So having alot of lagging issues on games running trough steam only *(also applies to softwares i have on steam aswell)

[It's Ya boy! , Taboo m8 o7]

So for about a 1 and a half year now ive been having insane lagging\stuttering\choppy\freezing issues with games\software what ever as long as it runs trough steam.

i have tried changing ssd's \hdd's with no luck.

i tried reinstalling Os quick and clean install still problem presisting.

someone suggesting checking ram's So i taken em out and replaced them with no changes.

also tried a hardware ram checking build in software (cannot remeber the name it was called) that are build into the Os the rams seems fine with that are thankful ram is not broken or corrupt,

also noticed recently that games\softwares are reinstalling them self and then everything are even worse then normal really annoying (tried deleting the appdata for each ggame i am deleting in the steam folder reboot or restarting steam and the games are back installed no clue whats this is about or if its a bug causing my lags.

tried uninstalling everything on steam and installling only a few games\softwares i use at a regular basis (with no luck)

tried unplugging external hdd\sdd (worked like a charm for 1 day before the issues came back (was sad to see that was not the issue either)

i do still try to play the games\ use the software i have but it gets on my nervers over the course of the day.

finmaly my specs are :


Operating System
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

CPU
AMD Ryzen 9

RAM
32,0GB

Motherboard
Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd. B450 AORUS ELITE (AM4)

Graphics
OMEN by HP 27
I (2560x1440@165Hz)

BenQ GL2450H (1920x1080@60Hz)

4095MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (MSI)

(old as time itself but its what i can afford with the still insane prices of gpu's)

hopefully someone has a clue as what is causing these issues , i never had any of these issues either on any of the windows Os's only on win 10 (not saying its windows 10 thats the issue just find it a bit weird it starts going dodo with i install win 10 on the machine (it was a complete clean install btw)

i will also say i have no issues what so ever with any stuttering , lag , freeze hangups or what not on any other software or gam,es not running trough steam. (that what i find to be really really odd (had it been an ram\hdd\ssd issue it would had been an issue on most things not just steam spesific.

Anyway hope someone can help me
I thank you for the time.

[Jamebonds1]

Which game that you have issue with?

[Elucidator]

Nvidia GPU issues:
These problems often happen with nvidia cards, but people tend to ignore it. Usually it spreads everywhere, not just on Steam.
Yeah Nvidia usually is not good long term. Idk what it is, but too many (in my opinion) users have fps issues and other problems, usually with cards long after release. And reviewers often only test cards at release.

I assume you tested out the latest driver and other driver versions too?
I mean clean OS,... considering its half a year I guess you also tried a different OS?
linux has an opensource driver that doesn't do every card and not 100% either, but perhaps it does well with your card currently.

I doubt its heat at least. (I am guessing the fans and the heat sink is dust free)
Anyway what I am saying is that nvidia primarily focusses on sales so they focus on their latest products. They're also known to be annoying to work with (as a company I mean). They don't support gamers and game developers, they don't share details on their driver or opensource it, so it makes making things nvidia compatible very hard and hard to keep up.
This is why intel graphics and amd graphics (the other two major gpu players) have been giving a better experience to users (especially those less wealthy (who don't buy a new gpu every year), and those who buy older models as well as who use a PC that is 6+ years old or use a very old version of a specific driver.)

Anyway, no clue what you can do about it.

The reason why it happens when something is launched through Steam likely has to do with the Overlay, which is there even if it is disabled. The overlay is a browser window (chromium browser) that loads on top of the game.

You could test to see if the lag also happens when you use discord's overlay in the game or some other chromium based software I guess, but -- at any rate, the point is that it increases the load on your GPU.

You can maybe mitigate some of it by disabling GPU accelerated webrendering and some other options.



Recent weird reinstall behavior:
This is something separate. You should test the drives their S.M.A.R.T. status to see if there is corruption. Its possible there is and this causes steam to quickly find corrupt data, causing it to validate/reinstall.

It is recommended that you disable pre-caching on Steam, perhaps it would also better optimize gameplay experience in your case. (it causes the compiler to compile shaders on your gpu for your gpu specifically instead of downloading precompiled shaders)

(small edit: Tip on the GPU issue: make sure you minimize stuff rendered on your gpu while testing things, so look everywhere to see what uses the gpu. )

[Neg4tiveKD]

For a good majority of games the GTX970 should still be ok. I was using one until about 6 months ago and while you couldn't "max the settings", it still held up ok given the age. In saying that, have you tried running with just one monitor to see if it might be starting to struggle a bit with dual outputs?

For the other issues - ??? Games don't really "run through Steam" per se.

