Steam Games Running At extremely low FPS

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Rumbling Titan 5 11 Mar, 2020 @ 7:59am

Hi all,

My steam games suddenly started playing on very very low fps. I'm talking single digits in some cases. Fallout 4 cant go over 9. Rocket league cant even maintain a stable 40 (used to get a smooth 100fps earlier). Divinity Original Sin runs at around 28fps. I used to easily get around 60 in pretty much all my games and would lower my graphics settings a bit often to get better fps. But I'm getting terrible frame rates at even the lowest settings.

Had a windows update a few days back and I'm assuming it started because of it but I remember playing rocket league after that once and it worked fine. Now today it's all just unplayable.

Just to check I quickly downloaded Hyper Light Drifter on Epic Games and it worked smoothly at 60. Played for 10-15 mins and maintained a consistent 59-61 fps so I'm guessing it's a steam only problem. Maybe I'll try some of the other games I have on some other clients but I suspect they'll run smoothly.

Things I've already tried:

1. Updating all drivers.
2. Reinstalling all drivers.
3. Disabling the DVR in windows 10. Had read somewhere that it might help.
4. Reinstalling the game. But guessing its not a particular game issue since all steam games are lrunning on low fps.
5. Starting steam and/or the game in admin mode.
6. Starting steam in big picture mode.
7. Changing the graphics setting on individual games to high performance in windows 10.
8. Going into nvidia settings and individually selecting the nvidia driver for games both before I started the games as well as when they were already running.

I have a slightly older laptop bought at the tail end of 2016 if I'm not mistaken.

ASUS GL552VW
Intel Core i7-6700HQ
Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M
16GB RAM

I know it's not the most powerful computer to have but I've never had such serious issues while playing any games.

Any help would be much appreciated.

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Showing 1-15 of 16 comments

nullable 11 Mar, 2020 @ 10:02am

First off your post and details are pretty good compared to some of the garbage help requests posted here, so cheers.

Well to my knowledge hyper light drifter isn't quite as gpu intensive as the steam games you mentioned....

The games you mentioned being 3d, and hyper light drifter being a pretty sprite game...

You might want to try a more equivalent test before making your assumption. One thing I didn't see mentioned were cpu/GPU temps under load for those games. I've had experience where a bad gpu fan made demanding games run bad, but less demanding games were fine because the passive cooling was sufficient. So ruling temps out would be next on my list to check.

Last edited by nullable; 11 Mar, 2020 @ 10:02am

ᴠᴀʀ 11 Mar, 2020 @ 10:21am

Yeah, nicely detailed first post.

Have you tried rolling back drivers? I haven't got the latest release yet.

You can find all the releases here :
https://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx
https://i.imgur.com/0ECySC3.jpg

You can download HWmonitor here to check for temps and load to see if the gpu is actually doing something. : https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

edit : Hello, Ambia and #the-lounge

Last edited by ᴠᴀʀ; 20 Aug, 2023 @ 11:54am

Knightsundere 11 Mar, 2020 @ 10:58am

Hyper Light Drifter is a little more intensive than most people give it credit for, but Brock is right in that it's not a fair comparison.

However, if you were playing Fallout 4 with more than 9 FPS on a 960M (a gpu I used to operate with), it sounds like one of your other parts was pulling some serious weight. CPU is probably the culprit but I'd make sure your RAM's acting normal too.

Last edited by Knightsundere; 11 Mar, 2020 @ 10:59am

Rumbling Titan 5 11 Mar, 2020 @ 11:10pm

Hey. so you guys were right. its not a steam only issue. had a bunch of free games on epic game store. installed assassin's creed syndicate and even at lowest settings, with half hd resolution the game can't go over 20fps.

also checked by cpu usage while playing. seems to be normal. nothing thats causing it to go berserk while playing. the temperature seem alright as well.

going to try rolling back some drivers and see if this helps. fingers crossed.

Out Of Bubblegum 11 Mar, 2020 @ 11:49pm

Make sure your system has not defaulted back to using the CPU graphics. Check what Steam says the graphics are.

Rumbling Titan 5 15 Mar, 2020 @ 9:40pm

Originally posted by Out Of Bubblegum:
Make sure your system has not defaulted back to using the CPU graphics. Check what Steam says the graphics are.

tried this and didn't work. tried rolling back nvidia drivers as well but doesn't seem to change it. the frame rates are just uplayable still.

any more suggestions that i can try out?

Dr.Shadowds 🐉 15 Mar, 2020 @ 10:20pm

Very good first post, and very forward.

