RTX 3080 Fortnite Performance Problem - 2 Identical systems, Only 1 of them having issue.

[Hirssa]

Hey all, I need your expertise!

My own PC seems to be running Fortnite just fine on maxed settings at 240FPS, and it'll hold it very well, however my brother's PC which is almost identical seems to be having an issue where it's only running at 170-180FPS in the exact same area and it'll dip even lower in busier areas. The problem is only specific to Fortnite, we have tested Doom Eternal, COD, and NFS: Heat - Any help is much appreciated!

We're on the same graphics settings, same drivers, tried updating BIOS, tried enabling Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling in Display Settings -> Graphics settings, and also have identical settings in NVCP (GSync On, Vsync On, Max Performance etc - have also tried complete defaults). I've tried uninstalling GeForce Experience on the other machine because I thought that perhaps the optimiser had messed something up but that didn't change anything either.

Both PCs are running a fresh installation of Windows. I have tried using DDU to re-install the driver.

PERFORMANCE COMPARISON IMAGE: https://i.imgur.com/visiLmN.png


My PC Specs [CPU Temps: 55c, GPU Temps: 70c] [Timespy Benchmark] :

9900KS @ Stock (5Ghz)

64GB 3200 DDR4 [XMP 1 Enabled]

MSI RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio

Asus Maximus XI Hero

1TB NVMe Samsung Evo Plus (Game is installed here)

250GB NVMe Samsung Evo Plus

2TB 7200RPM Samsung HDD

EVGA SuperNOVA G1+ 650W

Acer XF270H A Gsync Compatible Display [Enabled G-Sync in NVCP]


Other PC's Specs [CPU Temps: 50c, GPU Temps: 65c] [Timespy Benchmark] :

9900KS @ Stock (5Ghz)

64GB 3200 DDR4 [XMP 1 Enabled]

MSI RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio

Asus Maximus XI Hero (WIFI)

1TB NVMe Samsung Evo Plus (Game is installed here)

250GB NVMe Samsung Evo Plus

2TB 7200RPM Samsung HDD

EVGA SuperNOVA G1+ 750W

Acer XF270H A Gsync Compatible Display [Enabled G-Sync in NVCP]

Any help is much appreciated thank you!

Something important to note:

Something strange happened last week, after a day or so of using the PC after a fresh Windows installation, I launched Fortnite to play and also experienced the same poor performance, the 240fps had reduced down to 170 and if I looked and GPU-Z, it showed a close similarity to the other PC's readings, ie lower gpu usage, lower power draw etc - not sure if this is related or not and am unaware of anything I could have installed or done to have caused this.

I tested a lot of things such as doing a clean driver install, trying it with DDU, updating the driver etc, and nothing worked. I reformatted my PC and the high performance came back back, and I've had no issues through the week either no matter what I've turned on and off to try and mimic this problem that I previously had, and the problem the other PC is currently having, it now runs at 240fps constant - I'm pretty perplexed and feel I have exhausted just about every idea I have and forum post I've read; I have also tried the solution in another thread which was enabling the Ultimate Performance power plan with no success... I don't want to format the other PC because I don't know what actually fixed it, and I have no idea if this problem will come back.

 

[Hirssa]

Does one gfx card boost much higher that the other? the might be the same card dosen't mean the same performance out the box though

Hey! They both range anywhere from 1935MHz-1980MHz in-game, however the problem pc's card seems to boost a tiny bit higher (1935MHz vs 1965MHz), yet doesn't achieve the same FPS - you can see it in this picture: https://i.imgur.com/visiLmN.png, and also this one where I tested it again https://i.imgur.com/p1yYXNp.png.

The only meaningful differences I can see in GPU-Z are the readings such as Board Power Draw but I could be wrong - If anything the other system wouldn't have power issues given that it's a 750W PSU vs my 650W PSU.

 

[Hirssa]

The first system is on the edge PSU wise. The one with a 650Watt PSU. Load is about 580 W - 622 W. Wattage calculator. https://seasonic.com/wattage-calcul...DM8TYRqMqRTqPAXi-aHvMxHpmdZGfY4ns5lcFlgTbsFn0

True, however my system is the one that seems to be functioning fine - I have been wondering though, despite the 240fps I get the occasional micro stutter, and the PerfCap reason in GPU-Z will show "Pwr" when I get those spikes, could this be the issue?

From your pics, turn off DX12, it's terrible in general, ctd's, stutter and it definitely creates sudden drops in frames randomly anywhere in the map(so you can't compare paired up in the same round).

But as above, the 3080 wants clean power from your psu, especially when you change to max performance in NVCP.

Turning DX12 off drops our FPS down drastically down to 130-140fps unfortunately. I've tested them both paired up in the same round, and separately on their own - and having a full match together will have me averaging around 220fps, while the other PC will do around 140fps which is strange! I can switch it to DX11 if you want me to test anything though.

As for thing you said about clean power, both PCs are using 1400VA UPSs from APC - I have tested them both directly to the wall however with no differences, makes sense I guess given that the problem is plaguing only one game.

 

[Hirssa]

Have you checked windows power settings and set it to high performance and same in the nvidia drivers ?

Are you sure you both have Ray Tracing turned off or on to match each other in the settings ?

Yes to both of these - It's got my mind spinnning!

 

[Hirssa]

Did you feed the hamster in the slower pc ?

It is strange, best way maybe to clone the drive from the good one to the slow one as a test too, actually just change the ssds round as a test to see if it is something to do with windows before cloning. Just remember to reactivate windows. If they are exactly same hardware with same BIOS versions on the hardware being the motherboard, ssds, graphics cards and graphics cards are on same BIOS switch if they have one.

Hahaha, at this point I'd try that as a potential solution

Yeah I think you're right - Though I think rather than swapping the ssd's over from the two PCs, I'll just use the other NVMe SSD in the PC and install a clean copy of Windows on it, seeing as though that's what fixed mine when I had that issue. I have to triple check that the MSI RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio doesn't have a BIOS switch because I was just scratching my head lol.

It's as if there is something fundamentally wrong with the way that game in particular is functioning, seeing as though none of the other games are having the issue lol.

 

[Hirssa]

MSI RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio don't have dual bios so no switch.

Gotcha - Unrelatedly, I've been playing RDR2 recently and the Board Power Draw is much higher, as to be expected.
Given that my personal system is on the edge PSU wise, am I losing out on performance here since GPU-Z is reporting "Pwr" as a PerfCap reason? Doesn't seem to boost to the full 1980 either, though most games I play seem to bounce between 1935-1980. You can see what I mean here, I saw it go down to 1890MHz too (have not tested on other system): https://i.imgur.com/hvrWxEu.png

 

[Hirssa]

I don't know if it is related here but I've had issues like that related to Windows 10 updates which also weirdly can only manifest sometimes in a specific application or applications - I have 2x tablets (2 in 1) and 2x laptops which are of identical spec and running cloned OS environment, etc. and after a Windows 10 update can result in very different experiences despite being essentially clones of each other.

Never had any issues like that when running Windows 7 setups in a similar fashion.

Though this sounds more like some kind of weird issue related to Fortnite.

That's interesting - I honestly feel like Windows updates are terrible these days and I don't get that same feeling of stability I used to maybe a few years into the Windows 10 release, or even Windows 7. The only way I'll find out is if I get time to load up a fresh install on that machine to test this.