Lagging/stuttering/low FPS in Dota 2

[sakai4eva]

Hi all,

I have been having this problem since I added the TV to my rig a few weeks ago. I've been getting stutters and dropped frame rates for some time, but it wasn't so bad until yesterday.

Yesterday I've noticed that my frame rates dip to below 20FPS (monitored using the netgraph chart in Dota 2) and I have missing animations that are not playing out.

On top of that, my GPU is suddenly drawing a lot of power and the fan is spinning up to max when I'm playing a game while previously it pretty much runs on idle.

Any thoughts/help?

 

[Ja.KooLit]

did you connect both your monitor and TV together? If yes, of course it will add more load into your GPU since your GPU is delivering to both monitors.

try to connect only your TV. Which drivers are you using? AMD latest beta or 13.12 WQHL?

 

[sakai4eva]

I connect both and extended the desktop. I have a habit of surfing while waiting for games.

I tried mirroring both screens (same as one output, right?) but the performance lag is still there.

I'm not sure which drivers I'm using. I'll check again when I get home.

What irks me is that the performance drop only appeared when I started playing using my TV.

 

[tom_mili]

i noticed if i change windows while playing dota 2 my fps would be locked at 30fps for couple seconds and then it would go back to normal (i have vsync turned on) but sometimes it doesn't go back and stays locked at 30 so i have to change windows again and go back to dota to reverse the "anomaly" and that missing animation also happens on me when playing puck by missing its orb animation. it happens no matter what driver i use so i think this is the natural behavior of the game and driver.
it could be a problem with having extended display on dota 2 but unfortunately i have never used one so i can't speak of my experience of your particular problem.

 

[sakai4eva]

I'm using borderless windowed display if that's any help.

And that was the exact bug that drove me insane. I was winning the lane early but I can't see puck's orb so I was caught out way too often and lost in the end.

 

[tom_mili]

i just fired dota 2 to test if it would behave any different using borderless windows and it behaved the same with fullscreen so no luck on troubleshooting your fps problem
regarding the missing animation on several heroes i think some people have already complained it on the devs forum but as usual they won't bother to fix it unless it has major impact to major amount of players

 

[sakai4eva]

I don't expect instant fixes either.

The sad thing is that I used to have no problems before and now I'm not playing anywhere close to the level I used to because of it

Back to experimenting.

 

[silkstone]

Wiping the drivers and re-installing the latest or Beta drivers might help. I'd do that in the step of diagnosing the problem. Open up GPU-Z and Process explorer (the advanced version) on you secondary display do you can try to figure out if it's CPU or GPU related and the drivers didn't fix the issue.

 

[kn00tcn]

so... removing the tv, making sure everything is the same as before does NOT result in the performance as before??

are you aware of the fact that when video decoding is gpu accelerated, the clockspeed is much lower than it would be for 3d & thus performance would drop? (that doesnt explain the fans going up though)

you mentioned vsync, i want you to test with it disabled (dont worry, i dont want this to be a solution since i hate tearing, just want to see if the card gets confused & underclocks itself)

 

[sakai4eva]

Wiping the drivers and re-installing the latest or Beta drivers might help. I'd do that in the step of diagnosing the problem. Open up GPU-Z and Process explorer (the advanced version) on you secondary display do you can try to figure out if it's CPU or GPU related and the drivers didn't fix the issue.

Ok. Will try this tonight.

so... removing the tv, making sure everything is the same as before does NOT result in the performance as before??

are you aware of the fact that when video decoding is gpu accelerated, the clockspeed is much lower than it would be for 3d & thus performance would drop? (that doesnt explain the fans going up though)

you mentioned vsync, i want you to test with it disabled (dont worry, i dont want this to be a solution since i hate tearing, just want to see if the card gets confused & underclocks itself)

I tried removing the TV, only displying on the TV, nothing changed much on that part, although I did try extensively with mirrored screens.

It's not actually decoding video, just playing a game... not sure how that's relevant.

I'll try with vsync off tonight and report the results.

 

[kn00tcn]

It's not actually decoding video, just playing a game... not sure how that's relevant.

oops, i think i forgot to finish my thought there, you mentioned you have a habit of surfing, so if you had things like youtube open or any other gpu accelerated video, your game performance will drop

 

[sakai4eva]

oops, i think i forgot to finish my thought there, you mentioned you have a habit of surfing, so if you had things like youtube open or any other gpu accelerated video, your game performance will drop

No I usually just surf stuff like reddit or other forums.

 

[kn00tcn]

No I usually just surf stuff like reddit or other forums.

well... then something must be going horribly wrong like refresh rate, messed up gpu or cpu usage, etc... framerate is only a small part of the data we need to look at

 

[sakai4eva]

well... then something must be going horribly wrong like refresh rate, messed up gpu or cpu usage, etc... framerate is only a small part of the data we need to look at

I know, but currently I'm at my wit's end trying to figure out what is the cause of the problem. Sigh...

 

[silkstone]

Another thing you might want to try is system restore. Especially if it only started yesterday.

 

[sakai4eva]

Ok. I'm idling and my GPU is showing 95% load. No programs are running.

I'm gonna update the drivers and see if that helps.


EDIT: drivers updated and everything seems normal now. Gonna load up Dota and see if it is still wonky.

 

[silkstone]

Ok. I'm idling and my GPU is showing 95% load. No programs are running.

I'm gonna update the drivers and see if that helps.


EDIT: drivers updated and everything seems normal now. Gonna load up Dota and see if it is still wonky.

You might want to run a malware scan. There are a few trojans out there that will mine bit-coins using the gpu without you ever knowing. There is no way you should be idling at 95% gpu usage.

Edit - Don't rely on one scan. Look at TDSS Killer, Malwarebytes, Kaspersky bootdisk and GMER.

 

[sakai4eva]

You might want to run a malware scan. There are a few trojans out there that will mine bit-coins using the gpu without you ever knowing. There is no way you should be idling at 95% gpu usage.

Edit - Don't rely on one scan. Look at TDSS Killer, Malwarebytes, Kaspersky bootdisk and GMER.

GPU load went back up to 90%+ in Dota2 and persists even after exit. Malwarebytes detected a bitminer. Gonna see if I can remove it through malwarebytes or it's gonna be a a bloodbath in my PC.

 

[silkstone]

GPU load went back up to 90%+ in Dota2 and persists even after exit. Malwarebytes detected a bitminer. Gonna see if I can remove it through malwarebytes or it's gonna be a a bloodbath in my PC.

HaHa! I knew it

Look at the other tools I mentioned if malwarebytes doesn't work

You may even have to go advanced using HiJack this and other tools if it proves especially problematic to remove.

 

[sakai4eva]

HaHa! I knew it

Look at the other tools I mentioned if malwarebytes doesn't work

You may even have to go advanced using HiJack this and other tools if it proves especially problematic to remove.

THANK YOU SO MUCH! Malwarebytes caught all of it. It was a bitcoin miner as suspected. I wish I can click the thanks button more than once!

 

[silkstone]

No problem. Glad you got it sorted. Malware is becoming a PITA nowadays. I'd recommend investing in some different AV software.

Edit - You may want to give a quick pass with GMER to make sure there was nothing more nefarious on there with it.