Did you go into your Nvidia control panel, and set the high performance?

Did this issue occur when you did an update such as video drivers, windows update, or etc? Or after installing some 3rd party software?

Get MSI afterburner with Riva tuner installed, you need them to display game game overlay to display your hardware status, set it up to display the following.
- CPU usage
- CPU temp
- GPU usage
- GPU temp
- RAM usage

If you're having extreme high usage percentage on cpu, you may experience issues.
If you're having having low, or not hitting 100% usage on GPU, you may experience issues.
if you're having high temp for either CPU or GPU, you may experience issues.
If you're using up all your RAM, you may experience issues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIlMRRlKQGg

Last edited by Dr.Shadowds 🐉; 15 Mar, 2020 @ 10:22pm

Rumbling Titan 5 16 Mar, 2020 @ 12:29am

Originally posted by Dr.Shadowds 🐉:
Very good first post, and very forward.

Did you go into your Nvidia control panel, and set the high performance?

Did this issue occur when you did an update such as video drivers, windows update, or etc? Or after installing some 3rd party software?

Get MSI afterburner with Riva tuner installed, you need them to display game game overlay to display your hardware status, set it up to display the following.
- CPU usage
- CPU temp
- GPU usage
- GPU temp
- RAM usage

If you're having extreme high usage percentage on cpu, you may experience issues.
If you're having having low, or not hitting 100% usage on GPU, you may experience issues.
if you're having high temp for either CPU or GPU, you may experience issues.
If you're using up all your RAM, you may experience issues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIlMRRlKQGg

Thanks a lot for this.

I have already selected high performce in nvidia and have made that as the default graphics card. Didn't seem to work though.

Let me try this afterburner thing and post it back here.

thanks a ton.

ᴠᴀʀ 24 Mar, 2020 @ 2:02pm

If all else fails, go here :
https://www.ifixit.com/News/32127/how-to-find-out-exactly-what-laptop-model-you-have

-Follow instructions
-Remove the backpanel
-Check CPU and RAM, if you have 2 dimms for example, take 1 out. And test vice versa. Use replacement dimms if you have them.

-Make sure the exaust and airflow (Also the CPU fan) are clean of dust or other crap. No stuff between the ribs of the heatsink. Air has to flow freely. Replacing thermals also wouldn't be a bad idea.

Last edited by ᴠᴀʀ; 24 Mar, 2020 @ 2:03pm

crunchyfrog 24 Mar, 2020 @ 2:39pm

As I see you've already tried the check of seeing if your Nvidia card is set as default (Windows updates can commonly screw that up), I'll just suggest a general bit of help, as I've been reminded of this in recent days setting up a new laptop myself.

Basically, after a Windows update where it causes issues, suspect it has had the potential to move ANY setting back to default. Whether graphics card settings, aesthetic settings or whatever.

It's just a case of sitting down and physically going through eveything that you think you've altered from the normal.

My first point of fiddling would be to go to the nvidia control panel and see what the default options are for opening games in general and seeing what's there.. Fiddle with it until you hopefully get it to where it comfortably is either the same as you were before or close to.

Then, WRITE THOSE SETTINGS DOWN.

Makes it easier next time Windows update decides to mess with you :)

#10

QC-TheArchitect 18 Apr, 2020 @ 2:06pm

Hi Rumbling Titan 5, i have this same problem since a few weeks... i can't repost everything i tried but here's a link to my reddit post : https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgamingtechsupport/comments/fyffdd/gtx1080_low_fps_on_older_games/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

My specs : i6 8600K @ 4.4/4.8 boost
16gb DDR4 3200mhz
GTX1080 @ 2100 mhz....
Nvme SSD

.. i'm having low fps in GoldenEye Source and Cod MW3, but i run COD MW 2019 at 125 fps (capped) pretty stable..what the ?

#11

QC-TheArchitect 19 Apr, 2020 @ 4:06am

New update man, I just played GoldenEye Source on my laptop, guess what ? 178-289 FPS
Specs : i7 4710HQ, 8GB single stick of RAM, GTX 850M, Windows 7 on an SSD.
I am so pissed, i get better fps than my high end pc...

#12

QC-TheArchitect 2 May, 2020 @ 3:46am

Looks like it was a Windows problem, i reinstalled everything again and it is fine. I can post a screenshot another day if you wish..lol ! Don't be so mad. Oh and OC never broke a game for me... and everything is running fine with it actually, just like before.

#13