Question Game lags suddenly then comes back normal.

[Har15]

I have Acer Nitro 5 gaming laptop and I have been using this for 6 months. It was fine until when I try to play games , the fps drops suddenly for a while and goes back to normal 60 fps again. This has been happening for a while. And I dont know how to fix this. All my games are stored in an HDD (except for Forza Horizon 4, it's saved in local disk). Any suggestions on how to fix this?

These are the games where this happens while playing : -

-> F1 2020
-> Forza Horizon 4
-> Forza Motorsport
-> GTA IV
-> Project Cars 2

If you are thinking why I listed the games because there is one game in exception. And that is Minecraft.

 

[OsaX Nymloth]

Check your temperatures while gaming - fps drops could be happening when your CPU/GPU reaches "too hot" temperature and it's clocks are halted to allow it to cool down a bit before engaging again.

This could also be related to something else, like what other processes/apps are running in the background.

Posting full specs of your Acer would also help!

 

[Har15]

These are the specs : -

AMD Ryzen 5 3550H with Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx 2.10 GHz - 39.6 cm (15.6") LED - 16:9 Full HD - LCD - NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1660Ti Up to 6 GB - 8 GB DDR4 SDRAM
External HDD - 1 TB.

There is a feature in this laptop called as NitroSense, which has option called as coolboost. This helps in reducing the temperature when it is too hot.

 

[OsaX Nymloth]

Thanks for posting specs, this will be helpful.

Now what are the temps when you're playing and slow downs happen?

 

[Har15]

When cpu is at 80C and gpu at 56C

 

[OsaX Nymloth]

That doesn't sound too bad.
First thing I would try to is to stop every program that tries to "boost" your CPU or in any other way try to interfere like that NitroSense. These usually do more wrong than good.

Next thing would be checking for driver updates - also be sure to update Windows 10, as the recent few updates messed up framerates for people. It's been fixed in newest update I believe, so make sure you have this ready.

When you're sure you have stopped them (either close and kill their processes or straight up uninstall) and you have leveled up the field by updating and closing everything unnecesary, check the game again if the bad behavior continues.

 

[Brian Boru]

fps drops suddenly for a while and goes back to normal 60 fps again
…
All my games are stored in an HDD

I'm not familiar with your games, but I wonder if loading them in from an external HDD is causing the problem. Perhaps the games start up before all the necessary is fully loaded, and then have to wait until the external HDD catches up.

 

[Har15]

That doesn't sound too bad.
First thing I would try to is to stop every program that tries to "boost" your CPU or in any other way try to interfere like that NitroSense. These usually do more wrong than good.

Next thing would be checking for driver updates - also be sure to update Windows 10, as the recent few updates messed up framerates for people. It's been fixed in newest update I believe, so make sure you have this ready.

When you're sure you have stopped them (either close and kill their processes or straight up uninstall) and you have leveled up the field by updating and closing everything unnecesary, check the game again if the bad behavior continues.

Yeah that might be possible, but since nitrosense is like installed for acer laptops , i dont think so it might be uninstalled, when it comes to driver updates, i do that regularly. it's all up to date.

Let me try those and hopefully i dont face any the problem again!!
Thanks for the help!!!

 

[Har15]

I'm not familiar with your games, but I wonder if loading them in from an external HDD is causing the problem. Perhaps the games start up before all the necessary is fully loaded, and then have to wait until the external HDD catches up.

Maybe , but since my local disk has not enough space , i bought an external hdd, so that i can install as much games as possible and also keep this as my back up disk.

 

[Brian Boru]

my local disk has not enough space

Is there enough space to install one of those games, so you can establish if the external loading is a problem, or not?

 

[Har15]

Is there enough space to install one of those games, so you can establish if the external loading is a problem, or not?

yes, the external hdd is of 1tb space, of which almost 550 gb is free

 

[Brian Boru]

the external hdd is of 1tb space, of which almost 550 gb is free

No, I meant space on your local/internal drive.

If installing one of the problem games there makes the game run fine, then you know loading from external is a problem—at least for that game, but likely for all.

If the problem persists, then the external is not the cause. Troubleshooting is mainly about eliminating possible causes.

 

[Har15]

In local, total is 475gb, out of which 115g is left. I use the local disk to save my project files. so even if i try to download a game more than 50 gb, i'm afraid it might cause the same problem. thats why i chose external disk to install all the games

 

[OsaX Nymloth]

How about trying to uninstall those apps (yes, they can be removed - it won't void the warranty, laptops usually come with lots of bloatware installed and deleting at least most of them is recommended) and seeing if it persists? You didn't reply back with result so I am just reminding