
I may be old enough to know better but my son badgered me to play Fortnite with him a few months back and now I'm hooked. For me it's the building element that sets it apart from any similar style game I've played and it's the first game since Call of Duty 2 from 2005 that I keep wanting to play. Anyway, the issue...
On the evening of Friday 24th July I was playing Fortnite at a constant frame-capped 144 FPS at 1440P. For a few days prior to that I'd noticed when flying high up in the battle bus that some of the distant objects didn't appear quite as graphically rendered as usual, or at least that's what I thought. With that in mind I decided to update my motherboard's BIOS and Nvidia graphics driver for my Palit Dual RTX 2070 GPU, as what harm could it do?!
I hadn't meddled with my motherboard's BIOS before so it would have had the original BIOS from new. I do however update the graphics driver maybe every few months, and have never had any previous issues.
Both the BIOS and graphics card driver (451.67) update appeared successful so I loaded up Fortnite again having been playing it only 30 minutes earlier. I was instantly met with huge frame drops that I wasn't used to. Often the drops were down into double figures, going as low as 15 FPS and regularly under 60. The drops aren't gradual either, they'll go from 144FPS to 20 in an instant. Due to my Fortnite addiction I'd bought a 144Hz monitor from Overclockers about a month ago in a desperate attempt to gain any advantage over my son who plays on a 60Hz TV. The drop in FPS is very noticeable in the form of stuttering and it definitely affects gameplay making me even worse than usual.
I hit Google in the search for an answer and formed the opinion that the most likely culprit was the BIOS update. That sent me on a mission to roll back my BIOS, which didn't help no matter which version I used. The only other thing I'd meddled with was the graphics driver so I uninstalled the latest version and tried various older drivers (including one stored on my PC that I'd previously used that used to work perfectly), each one giving the same FPS drops. I have used Display Driver Uninstall each time to completely clean the PC of any previous GeForce driver before installing a different version. I then reinstalled the latest game-ready driver again, version 451.67.
I checked the startup apps and prevented anything from starting up that wasn't necessary.
I loaded up CoD WW2 and the frame-rates were fairly constant, which was all the more confusing. Regardless of my testing I was convinced it was a motherboard BIOS issue so I treated myself to a new motherboard, processor, CPU cooler from Overclockers and a 1Tb M.2 SSD from elsewhere.
New components;-
Asus Strix X570-F motherboard
Ryzen 5 3600 CPU
Arctic Liquid Freezer ii 240mm AIO CPU cooler
Sabrent 1Tb M.2 SSD C drive
Probably not in the most sensible order but after ordering the components I then installed my RTX 2070 in my son's PC. I was very surprised to see the frame-drop issue transfer to his PC, leading me to think my GPU was at fault after all. I hadn't suspected the graphics card as it's only eight months old and it appeared to be fine with CoD WW2, although maybe it's not as graphically demanding as Fortnite possibly and doesn't stress the GPU as much? I then tried the GPU back in my PC and installed Counter Strike as it was free to download on Steam. The FPS in Counter Strike would peak at over 300 and go down to around 130 but this was a more gradual rise and fall rather than an instantaneous drop so I assumed that it was normal behaviour depending on how graphically demanding a particular scene was. I may be wrong however.
I also ran Furmark GPU benchmark software and my GPU appears to be working perfectly. Its peak FPS was 99 with a minimum of 96. The highest temperature I've recorded of the 2070 during either gameplay or testing is 72 degrees centigrade. The PC case is on the floor in a cool room, has plenty of space around it and good airflow within it. The PC was already clean inside and out before this issue began but I still cleaned all the dust filters just in case.
The new components arrived on Tuesday and I installed them as I had the day off. I have not messed around with the new board's BIOS in any way!!!!!! I installed a fresh copy of Windows 10 Pro 64 on a new 1Tb M.2 SSD C drive. I then installed the latest Nvidia driver 451.67 followed by the Epic Games Launcher and Fortnite, all on the C drive. To my dismay and surprise I was still experiencing the same frame-drops. I have tried various Nvidia drivers since but always get the same FPS issues.