- Have you got GAME MODE turned on?
- Are there definitely no other programs running in the background?
- Have you tried running Steam as an administrator?
- Have you tried running something like Smart Game Booster or similar to see if that helps?
- Have you looked at You Tube Videos about the best Nvidia Control Panel Settings (particularly if Image Scaling is available for that card)?

Good luck mate.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

NVIDIA or AMD GPU settings will play ZERO role in a game client acting up, period.

- Disable Hibernation via CMD

- Disable Game Mode / Xbox Gamebar

- Go to properties for Game Clients and any Game EXE and apply "Disable Full Screen Optimization" for All Users

- Do not allow Game Clients to "Start with Windows"

- Always launch game clients via Run As Admin. This in-turn ensures the game client has proper write ability where needed and this Run As Admin launching of a client also extends to anything you launch from said client, like a game for example.

- For Steam Client, go to Settings > Library and tick the options for "Low Performance" and "Low Bandwidth" modes. This acts as a "Data Saver" of sorts and also helps overall system performance whenever viewing anything within your Steam Library via the Steam Client.

- Install latest Ryzen Chipset Driver and reboot, then set Windows Power Options to "AMD Ryzen Balanced" power profile. Edit any power profile you use and set "HDD Sleep Timer" to 0 / None.

- Ensure you Win10 or 11 is fully up to date. Not everyone receives the same exact Windows Updates all at the same time; such as Feature Updates for example, which is a totally new build of said OS. To force the latest Feature Update upon your OS, download the Media Creation Tool from MS based on the OS you have; so either from the Win10 website, if using Win10; or from the Win11 website if using Win11. As the MCT pertains to the OS at-hand based on the site you get it from. The latest MCT will always provide you with the full and latest OS build that is available as per deemed "Public Stable Build"

I have personally ran 3x Displays that were each 1080p (16:9) or higher since the GTX 680 came out. It shouldn't be of any issues on a GTX 970. However, I would not suggest using any Displays above 75Hz on a GTX 970, especially ones that are 1440p or higher, as this GPU isn't really powerful enough for that. For example, it can't handle most games running smooth enough on a 1440p/165Hz Display if that res+refresh is what you are using within your Games. I would limit to using 1080p @ around 75Hz max on a GTX 970. I have however used 1080p/75Hz Display on GTX 970 for Gaming, while having a secondary 4K/60Hz Display hooked up to it at the same time to use for displaying all my monitoring software, web browser, youtube, etc. and it did not impact my gaming performance. Gaming on a 1440p/165Hz Display on a GTX 970 is not realistic though as it can barely handle most games well enough @ 1080p/60

The latest GPU Driver will not always be the best. If you experience issues with very latest driver, download and run the DDU app. Use it to reboot into Safe Mode. Once in Safe Mode select your GPU (Intel, NVIDIA, AMD) and then select "Clean and Restart". Once back in Windows normally, go and download a slightly older GPU Driver Version and install that and give that a try and see how it does. Remember to always restart Windows after a major driver install such as Motherboard Chipset or GPU. In the DDU app, after you had rebooted but before you click to "Clean and Restart"; tick the box for "Disable Windows Auto Driver Installer". This will stop Windows OS from auto downloading/installing Drivers via Windows Updates Service without asking, thus making them now Optional. Always get drivers such as Chipset or GPU directly from AMD, Intel, NVIDIA websites.

[It's Ya boy! , Taboo m8 o7]

Originally posted by Elucidator:

Nvidia GPU issues:
These problems often happen with nvidia cards, but people tend to ignore it. Usually it spreads everywhere, not just on Steam.
Yeah Nvidia usually is not good long term. Idk what it is, but too many (in my opinion) users have fps issues and other problems, usually with cards long after release. And reviewers often only test cards at release.

I assume you tested out the latest driver and other driver versions too?
I mean clean OS,... considering its half a year I guess you also tried a different OS?
linux has an opensource driver that doesn't do every card and not 100% either, but perhaps it does well with your card currently.

I doubt its heat at least. (I am guessing the fans and the heat sink is dust free)
Anyway what I am saying is that nvidia primarily focusses on sales so they focus on their latest products. They're also known to be annoying to work with (as a company I mean). They don't support gamers and game developers, they don't share details on their driver or opensource it, so it makes making things nvidia compatible very hard and hard to keep up.
This is why intel graphics and amd graphics (the other two major gpu players) have been giving a better experience to users (especially those less wealthy (who don't buy a new gpu every year), and those who buy older models as well as who use a PC that is 6+ years old or use a very old version of a specific driver.)

Anyway, no clue what you can do about it.

