Help any idea what might be causing this?

[nheather]

I recently started playing Ghost of Tsushima via Steam, I haven't got very far but my PC was holding up to the action scenes very well on the recommended settings - very smooth, no jitters at all.

I last played it well on Sunday evening. I've been away since Monday so haven't touched my computer until this morning.

Everything else about my PC seems perfectly normal, but Ghost of Tsushima is now unplayable.

What I experience is a few seconds of normal play and then it will freeze for about 10-15 seconds, then it will continue normally for a few seconds and then it will freeze. The game and setting are identical from when it ran perfectly on Sunday evening.

Sometimes the freezing is when it is loading the game, so it isn't that I am asking the graphics card to do much.

I have checked the integrity of the install - that all passes.

I uninstalled then reinstalled the game - the same problem.

I uninstalled and reinstalled on a different disk - same problem.

I have run virus and malware checks - they all come up clean.

I have tried another game, albeit not very challenging in the graphics department (Assassins Creed II) and that runs fine.

I don't believe there have been any game updates since Sunday although I did notice a Steam platform update this morning.

Any ideas what it could be? What to try?

 

[nheather]

Sorry, just realised that I misread this as General rather than General Hardware.

Anyway, I have found the cause but it's very strange. I fixed it with an update to the Graphics Card driver. Strange because the one I had was only one version old and the latest update came out in October. Strange how the driver would be fine on Monday night and then not on Thursday morning.