FPS Dropping from 60 to 10

[AOD_Valigar]

Hello, I was hoping that someone might have an idea to why my FPS would be dropping while I was playing RS6 Siege.

This recently started occurring, maybe the last week or two. I tried changing the graphics quality to a lower amount but that didn't work. It used to only be once or twice a day but now it is every game, every round almost of Siege. The only thing I have changed is that I added an external hard drive to my laptop but that was about a month ago. The only other thing I can think of is that I updated my GeForce driver about 4 or so days ago.

Other than that I have no clue.

Thanks in advance for the help!!!

[effectiv]

FPS drops can be caused by a lot of things.

What’s your CPU/GPU?

Double check to make sure automatic updates/disk defrags are not scheduled to run while you’re playing to start off.

If it’s not one of the above, then alt tab the next time it happens and check your resource monitor to see what’s hogging up your resources.


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[AOD_DukeCLR]

It hard to tell what caused your performance drop without knowing your system specs. If all of a sudden you had theses drops you may have an issue that I had recently where a Winblows 10 update came along in the middle of the night and changed something. In this case some Xbox settings had been reset during the update, I was able to fix it with a driver update, give that a try.

[AOD_Valigar]

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz (8 CPUs), ~2.6GHz
Graphic Cards: Intel(R) HD Graphics 530 (GPU: Skylake GT2) and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M (GPU: GM204)

If you want I can email the whole DxDiag notepad file for you to know everything.

As of right now, I unplugged my external hard drive and haven't had a FPS drop in about 2 hours of gameplay. Could it be the external HD for some reason?

Again, thanks!

Also I wanted to know if anyone has their own built system that could guide me to a good Desktop build. Thanks!

[KaosC57]

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz (8 CPUs), ~2.6GHz
Graphic Cards: Intel(R) HD Graphics 530 (GPU: Skylake GT2) and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M (GPU: GM204)

If you want I can email the whole DxDiag notepad file for you to know everything.

As of right now, I unplugged my external hard drive and haven't had a FPS drop in about 2 hours of gameplay. Could it be the external HD for some reason?

Again, thanks!

Also I wanted to know if anyone has their own built system that could guide me to a good Desktop build. Thanks!

I'd probably bet it was partially that external HDD.

As for a good PC build?

You have 2 main options. Each with strengths and weaknesses.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 1700 3.0GHz 8-Core Processor ($289.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350 Pro4 ATX AM4 Motherboard ($75.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill - Aegis 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2800 Memory ($154.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($98.94 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($45.69 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: MSI - GeForce GTX 1070 8GB Video Card ($399.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Corsair - 270R ATX Mid Tower Case ($69.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA G3 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($89.99 @ Amazon)
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit ($92.99 @ Best Buy)
Total: $1318.55
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-10-16 14:02 EDT-0400

Build 1 is a Ryzen 7 1700 and a 1070 with 16 GB of RAM. This will play just about anything you throw at it very well. AND it will handle Streaming content at 1080p60FPS really well depending on your internet connection. My personal rig will eventually have a Ryzen 7 1700 when I get enough money saved up.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i5-8600K 3.6GHz 6-Core Processor ($279.89 @ B&H)
CPU Cooler: CRYORIG - H7 49.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($34.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI - Z370-A PRO ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($119.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill - Aegis 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2800 Memory ($154.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($98.94 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($45.69 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: MSI - GeForce GTX 1070 8GB Video Card ($399.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Corsair - 270R ATX Mid Tower Case ($69.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA G3 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($89.99 @ Amazon)
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit ($92.99 @ Best Buy)
Total: $1387.35
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-10-16 14:05 EDT-0400

Build 2 for slightly more money is an Intel i5-8600k with the same specifications as the other system. This system 100% requires an aftermarket cooler, unless you want to lose the awesome power of Overclocking and instead want to use an i5-8400 instead, which would save you money, but lose out on about 10% gaming performance. This system would be purely for Gaming, as Intel still hasn't jumped ship to having good multi-threaded cores for Streaming.