The reason why it happens when something is launched through Steam likely has to do with the Overlay, which is there even if it is disabled. The overlay is a browser window (chromium browser) that loads on top of the game.

You could test to see if the lag also happens when you use discord's overlay in the game or some other chromium based software I guess, but -- at any rate, the point is that it increases the load on your GPU.

You can maybe mitigate some of it by disabling GPU accelerated webrendering and some other options.



Recent weird reinstall behavior:
This is something separate. You should test the drives their S.M.A.R.T. status to see if there is corruption. Its possible there is and this causes steam to quickly find corrupt data, causing it to validate/reinstall.

It is recommended that you disable pre-caching on Steam, perhaps it would also better optimize gameplay experience in your case. (it causes the compiler to compile shaders on your gpu for your gpu specifically instead of downloading precompiled shaders)

(small edit: Tip on the GPU issue: make sure you minimize stuff rendered on your gpu while testing things, so look everywhere to see what uses the gpu. )

i appricate the answer and suggestions i will look into the things you suggested
also i was not aware that nvidia was not gamer friendly im planning on getting an amd gpu within the end of year hopefully prices are a bit more eh stable for non wealthy ppl too :P

but i try to think on life as an learning experince and if 1 learn anything new that day is a good day. so i thank you for the reply :)

[Elucidator]

Originally posted by Taboovector:

i was not aware that nvidia was not gamer friendly im planning on getting an amd gpu within the end of year hopefully prices are a bit more eh stable for non wealthy ppl too :P

Its kinda tricky to see, but its in the little details.

What I usually do is look at errors and bug reports and such.
For example, I would search here:
https://forums.unrealengine.com/tags/c/development-discussion/11/fps
and then look at what people with these issues use and what people who don't have these issues use.
or search popular games on fps performance (or crashes):
https://steamcommunity.com/app/730/discussions/search/?q=fps&gidforum=882957625821686010
I usually look for results about popular cards that have been used for a while, and see if they 'improved over time'

Usually you expect a developer to maintain the driver and fix any bugs users encounter, but-- oddly enough basically they stop fixing stuff and such (at nvidia)

On this list you'll find that intel and amd issues become pretty rare. I realize most people use nvidia cards, (like there are 6 times as many users using nvidia cards than amd for example), but instead of finding 6 times more bug reports, you find 60 of them, before you find one complaint from an amd user somewhere, oddly enough. Its really weird.


Also nvidia's business practises are kinda scetchy, and require criticism I think. Take this for example (yes even youtubers complain about it despite being fan):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfIibTBaoMM

We ... expect cards to function for life time basically and both amd and intel do that pretty much even when they stop supporting the driver. With nvidia it works if you stop updating windows and such, seemingly.
On that note it will likely work well on linux and older windows systems. e.e;
idk what it is basically. Just speculating.

brand shouldn't matter for games, but when the business is prioritizing money from wallets over developing and maintaining, well-- yeah-- e.e;;
idk what nvidia is doing basically.

[It's Ya boy! , Taboo m8 o7]

Originally posted by Jamebonds1:

Which game that you have issue with?

every game i play tru steam all from old games to newer games , tried sniper elite 3 couple of months ago but it was to choopy that i gave up .

[It's Ya boy! , Taboo m8 o7]

Originally posted by Neg4tiveKD:

For a good majority of games the GTX970 should still be ok. I was using one until about 6 months ago and while you couldn't "max the settings", it still held up ok given the age. In saying that, have you tried running with just one monitor to see if it might be starting to struggle a bit with dual outputs?

For the other issues - ??? Games don't really "run through Steam" per se.

- Have you got GAME MODE turned on?
not sure were this can be turned on or off , have to look into this.

- Are there definitely no other programs running in the background?
ofc there are other softwares running in the background but i dont get any issues while i play tru other lanchers or games\softwares not tru steam.
- Have you tried running Steam as an administrator?
always does this after a other issue and it became force of habit but good suggestion.

- Have you tried running something like Smart Game Booster or similar to see if that helps?
never heard of this , must read up on that.

- Have you looked at You Tube Videos about the best Nvidia Control Panel Settings (particularly if Image Scaling is available for that card)?
no i can see it that helps it.


Good luck mate.

thank you for replying and hopeful i find a perm. solution.

[It's Ya boy! , Taboo m8 o7]

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

NVIDIA or AMD GPU settings will play ZERO role in a game client acting up, period.

