Win 10 Creators Update + nVidia Performance Issues

[Sin_Chase]

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 (397.93) Albeit the problem persists with any driver version
• intel i7 4770k @ 4.5Ghz
• 16GB of RAM
• 980Ti Classified @ 1475/3700
• G-SYNC enabled Asus monitor
• Secondary IPS monitor with extended desktop

Observations:

• 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.

Fix Attempts:

• 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

Thoughts:

• 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?

Quite frankly it is doing my head in. Similar issues are reported on the nVidia forums and elsewhere. Any ideas?

 

[Glanza]

Have you disabled game mode or enabled it when Overwatch is open, since the update apart from a select few titles you need to enable it via pressing win key + g and turning it on.

 

[AiiR]

Roll back?

 

[T.Kay]

Turn on the game bar, and then choose game mode, I got more fps overall.

 

[T.Kay]

Make sure all the motherboard drivers are updated aswell. I had to check a few weeks after the windows update for them to be updated.

 

[Sin_Chase]

There are no new motherboard driver updates available for my board, it's quite old now and new releases are not produced.

I've entirely disabled gamebar and Game Mode optimizations, likewise I've had the same issue with both on.

The issue isn't getting good performance, I can. It's keeping it and being able to do more with the system than just boot it then play the game exclusively.

 

[Puppetmaster]

Do you use discord at all?

 

[Sin_Chase]

Do you use discord at all?

Used to, did not reinstall it after the fresh Win10 installation. I know historically the overlay caused issues but it's not even installed now.

 

[Rroff]

I dunno if it will help but I had someone else with similar issues that I seem to have solved by unpacking the nVidia driver and deleting a load of the folders and GFE and installing that way plus doing similar and then installing GFE 2 as they wanted 1-2 features of it.

On my phone ATM so can't document exactly what I did.

 

[Sin_Chase]

I've tried that Rroff but I think nVidia have cottoned on in their latest drivers. If you remove folders and run setup it just states "specified path could not be found" and doesn't run at all :/

 

[BS Dave]

I did the minimal setup and that seemed to work for me

 

[Kelt]

I've tried that Rroff but I think nVidia have cottoned on in their latest drivers. If you remove folders and run setup it just states "specified path could not be found" and doesn't run at all :/

I had that as well.

I did the minimal setup and that seemed to work for me

With the latest 397.93 driver?

 

[Rroff]

Haven't tried 397.93 yet but did it with 397.64 - solved a load of issues on a couple of machines now so be annoying if they lock it down.

I didn't delete all the folders but did remove most of the update stuff and telemetry and so on.

 

[Smoogels]

I would firstly check for the potential standby memory issue https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/8cdzsb/are_your_games_stuttering_lately/

Afterwards create a log with MSI Afterburner to see if there are any other symptoms when the FPS drop occurs which may help point you in the right direction. Whilst troubleshooting I would also disable overclocks.

Disable all the Windows game junk like Xbox apps, game mode, full screen optimisations etc. Try disabling Windows Defender. Disconnect your 2nd monitor temporarily.

You could also try Windows 1607 LTSB trial to see if performance is improved.

Since your PC can work fine, you could create a tracelog with GPUView (guide from Nvidia) when the gameplay is normal and another when your having performance issues. They can be a little difficult to understand, but if you take two traces you could play spot the difference to see if anything abnormal appears when you're having issues.

 

[BS Dave]

I had that as well.



With the latest 397.93 driver?

Yes though it did report as 397.31