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Let's say I'm playing Rocket League. I'm maxed out on 250fps, no problems, everything is smooth. Doesn't even matter how long I play it for. Then I switch games, to let's say, minecraft or League of Legends. I get 800fps, no worries - and BOOM:

the game mini-freezes every half second or so. We're talking about (guessing here) a 1/10th of a second freeze every 0.5 seconds. It's not a framedrop, it's a freeze. The fps counter doesn't even register it. It does not matter what I do to the game's settings in this situation. It doesn't matter whether I cap the fps on 60, 100 or let it run wild and hit 800 either. Vertical sync does not seem to do anything either. No setting seem to matter.

Thing is: My pc is not giving a global problem. I can run a movie next to the game (second screen) and it's giving smooth 60fps with no freezing at all. It literally is the game only.

Then I reboot my PC, and voila; Problem solved. Game runs smoothly again and nothing's wrong. This could last for days on end, but then, suddenly, I start a new game and poof: The mini-freezes again. This does convince me that it is a software issue and not a hardware issue (or maybe even firmware, but not hardware) and that's at least something.

Things I've tried so far:

  • DDU graphics uninstall drivers
  • Run Ccleaner afterwards as well and clean the registry
  • Reinstall graphics drivers
  • Ran windows' sfc /scannow many times. It always reports some errors but whatever. Never says it can't fix them.

my system:

  • Motherboard: Asus Maximus Hero VII (Z97 chipset)

  • CPU: Intel 4790K 4.0ghz (I turned off turbo-boost because I deemed it to be useless)

  • RAM: 4*4GB Kingston HyperX Savage (1666mhz)

  • PSU: EVGA Supernova 850 g2 (850W, gold)
  • Graphics card: Sapphire vapor-x (amd) R290 4GB (tri-fan)
  • Windows 10 Pro running on a HyperX Fury 240GB SSD.

-- so far, this issue seems to only be gaming related. Nothing else seems to be suffering, so I'm half-sure it has to do with drivers and AMD just messed it all up again? Looking for advice from someone who knows a bit more about it than I do.

small side detail: I also sometimes have the issue that I want to switch my main audio source, but opening playback devices will take anywhere between 30 seconds and 2 minutes. This also only happens sometimes and is fixed with a reboot. Whether it happens at the exact same time has not been determined yet, but I would guess so.

Update:

I have switched my power mode to high performance and still have the issue. I noticed my sound tab took a while to open up again, and decided to start a game to test it out (I have not yet played any games today, I've only been programming, using PHPStorm and watched a movie) -- I can now confirm that these issues do indeed pop up at the same time. They seem to be related somehow.

NoobishPro
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  • When it gives the mini freezes, does the sound get any impact by it too? Also, what OS are you on? sfc /scannow is a windows command, but its available since XP if not earlier... – LPChip Aug 22 '16 at 19:12
  • @LPChip I honestly don't know. The sound isn't "smooth" enough to notice such short freezes. I know `sfc /scannow` is a windows command :p... But a corrupt windows might've been a cause, that's why I mentioned I already ran that. Anyway; I don't *think* the sound is impacted but I can't say for sure... sidenote: I AM working on a seperate soundcard and not on the videocard's hdmi or anything. – NoobishPro Aug 22 '16 at 22:57
  • I meant to say: Which version of windows are you using? Your post does not mention that. I know windows 8 has problems where at some point a cache is overflowing and suddenly sound is garbled and performance gets very bad. – LPChip Aug 23 '16 at 10:18
  • Also, make sure your PowerScheme is set to High Performance. That may fix your entire problem if its not. – LPChip Aug 23 '16 at 10:19
  • Yeah, setting it to balanced definitely can cause problems because if another program runs side-bys-side, you will get these lag spikes for sure. Other programs can be a virusscanner or windows updates, etc. – LPChip Aug 23 '16 at 10:58
  • Also, I've written an answer to someone elses question how to change the powerscheme on the fly using batch files. You could theoretically write batchfiles for your games to first set it to high performance, then launch the game and then switch it back afterwards. – LPChip Aug 23 '16 at 10:59
  • Sure. If it seems to be the answer let me know and I'll write you an answer so you can accept it and tell others you no longer need help. – LPChip Aug 23 '16 at 11:10
  • @LPChip question updated. Problem not solved – NoobishPro Aug 23 '16 at 17:13
  • I know that if there's trouble with audio, sync issues occur. So you have to troubleshoot the audio to fix this. I'd start with uninstalling the audio drivers completely, reboot, then reinstall. – LPChip Aug 23 '16 at 17:19
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    @LPChip haven't had the problem in 6 days. I think you were right =) Answer it :) – NoobishPro Aug 29 '16 at 15:13
  • 800FPS? What kind of space machine do you have that runs Minecraft or LoL in 800 FPS? – nightsurfer Aug 29 '16 at 17:46
  • Uhm, not that killer. LOL in 800fps, didn't actually benchmark minecraft. The system specs are in my question :) -- note that my video card is overclocked so heavily (from the factory) that it sucks twice the power the normal version does. It seems to outperform the new RX480 8gb edition on DX11 (the 480 does a tad better on dx12) and it also seems to measure up fine with the 390x and nvidia 980 -- note that even with this videocard I capped out at 440fps until I switched to this motherboard, CPU and RAM. They clearly do matter. – NoobishPro Aug 29 '16 at 17:47

2 Answers2

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Issues like these are usually cause when using a balanced power scheme (default).

The system balances the available power, and when a background process starts to require juice, it is actually given juice and as a result, the system can experience very small lag spikes. Audio performance can be lower too.

The advised action is to set the system to High performance to make sure this is the problem.

This can be done by going to the Control Panel, Power Options.

By default, it will give you Power Saver and Balanced schemes where Balanced is selected. At the right, there is a down-arrow with the text Show additional plans.

Click this to show the High Performance scheme and then select it.

Now test for a few days if the problem is still there, or that it is gone.

If its gone, and you want to switch powerplans during gaming, you can do so by following this answer: Easy way to switch power plan in Windows 10

The reason why the problem is fixed after a reboot is simple: the background process is killed and not immediately started. This can be windows update, or a Windows Defender scan, or any other windows maintainance task.

As for the sound issues you describe, this is likely due to problems with the audio driver. I recommend going to the Device Manager and uninstall the drivers, then reboot, and if windows doesn't install them by themselves, install them yourself.

Community
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LPChip
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  • this is actually the wrong answer. The thing that fixed it was removing my audio drivers ;) (and reïnstalling ofcourse) – NoobishPro Aug 29 '16 at 17:36
  • Oh. I'll add that. xD – LPChip Aug 29 '16 at 17:41
  • They actually seemed to be fully responsible (as you've said in your comment) for the 'descynchronisation' of pretty much everything. It was the entire issue causing the framedrops :p – NoobishPro Aug 29 '16 at 17:46
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Just for others who are having this issue, this was the fix for mine; disabled changing wallpaper features. I use Dual Monitor Tools (third-party app) to change wallpapers on my monitors every 60 seconds. Weird thing is that I've been using this app for years and the freezing only became apparent after my most recent windows update.

Oh well. It works now.

Annoyed Gamer
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