I've tried searching Google to see if anyone else is currently experiencing similar issues but I appear to be alone. I'm wondering if there's a strange issue with Fortnite that's maybe only affecting my exact model of GPU as I think I've pretty much ruled everything else out. The frame drops are particularly bad in the lobby but still constantly affect the game too. I've done a lot of research and testing, and I'm out of ideas. Initially I thought it can't have been a coincidence that Fortnite started running poorly directly after a BIOS and GPU driver update, but since then I've rolled back the BIOS to various versions, swapped GPU drivers, replaced the motherboard and CPU, installed a fresh copy of Windows on a new C drive, changed graphics drivers again, and tested my GPU using Furmark and a couple of games, which is telling me it might actually be an issue with Fortnite and my GPU, or something even stranger.
I contacted Epic Games expecting to wait a few days before getting a generic not remotely relevant automated reply telling me to turn my PC on and off but on the contrary they've been amazing. I get a reply each time in an hour or less and they've bent over backwards to help. They've had me send back DxDiag files, logs from the Epic Games Launcher, Client/Game logs, an MSinfo file and videos of gameplay with the FPS counter showing the drops as they happen. I could not ask for more and they're continuing to help me. But... as yet they're as stumped as I am... and that's why I'm here, in the hope that someone might be able to help point me in the right direction please having experienced something similarly odd.
If you've actually made it this far and read my whole post then thank you very much, it's greatly appreciated. And huge thanks in advance to any advice you can offer, regardless of whether it works or not as anything's worth a try.
Justin
I've got a very strange FPS drop issue that is beyond my level of understanding, so I've come in search of brainy people for help! Sorry if I've posted in the wrong section but I felt this was the best fit.
Apologies in advance for the long read, you might need some caffeine.
Original components;-
NZXT S340 Elite case
Asus Strix Z370-F motherboard
i3-8350k CPU
Arctic Liquid Freezer 120mm AIO CPU cooler
Crucial 256Gb M.2 SSD C drive with Windows 10 Pro 64
Palit RTX 2070 Dual GPU
EVGA B3 550W PSU
WD 1Tb M.2 SSD D drive
I may be old enough to know better but my son badgered me to play Fortnite with him a few months back and now I'm hooked. For me it's the building element that sets it apart from any similar style game I've played and it's the first game since Call of Duty 2 from 2005 that I keep wanting to play. Anyway, the issue...
On the evening of Friday 24th July I was playing Fortnite at a constant frame-capped 144 FPS at 1440P. For a few days prior to that I'd noticed when flying high up in the battle bus that some of the distant objects didn't appear quite as graphically rendered as usual, or at least that's what I thought. With that in mind I decided to update my motherboard's BIOS and Nvidia graphics driver for my Palit Dual RTX 2070 GPU, as what harm could it do?!
I hadn't meddled with my motherboard's BIOS before so it would have had the original BIOS from new. I do however update the graphics driver maybe every few months, and have never had any previous issues.
Both the BIOS and graphics card driver (451.67) update appeared successful so I loaded up Fortnite again having been playing it only 30 minutes earlier. I was instantly met with huge frame drops that I wasn't used to. Often the drops were down into double figures, going as low as 15 FPS and regularly under 60. The drops aren't gradual either, they'll go from 144FPS to 20 in an instant. Due to my Fortnite addiction I'd bought a 144Hz monitor from Overclockers about a month ago in a desperate attempt to gain any advantage over my son who plays on a 60Hz TV. The drop in FPS is very noticeable in the form of stuttering and it definitely affects gameplay making me even worse than usual.
