This is somewhat of a revisit as I thought I had narrowed the issues down to stuttering many people had been experiencing and was allegedly fixed in a recent nVidia driver update. This is not the case though, this seems to be a totally different issue.
My original observations were as follows:
The Problem:
Ever since installing Creators Update gaming performance is poor. Notably poor frame times, FPS and a consistent drop until unplayable when multi-tasking on the system.
Overwatch is a prime example. I can cap my FPS at 142 in game and hold it there without ever dropping. Since the issue has arisen with the Win10CU install FPS barely manages to reach my 142 cap, including in spawn, outside areas dip to sub 100 and team fights to 40-50FPS. Utterly dire performance.
My System:
My new observations have changed a little:
As you can see my Core Clock and Memory clocks remain constant. As does the GPU temp which is under water and usually normalizes at 42 Deg C (Not graphed).
You can clearly see where the performance issues start where the Frametime jumps after having been steadily sub 10ms. This is where buttery smooth, pretty consistent FPS/Frametime gameplay turns into a mess. There is no correlation to what is happening in game. The FPS can recover to 140+ for a short period in intense firefights but then drop to sub 50 when looking at the floor with nothing happening.
Whilst observable GPU usage fluctuates, it does normally anyway. There is no apparent link between GPU Usage and the performance drop. Infact Windows Task Manager report 99% GPU usage throughout, perfect performance or poor performance.
There is a noticeable drop in Total Power. I suspect this is as a result of whatever is causing the performance issues and lowering FPS rather than Total Power dropping and causing the issue itself.
My system memory remains constant whilst gaming ~4GB used out of 24GB. My overclock remains at 4.5Ghz with an average of 50% usage. There is no disk activity. There are no background applications running beyond what boots with the OS normally (Precision X, Logitech Gaming Mouse Software) I have no OSD, Overlays, Comms Apps, Instant Messengers etc running.
I am pulling my hair out. I have ran out of things to try. I can only attribute the problems to the Windows 10 CU update. I had NONE of this on exactly the same hardware configuration prior to the CU update.
My original observations were as follows:
The Problem:
Ever since installing Creators Update gaming performance is poor. Notably poor frame times, FPS and a consistent drop until unplayable when multi-tasking on the system.
Overwatch is a prime example. I can cap my FPS at 142 in game and hold it there without ever dropping. Since the issue has arisen with the Win10CU install FPS barely manages to reach my 142 cap, including in spawn, outside areas dip to sub 100 and team fights to 40-50FPS. Utterly dire performance.
My System:
- Win 10 Creators Update Build 1803 (Fresh, clean install)
- Latest nVidia Drivers, Albeit the problem persists with any driver version
- intel i7 4770k @ 4.5Ghz
- 16GB of RAM
- 980Ti Classified @ 1475/3800
- G-SYNC enabled Asus monitor, 2560x1440 144Hz (DisplayPort)
- Secondary IPS monitor with extended desktop, 1290x1200 60Hz (HDMI)
- The problem ONLY seems to occur when multi-tasking on the system
- Having a Chrome window open at any point after a system boot for example
- Closing everything down, as if fresh booted, then loading the game still results in the same issue persisting despite no apparent processes running that would cause it
- Fresh booting the system, opening NOTHING and loading the game/never alt-tabbing will yield as expected, capped 142FPS results in Overwatch with no perf issues at all
- With the issue present Task Manager reports 100% GPU usage
- With the issue present CPU/Memory usage appears as expected
- Observing GPU stats reveals no particular cause for concern. Clock speeds are up, temps are low.
- Disabled/Uninstalled Win10 Xbox App and GameDVR
- DDUed nVidia drivers and performed clean installs
- Disabled Intel onboard GPU
- Ran stock GPU clocks
- Reinstalled game titles
- Clean Win10 install from fresh ISO media and installing nothing but bare essentials, drivers and game title
- My system has enough overhead to handle mutli-tasking background apps. It was never an issue before the CU update and I could easily have multiple Chrome tabs open and alt-tab between titles at will
- Is there some kind of a focus problem with Win10 and game titles? As in, the second one alt tabs out and alt-tabs back the 3D renderer is not behaving as expected?
- Why does the issue persist having used my system but then closed down all the apps and be running nothing but the game title?
My new observations have changed a little:
- I've swapped to FireFox Quantum and no longer use Chrome
- The problem has reared it's head even when fresh booting the system and playing Overwatch having done NOTHING else
- I've done some hardware logging although this has not revealed much, see further below
- There is no rhyme or reason and no noticeable performance statistic other than the observable loss in FPS which indicates what is causing the problem
- It's not just FPS drops and stutter. There is HUGE input lag, for example I can strafe left and right and see the movement significantly after the actual press, talking 100s of milliseconds here.
- Sometimes I can game for hours without the issue becoming apparent. Sometimes I cant even get the first game in. Sometimes the issue arises after a few hours. Sometimes the issue does not come at all.
As you can see my Core Clock and Memory clocks remain constant. As does the GPU temp which is under water and usually normalizes at 42 Deg C (Not graphed).
You can clearly see where the performance issues start where the Frametime jumps after having been steadily sub 10ms. This is where buttery smooth, pretty consistent FPS/Frametime gameplay turns into a mess. There is no correlation to what is happening in game. The FPS can recover to 140+ for a short period in intense firefights but then drop to sub 50 when looking at the floor with nothing happening.
Whilst observable GPU usage fluctuates, it does normally anyway. There is no apparent link between GPU Usage and the performance drop. Infact Windows Task Manager report 99% GPU usage throughout, perfect performance or poor performance.
There is a noticeable drop in Total Power. I suspect this is as a result of whatever is causing the performance issues and lowering FPS rather than Total Power dropping and causing the issue itself.
My system memory remains constant whilst gaming ~4GB used out of 24GB. My overclock remains at 4.5Ghz with an average of 50% usage. There is no disk activity. There are no background applications running beyond what boots with the OS normally (Precision X, Logitech Gaming Mouse Software) I have no OSD, Overlays, Comms Apps, Instant Messengers etc running.
I am pulling my hair out. I have ran out of things to try. I can only attribute the problems to the Windows 10 CU update. I had NONE of this on exactly the same hardware configuration prior to the CU update.