- Disable Hibernation via CMD

- Disable Game Mode / Xbox Gamebar

- Go to properties for Game Clients and any Game EXE and apply "Disable Full Screen Optimization" for All Users

- Do not allow Game Clients to "Start with Windows"

- Always launch game clients via Run As Admin. This in-turn ensures the game client has proper write ability where needed and this Run As Admin launching of a client also extends to anything you launch from said client, like a game for example.

- For Steam Client, go to Settings > Library and tick the options for "Low Performance" and "Low Bandwidth" modes. This acts as a "Data Saver" of sorts and also helps overall system performance whenever viewing anything within your Steam Library via the Steam Client.

- Install latest Ryzen Chipset Driver and reboot, then set Windows Power Options to "AMD Ryzen Balanced" power profile. Edit any power profile you use and set "HDD Sleep Timer" to 0 / None.

- Ensure you Win10 or 11 is fully up to date. Not everyone receives the same exact Windows Updates all at the same time; such as Feature Updates for example, which is a totally new build of said OS. To force the latest Feature Update upon your OS, download the Media Creation Tool from MS based on the OS you have; so either from the Win10 website, if using Win10; or from the Win11 website if using Win11. As the MCT pertains to the OS at-hand based on the site you get it from. The latest MCT will always provide you with the full and latest OS build that is available as per deemed "Public Stable Build"

I have personally ran 3x Displays that were each 1080p (16:9) or higher since the GTX 680 came out. It shouldn't be of any issues on a GTX 970. However, I would not suggest using any Displays above 75Hz on a GTX 970, especially ones that are 1440p or higher, as this GPU isn't really powerful enough for that. For example, it can't handle most games running smooth enough on a 1440p/165Hz Display if that res+refresh is what you are using within your Games. I would limit to using 1080p @ around 75Hz max on a GTX 970. I have however used 1080p/75Hz Display on GTX 970 for Gaming, while having a secondary 4K/60Hz Display hooked up to it at the same time to use for displaying all my monitoring software, web browser, youtube, etc. and it did not impact my gaming performance. Gaming on a 1440p/165Hz Display on a GTX 970 is not realistic though as it can barely handle most games well enough @ 1080p/60

The latest GPU Driver will not always be the best. If you experience issues with very latest driver, download and run the DDU app. Use it to reboot into Safe Mode. Once in Safe Mode select your GPU (Intel, NVIDIA, AMD) and then select "Clean and Restart". Once back in Windows normally, go and download a slightly older GPU Driver Version and install that and give that a try and see how it does. Remember to always restart Windows after a major driver install such as Motherboard Chipset or GPU. In the DDU app, after you had rebooted but before you click to "Clean and Restart"; tick the box for "Disable Windows Auto Driver Installer". This will stop Windows OS from auto downloading/installing Drivers via Windows Updates Service without asking, thus making them now Optional. Always get drivers such as Chipset or GPU directly from AMD, Intel, NVIDIA websites.

hi i wanted to say it is alot of useful suggestion you written here i will take a good look into ure suggestions , never thought 165hz and the 1440p or higher would be a issue on the gpu at all i might try this to see if that can fix the issue , though i find it odd it works on other non steam games but u might be on to something here , in any case i will do a bit of trial and error over the next week(s) but i thank you for taking the time to answering my issue :)

[It's Ya boy! , Taboo m8 o7]

Originally posted by UberFiend:

Have you unticked GPU Acceleration in Steam, Settings, Interface? (& web browser Advanced Settings)

hello i had not did now , gonna come back in a while if that fixed the issue(s)

[It's Ya boy! , Taboo m8 o7]

well i now have bought a new gpu amd radeon rx 6600 8gb swift 210
unfortunaly for me games still lag freeze , lags and flat out crashing so i can rule out it was the gpu causing the issues now ( cannot get freesynch to work either , though gsynch was working without any issues.

next on my list will be getting 2 new ssd's next time i can afford that and see ifd that sort it

[76561198343548661]

Check CPU/GPU temp . Run a benchmark to compare the results .GPU-Z can show cap reasons , if any . Try only with one monitor

i ve got a hdd , no ssd and games run fine .

[GOD RAYS ON ULTRA™]

Originally posted by Taboovector:

next on my list will be getting 2 new ssd's next time i can afford that and see ifd that sort it

Why? You said it yourself that you narrowed it down to steam games so why don't you try disabling some steam features like the overlay for starters. Remote play next. Disable broadcasting. Unplug game pads etc..

Originally posted by smallcat:

Try only with one monitor

This is another good suggestion that I would try before throwing more money at the issue. Fallout 4 is fussy with more than one screen so I wouldn't be surprised if other games throw a complete fuss with an extra screen installed. You just have to shut your pc down and unhook it and see.

Try opting into the steam beta and use the most recent release of steam and try.