Low FPS Until I Restart PC

[CK011885]

I recently reinstalled Windows 10 64-bit and the problem began after that, it was fine before hand. Basically, I go into a game and get 20 FPS. The game doesn't matter, I'm playing four different games at the moment and it's exactly 20 in all of them. Restarting the PC fixes the issue for awhile, but it's happened a few times. I thought maybe my GPU wasn't shifting into 3D clocks but according to MSI Afterburner it is. Same goes for my CPU, I thought maybe it was stuck in power saving underclock but it's 4.2ghz while the game is running.

I've also tried both reinstalling my nVidia drivers and using different drivers, but the issue persists. Any ideas what might be causing this and how to resolve it?

 

[xvi]

I assume this is with the GTX 970 in your system specs? That's pretty odd. Some.. weird.. Vsync thing? Next time it happens, maybe check anything unusual for Vsync under the nvidia control panel? Make sure it's not forced enabled. Might even try forcing it to disabled for all 3D applications to see if that fixes it without rebooting.

How often does it do this?

Edit: Maybe watch GPU-z too? See if it's perfcap'd for any reason while gaming (wouldn't imagine so though).

 

[CK011885]

Yeah it's the GTX 970, it's happened a number of times already. Signing out of Windows and signing right back in seems to fix it (Side note, is that basically the same thing as a restart?). Both V-Sync and G-Sync are enabled in nVidia control panel, I read somewhere that it's supposed to be that way. The way I understood it, if V-Sync is off, the FPS won't cap at your monitor's refresh rate and will go above. If it's on, G-Sync does the work while at or under the monitor refresh rate, and above is when V-Sync kicks in. I'll try fiddling with the sync settings though the next time this occurs.

The only thing I can think of is maybe this is happening when there's an extended period of time where I'm not using the PC. Like today, I had class and was out from 4-10pm and it happened when I got home, but games were running fine before I left. In the power options, I don't have anything set to sleep and manually turn my monitor off/on.

 

[Mussels]

try turning off Gsync, it could be bugging out. i've heard of this as a problem with fallout 4, for example.

 

[xorbe]

Do you have any other add-in cards? Same exact report in this thread.
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1880933

 

[Jack1n]

I had the same issue with my 7970, download gpu-z and check with that if it actually goes into 3rd.

 

[CK011885]

So it turns out it is a CPU issue. My CPU isn't kicking into a higher clocks during games. I tried a second game and it seems to be the same problem. While the game is loading, it goes to 4.2GHZ but when the game is done loading, the clock speed drops back down to under 2GHZ.

http://i.imgur.com/7bRcFIA.jpg

It doesn't seem to be permanently stuck in lower clocks, when I initially open a program or do things, I see it going up to 4.2GHZ for a few moment while loading. Short of disabling SpeedStep in the BIOS, is there some way to resolve this issue?

Edit: I don't know if a mod wants to move this to another sub-forum since it turned out not to be related to my GPU.

 

[xorbe]

This is why I peg my cpu to 100% min/max for gaming in the windows power control panel. Easiest fps boost ever.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Your System Specs don't say how much memory you have installed. You maybe don't have enough. Restarting the computer clears the memory.

 

[R-T-B]

That's the kind of advice I expect from that random one post wonder, not someone who's been here for 3 years.

*shrugs*

I do it too. Though only because some games I still play seem to handle CPU scaling badly with the day/night cycle (Gothic 3 is one such poorly coded example).

I doubt it does much for FPS.

 

[CK011885]

Your System Specs don't say how much memory you have installed. You maybe don't have enough. Restarting the computer clears the memory.

I have 8GB, sorry, I'll update my specs now. I don't think it's a memory issue though, just something odd with SpeedStep. I decided to go and disable SpeedStep for a few days just to see if it happens again or not. It's not a huge deal in the winter, but it gets hot in my room in the summer and for temperature purposes I'd like to be able to keep it on then.

 

[xorbe]

*shrugs*

I do it too. Though only because some games I still play seem to handle CPU scaling badly with the day/night cycle (Gothic 3 is one such poorly coded example).

I doubt it does much for FPS.

Yeah it doesn't affect all games. I couldn't even put a percentage on it. But some titles definitely don't keep the cpu spooled up, sort of like when people need nvidia's "prefer max performance" to keep the gpu spooled up. So, when I'm using the pc, the clocks are ready to go. I have shortcuts on the desktop that turn power savings off and on.

 

[R-T-B]

Yeah it doesn't affect all games. I couldn't even put a percentage on it. But some titles definitely don't keep the cpu spooled up, sort of like when people need nvidia's "prefer max performance" to keep the gpu spooled up. So, when I'm using the pc, the clocks are ready to go. I have shortcuts on the desktop that turn power savings off and on.

Gothic 3 is worse than that. Time actually slows down when the CPU throttles.

 

[xvi]

Gothic 3 is worse than that. Time actually slows down when the CPU throttles.

Wait, what? What does it run on? DOS?