Anniversary update breaking performance?

[Cinder Fell]

This is the last place I'd go to deal with my problems but I have no other option, since I've already tried everything,

Has anyone else been having severe FPS drops and freezing since the recent Anniversary update? before the update My FPS averaged around 60-140 with no jittering or freezing on low settings. I have an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 and 8 gigs of ram, and since Overwatch 2's launch I've only had great performance, but since this update it's only been bad.

spawning into some games gives me around 0.5-5 FPS for around 30 seconds before MAYBE improving so I can see a little, averaging 30-50 FPS and dropping down frequently. But that's only some games. Most games I play give me low (5-20 FPS) spawning in for the first time and in a good game I'd average my usual max 150 FPS, but it would constantly freeze and stutter, with occasional severe frame drops.

This behavior is brand new to me. Before the 19th I'd spawn in with 140, and average that even in situations in-game that would be deemed intensive computer-wise. Now it's like I'm playing on a large sweet potato.

My first assumption was the drivers, and this is where I began to see hints. I downloaded the newest NVIDIA drivers (VER. 537.34) after a single game with bad performance, but after that it never got better, sometimes even getting worse. I don't know if it's Overwatch just breaking performance, Or the drivers. If it weren't for the out-of-game problems I would assume it'd be 100% Overwatch, but since the update, Steam has been glitchy, taking significant time to open after exiting Overwatch, giving me the impression it might be the Drivers, since opening the Geforce experience app felt off when opening it when I was going to update.

And I know I'm not the only one with this recent performance issue, because while attempting to fix the game, some players in-game said that they had the same issue with the update, but a lot of people say they don't.

I have done nothing to warrant Overwatch 2 breaking like this; I played normally one day, and then the next it was unplayable, with no other game suffering the same fate. I'd like to know WHY this happened, or at the very least get closure that I'm not the only one having this very issue.

Edit: To add, Overwatch 2 has begun taking significantly more RAM than before the update, almost 4 gigs in the main menu alone according to task manager. Eventually it would stabilize, but the framerate would hardly ever improve, even with both the CPU and the RAM not under any real stress. Battle.net also has the same performance issues

Another Edit: I have completely concluded that is exclusively Overwatch. After playing Cyberpunk 2077 (a very intensive game for my system) for a few minutes, I wanted to see if it was actually just overwatch and fully not my computer, because hypothetically if it wasn't the Overwatch update ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ up my performance and a side effect of my PC having a fit, Cyberpunk would run with similar performance, and yep, it runs just fine. Not only that, but Steam also did not bug out and freeze after shutting down the game.

ANOTHER another edit: A few hours ago NVIDIA released a new driver version. After downloading it, it showed absolutely no change to performance whatsoever.

Final (probably) edit:
After watching Overwatch's resource behavior involving my ram, I noticed that it in the main menu it would increasingly take more and more ram over time. I thought I could be a memory leak, so when searching for something like it I found this post https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/partially-solvedserious-cpu-and-memory-leak-issue/753381 detailing a similar occurrence.

The solution for it was to delete the Documents\Overwatch\Settings\Settings_v0.ini file, and surprisingly it fully worked. At first it ran with minor freezing but no frame drops, but after a few games it seemed to have gone back to normal. It still takes more resources than it definitely should, but at least the gameplay doesn't suffer as a result anymore.

I can't guarantee this solution working for others but it definitely worked for me, and in case you're wondering what the file is exactly, it just stores what graphics settings you pick for the most part, so nothing really time consuming will be reverted in case you do delete it.

[Basarab Laiota]

It's fine for me. Try verifying integrity of game files via Steam?

[Cinder Fell]

Originally posted by Basarab Laiota:

It's fine for me. Try verifying integrity of game files via Steam?

I should have probably mentioned in the post that I have tried both Steam and Battle.net and have gotten the same performance issues and that I reinstalled Overwatch, but after verifying just now it has come up with no problem.

[Mave]

got the same issue, its really unplayable, reinstalling used to fix it in past but u said it didn't do anything for u ?

[MasterJack]

same issue i had resolved it by going from win 10 to win11 not sure what changed but seemed to fix it now

[AlciB]

Cyberpunk runs fine on a 1650 and 8 gigs of ram? Interesting. I have older hardware as well - but a 1070 and 32gbs of ram, and have no problems with either game. Newer games do give some struggles.. compounded, I'm sure, but every freakin game not named BattleBit being a console behemoth with an afterthought PC port. I digress 💁‍♀️.

I'm aware you're aware of the hardware though. I don't have an explanation for why the sudden increase in resources, though this happens sometimes after patches.

I checked the bug reports and don't see many recent complaints on this. Newest one is from two days ago. Here's the link if curious: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/anyone-suffering-from-severe-fps-drops-while-in-game/848878

I didn't browse too much to see if there's a larger thread.

[Cinder Fell]

Originally posted by Mean Peaches:

Cyberpunk runs fine on a 1650 and 8 gigs of ram? Interesting. I have older hardware as well - but a 1070 and 32gbs of ram, and have no problems with either game. Newer games do give some struggles.. compounded, I'm sure, but every freakin game not named BattleBit being a console behemoth with an afterthought PC port. I digress 💁‍♀️.

I'm aware you're aware of the hardware though. I don't have an explanation for why the sudden increase in resources, though this happens sometimes after patches.

I checked the bug reports and don't see many recent complaints on this. Newest one is from two days ago. Here's the link if curious: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/anyone-suffering-from-severe-fps-drops-while-in-game/848878

I didn't browse too much to see if there's a larger thread.

I have to say Cyberpunk definitely ran better before the newest 2.0 update updating the spec requirements, but after 4 hours of gameplay even with the newest update tanking performance significantly, it was still at least justifiable with its resource management, especially with my RAM being short of the spec minimum now, and at least it was still playable (barely at some points)

But with Overwatch I find it literally taking up 80% of my CPU in task manager IN THE MAIN MENU when loading up the game, which is obviously not supposed to happen. At least I have the knowledge that others have the same exact issue lol.

[Mave]

it feels like it keeps loading the shaders and assets for every single frame every time i launch the game so every shot every ability every visual effect freezes the game for 30secs until its loaded so after like 10 games the drops ease up and start becoming playable kind of..
and as u mentioned even in the main menu for some reason using so much resources and still drops upon clicking anything

[Cinder Fell]

Originally posted by Mave:

it feels like it keeps loading the shaders and assets for every single frame every time i launch the game so every shot every ability every visual effect freezes the game for 30secs until its loaded so after like 10 games the drops ease up and start becoming playable kind of..
and as u mentioned even in the main menu for some reason using so much resources and still drops upon clicking anything

At a certain point of playing the game for me it would definitely ease up, but with the freezing still persisting, which is what keeps the game in the unplayable state for me. I just hope it's temporary because of the patch and not something secret I have to do to fix it, because for me Overwatch's predecessor for scratching my "team-based Multiplayer FPS" itch was TF2, and I'd preferably play Overwatch lol.