Steam games suddenly having poor performance and taking forever to launch

[foster]

As the title suggests, I am encountering a rather nasty issue with Steam lately. Steam games I've tried such as Terraria, Kingdom Two Crowns, and Totally Accurate Battle Simulator all take much longer than usual to load and slow to a crawl when doing anything. These games used to run at 60fps consistently but suddenly they're taking minutes to load after hitting play (loading screen, not a preparing to launch prompt) or slowing down to sub 30fps when doing nothing intensive.

My system specs are an intel i5-9300h, a GTX 1650, and 8gb of ram on Windows 10 with both the OS and Steam (Plus its games) on SSD's. It has to be something related to Steam since Ubisoft and Origin games work perfectly fine with no issues.

I've tried disabling antivirus software, updating drivers, clearing the download cache of Steam, starting Steam in low performance mode, disabling the Steam overlay, tweaking game settings, clean-boots (Despite having no programs but games and Steam/Origin/Ubisoft), and following other Steam guides listed on suppprt to try and fix this. I'm at a loss for ideas since I don't see the CPU, GPU, or memory capping at 100% in task manager (Memory tends to sit at around 50% usage which is normal for these games). I can't think of anything that's the issue but seeing how this happens only to Steam games, it must be related to Steam in some way.

Edit: After a full reinstall of Steam and reinstalls of games that were affected this issue still persists, but only with Steam games. Other things I did was change proxy settings, boot in safe mode, change firewall settings, and completely disable the antivirus (Instead of turning it off I disabled it in the A.V.'s settings). I have pretty much no choice now but to rollback my computer since every support page on Steam has not helped with these issues. I'll post an edit on how it goes but I'm not expecting anything.

[Zekiran]

Why are you using proxy settings?

Are the games trying to start using your onboard graphics chip instead of the full video card?

When SPECIFICALLY did this start happening? Because I'm putting my money on "windows 10 updated behind your back" and changed settings.

[foster]

Never used proxy settings. I'm listing that I checked them because I'm sure someone would ask if not.

Games are starting with GTX 1650, not an integrated one.

Issue started around last night, no Windows updates were installed it said but one was pending download. It is currently rolling back right now which should, theoretically, fix it if it was an update issue. I also have updates on this computer delayed so it doesn't install them right when they're available.

[Zekiran]

Originally posted by Rett:

Never used proxy settings. I'm listing that I checked them because I'm sure someone would ask if not.

Games are starting with GTX 1650, not an integrated one.

Issue started around last night, no Windows updates were installed it said but one was pending download. It is currently rolling back right now which should, theoretically, fix it if it was an update issue. I also have updates on this computer delayed so it doesn't install them right when they're available.

That "pending" might be why. I know it's a slightly different OS than I am using, I'm on 7, but I have had issues when an update was TRYING to run, but not quite getting there.

Either let it install (AFTER checking online if that update contains stuff that you'll want to mitigate anyway) fully, or like you're doing roll back and hope.

[foster]

I should clarify, it was not saying "pending" but it was saying that a feature update was available to download. I would have had to manually select the download button if I wanted it, but seeing how I postponed updates until later (To check if they were causing issues before proceeding) I don't think this could be the problem. Another computer with Steam installed runs perfectly fine and they're exactly the same except for the CPU (i5-9300h vs i5-10300k). The rollback is nearly completed so I'll see how that goes.

[kyr13saint]

I started playing Ark in April. I have a new computer less than a year old, so I have to presume that it is capable of running the most current games. Yet its been this way since I started this game. Took me 3 days to get the update(mostly because I shut it off to sleep!), finally got it, and ran it to make sure it worked, then today I come home and its downloading content again? Im having severe withdrawls, man lol..I get that its a complicated game, but from the forums Im seeing, the problem is Steam. Can I find the game elsewhere?

[Bee🐝]

Originally posted by kyr13saint:

I started playing Ark in April. I have a new computer less than a year old, so I have to presume that it is capable of running the most current games. Yet its been this way since I started this game. Took me 3 days to get the update(mostly because I shut it off to sleep!), finally got it, and ran it to make sure it worked, then today I come home and its downloading content again? Im having severe withdrawls, man lol..I get that its a complicated game, but from the forums Im seeing, the problem is Steam. Can I find the game elsewhere?

Find the shader entry in the Steam Client Settings and change it status.

Edit: And Zekiran has some very good points.

[Zekiran]

Originally posted by kyr13saint:

I started playing Ark in April. I have a new computer less than a year old, so I have to presume that it is capable of running the most current games. Yet its been this way since I started this game. Took me 3 days to get the update(mostly because I shut it off to sleep!), finally got it, and ran it to make sure it worked, then today I come home and its downloading content again? Im having severe withdrawls, man lol..I get that its a complicated game, but from the forums Im seeing, the problem is Steam. Can I find the game elsewhere?

This has nothing to do with the OP's problem dude, why are you jacking this thread?

Ask in the ARK section.

Also, you "ASSUME" that your computer, because it's "new" is also "good". That's a very, very bad assumption, isn't it. If you post over in the Ark forum be prepared with your system information, and you can find that by going up to the top of your steam library window, and click HELP > SYSTEM INFORMATION, and copy the WHOLE list for future reference.

[foster]

last night it finished rolling back and it seems that the issue may have been a shady windows update during the middle of the night that i didnt see and approve. thanks for all the help people.

edit: this is totally the case. a windows 10 update was installing itself constantly and because you cant disable updates it would break steam games no matter what i did. a small windows update came out 2 days after this all though and easily fixed it so my post is resolved.

[kyr13saint]

my apologies. I am new to this format.