My personal recommendation is the Ryzen 7 system as it can be used for more than just gaming. It does really well with Streaming, Video Encoding, Rendering, Video Editing, etc.

[ZED]

Graphic Cards: Intel(R) HD Graphics 530 (GPU: Skylake GT2) and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M (GPU: GM204)

This ^^^
I'm more than sure that when you loaded the game the GPU got switched to Intel HD Graphics 530 instead of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M. It has happened in many laptops. I would just simply suggest to disable Intel HD and force the laptop to use GTX 980M at all times.

[effectiv]

This ^^^
I'm more than sure that when you loaded the game the GPU got switched to Intel HD Graphics 530 instead of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M. It has happened in many laptops. I would just simply suggest to disable Intel HD and force the laptop to use GTX 980M at all times.

OP, to do this (I also recommend it):

Windows search "Device Manager" > Expand display adapters > Right click HD 530 and disable.

[AOD_Valigar]

Hm odd that it would just start doing that. How would I go about forcing my laptop to use the Geforce?

@AOD_KaosC57, Thanks!

[ZED]

Hm odd that it would just start doing that. How would I go about forcing my laptop to use the Geforce?

Just like AOD_effective said:
Windows search "Device Manager" > Expand display adapters > Right click HD 530 and disable.

You should be also able to disable Integrated Graphics within the BIOS. At least that's what I did on my Desktop and Laptop.

[AOD_Valigar]

After I disabled the Intel, I went to launch Siege and gave it about 10 minutes to see what happened. For those 10 minutes, I was in the loading screen at 4 FPS. I've been keeping my external HD unplugged and so far no FPS drop except for once.

[AshxAffliction]

After I disabled the Intel, I went to launch Siege and gave it about 10 minutes to see what happened. For those 10 minutes, I was in the loading screen at 4 FPS. I've been keeping my external HD unplugged and so far no FPS drop except for once.

Is there anything else trying to read or write large amounts of data from either drive? I have two drives, a 240GB SSD and a 1TB HDD, and even though my OS and all of my core programs are installed on the SSD, if my HDD hits 100% usage for whatever reason the rest of my system slows down to a crawl.

In addition to disabling the integrated graphics, you could also go into the Nvidia Control Panel, go under Manage 3D Settings, Power Management Mode and make sure that "Prefer Maximum Performance" is selected.

You could also update your GPU drivers and download GPU-Z to monitor things like thermals and VRAM usage in addition to having task manager open to monitor things like CPU, RAM, and drive usage.

Both of the builds that Kaos put together are very good; the only thing I would recommend is not using an OEM Windows key, because to my knowledge they can't be reused and Microsoft is trying to stick with Windows 10 for as long as they possibly can, so Windows 10 likely won't be outdated for a very long time.

[effectiv]

He doesn’t need to replace a laptop with a i7/gtx 980 in it. He needs his problem fixed. Building a new system is counter intuitive and will cost him hundreds if not $1000+.

Also, prefer maximum performance may help, especially on a laptop. But it will also drain the battery faster so make sure you have plenty of juice or have a way of keeping it charged.

I would definitely go in to the power options and make sure it’s NOT on power saver (Control Panel > Power Options). That could very well be the cause of your issue. You can always re-enable power saver if you need to extend your battery life.


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[AOD_Valigar]

@AOD_Effectiv, I wanted an idea for a desktop build for down the road.

Didn't have internet for a couple days so sorry for not responding and thanks again to those who commented. I'll try the couple things listed then let you guys know.

Thanks again!

[AOD_zeke009]

What is the external drive used for and is your system writing File History to it? If it is using that for history, at what frequency?
On Windows 10: Settings - Backup, you will likely need to go through the more options screen for more detailed info.

Another option is to attach an external monitor and put Task Manager in and sort on CPU or Disk usage. See what spikes when you experience the slow down.

[TheRandomAffect]

rip