I hit Google in the search for an answer and formed the opinion that the most likely culprit was the BIOS update. That sent me on a mission to roll back my BIOS, which didn't help no matter which version I used. The only other thing I'd meddled with was the graphics driver so I uninstalled the latest version and tried various older drivers (including one stored on my PC that I'd previously used that used to work perfectly), each one giving the same FPS drops. I have used Display Driver Uninstall each time to completely clean the PC of any previous GeForce driver before installing a different version. I then reinstalled the latest game-ready driver again, version 451.67.
I checked the startup apps and prevented anything from starting up that wasn't necessary.
I loaded up CoD WW2 and the frame-rates were fairly constant, which was all the more confusing. Regardless of my testing I was convinced it was a motherboard BIOS issue so I treated myself to a new motherboard, processor, CPU cooler from Overclockers and a 1Tb M.2 SSD from elsewhere.
New components;-
Asus Strix X570-F motherboard
Ryzen 5 3600 CPU
Arctic Liquid Freezer ii 240mm AIO CPU cooler
Sabrent 1Tb M.2 SSD C drive
Probably not in the most sensible order but after ordering the components I then installed my RTX 2070 in my son's PC. I was very surprised to see the frame-drop issue transfer to his PC, leading me to think my GPU was at fault after all. I hadn't suspected the graphics card as it's only eight months old and it appeared to be fine with CoD WW2, although maybe it's not as graphically demanding as Fortnite possibly and doesn't stress the GPU as much? I then tried the GPU back in my PC and installed Counter Strike as it was free to download on Steam. The FPS in Counter Strike would peak at over 300 and go down to around 130 but this was a more gradual rise and fall rather than an instantaneous drop so I assumed that it was normal behaviour depending on how graphically demanding a particular scene was. I may be wrong however.
I also ran Furmark GPU benchmark software and my GPU appears to be working perfectly. Its peak FPS was 99 with a minimum of 96. The highest temperature I've recorded of the 2070 during either gameplay or testing is 72 degrees centigrade. The PC case is on the floor in a cool room, has plenty of space around it and good airflow within it. The PC was already clean inside and out before this issue began but I still cleaned all the dust filters just in case.
The new components arrived on Tuesday and I installed them as I had the day off. I have not messed around with the new board's BIOS in any way!!!!!! I installed a fresh copy of Windows 10 Pro 64 on a new 1Tb M.2 SSD C drive. I then installed the latest Nvidia driver 451.67 followed by the Epic Games Launcher and Fortnite, all on the C drive. To my dismay and surprise I was still experiencing the same frame-drops. I have tried various Nvidia drivers since but always get the same FPS issues.
I've tried searching Google to see if anyone else is currently experiencing similar issues but I appear to be alone. I'm wondering if there's a strange issue with Fortnite that's maybe only affecting my exact model of GPU as I think I've pretty much ruled everything else out. The frame drops are particularly bad in the lobby but still constantly affect the game too. I've done a lot of research and testing, and I'm out of ideas. Initially I thought it can't have been a coincidence that Fortnite started running poorly directly after a BIOS and GPU driver update, but since then I've rolled back the BIOS to various versions, swapped GPU drivers, replaced the motherboard and CPU, installed a fresh copy of Windows on a new C drive, changed graphics drivers again, and tested my GPU using Furmark and a couple of games, which is telling me it might actually be an issue with Fortnite and my GPU, or something even stranger.
I contacted Epic Games expecting to wait a few days before getting a generic not remotely relevant automated reply telling me to turn my PC on and off but on the contrary they've been amazing. I get a reply each time in an hour or less and they've bent over backwards to help. They've had me send back DxDiag files, logs from the Epic Games Launcher, Client/Game logs, an MSinfo file and videos of gameplay with the FPS counter showing the drops as they happen. I could not ask for more and they're continuing to help me. But... as yet they're as stumped as I am... and that's why I'm here, in the hope that someone might be able to help point me in the right direction please having experienced something similarly odd.
If you've actually made it this far and read my whole post then thank you very much, it's greatly appreciated. And huge thanks in advance to any advice you can offer, regardless of whether it works or not as anything's worth a try.
Justin
What ram config are you running?
