Sudden FPS problem - Can No Longer Play Games

[Marty]

Hi guys,

On Sunday evening, I noticed Arma Reforger was lagging. At the same time, my FPS was less than 10 and ever since, it's stayed that way.

When I load into the game, the FPS can be as high as 120 but as soon as I join a server, it now drops to less than 10, making the game unplayable.

I'm using a 6 month old Acer Nitro 5 gaming laptop and until now, it has been faultless. I only use the laptop to play the game and go on the internet.

I just can't understand where this problem has come from. I know very little about computers but so far I've tried virtually every possible solution I've read about online, including:

Resetting laptop to factory settings.
Re-installing Steam and Arma Reforger.
Ensuring latest Nvidea graphics update is on device.
Checking for any performance drains via Task Manager (none that I can see)
Latest Windows update was already on device so nothing to change there.
Ensuring high performance settings active in terms of graphics etc.
Changing to lower performance settings to detect any possible changes (none)
Adjusted Arma settings in game to be less demanding on laptop (even though it works perfectly on higher settings beforehand).
Internet connection and relevant stats are good.
No issue with charging and laptop holding full charge.
No bugs that I know of.
Issue is the same for other STEAM games (such as Ready or Not) - I don't have many installed and have plenty of memory left.
No issues with cooling - I've cleaned the fans which were dusty but no improvement thereafter has been detected.

I've had about 3 short games since, where the FPS has hovered around 60ish in game but it seems to be a matter of luck if it stays that way.

I'm gutted as I don't know what else to try. Any advice would be very much appreciated!

Thanks,

Marty

[Marty]

Just to add, for what it's worth...

I installed CPU-Z which was part of a potential fix I read about online. I don't really know what it's telling me as I had hoped it would highlight an issue explicitly but I'm faced with lots of figures which I can't really interpret. One thing that did catch my eye regarding the NvidIa GFORCE 3060 RTX is:

Current Performance Level:

GFX Core: 210.0 mhz
Memory: 405.0 mhz

When I select Base Level it states 900mhz and 7001mhz.

When I select Boost - it states 1425mhz and 7001mhz.

Not sure if the above is relevant.

[rictor559]

Is your virus scanner running in the background are you using a VPN? Might try looking at those things and the firewall to they can mess you up depending on what the firewall is. Did it come preloaded with something other than the Microsoft fire wall.

[rictor559]

Oh forgot to add you can right click on the game in Steam menu library and run a Steam fix for the game or delete it and reinstall! My son has a MSI gaming laptop with the Nvidia Gforce 3060 he has no issues.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

So you said issue on Acer Nitro 5 gaming laptop ?

So when I check specs, here are my questions please answer them.

1. Are you using HDD in laptop?

- If yes defrag your HDD, afterwards get Crystal disk info, run it as admin, and should check your HDD health if there anything wrong with it, if your HDD has high usage while playing it can cause performance loss same for SSDs as well.

- If no get Crystal disk info, run it as admin, and should check your SSD health if there anything wrong with it, if nothing wrong then move onto question 2.

2. Did you do all your updates on your OS, and ensure you install all drivers needed for game to run correctly?

- If no please do so.

- If yes move on.

3. Are you running anything in background, or 3rd party anti virus, not talking about Windows defender.

- If yes ensure those are not causing problems to system performance, nor are they affecting game performance or for it file, and permissions. Some 3rd antivirus do deep scanning that hit performance, or cause problems.

- If no move on.

4. Does your laptop require any special software to function correctly from the manufacturer?

- If yes ensure check what that about, ensure they don't cause performance loss, or other problems, as well ensure Nvidia control panel have high power usage / high performance setting selected to force apps to use GPU for rendering.

- If no, just ensure check if it not power plug related where need have power plug in to get full performance, rare see bad design like that but it can happen if manufacturer make bad decisions.

5. Did you mess with game settings where you set it too high for your GPU to handle it?

- If yes, turn down the settings.

- If no the settings are already low, and having same problem, and it is using GPU, then check the temp of your OS using hardware monitor such as HWMonitor, and check cpu, and GPU temps, if highing to high means your system thermal throttling, trying to avoid from damaging itself.

6. Did check if there any errors for your OS using CMD, and sfc /scannow?

If no, open command prompt as administrator, type: "sfc /scannow" without quotes and wait I until it finished, if no error then should be fine.

If yes, and gotten no errors then should be fine.