Game FPS gets low when you open menus or graphics settings.
Game FPS gets low when you open menus or graphics settings.
I've been trying to open new interfaces in games for a few months now, and it's starting to really mess up my PC. It not only makes the game stutter or drop frames so bad it feels like it will crash, but it also hurts all of my other programs too. I have two monitors, and when I switch from a game to my browser, the game performance goes way down just because the game isn't running in focus. I know that's what Windows does—it prioritizes the open apps—but even in games I play right now, opening menus like options, chat, or console bars makes the game unplayable and keeps it slow until I close everything else. At first I thought it was just Ark. It happens every time I open the character interface, inventory, or chat bar in any game. Even when using GeForce Overlay, Beasts of Bermuda gets laggy if you're in the customization menu, and WoW slows down if you go into options. The only game that has never had this problem is LoL. In LoL, my RAM usage shoots up, but since I have 16GB of RAM and a PC that's been around for two years, it should be fine.
The computer was a prebuilt model, and the only change I made to it months ago was adding two new hard drives (500GB and 1TB). That was before the big issues started, so I've never had problems with those SSDs. Even outside of the performance drops, I can run most games on high settings at 45-60 frames per second without really using much RAM. My CPU usage is actually pretty low when a game is running, even when it's at its best. Any help would be great! Here are some things I tried:
* Turning off the GeForce Overlay
* Turning off Windows Game Mode (specifically for Windows 11)
* Testing every single game in both windowed mode and fullscreen mode
* Setting all graphics settings to their lowest possible level
* Making sure my game resolution matches my monitor's (both are 1920x1080)
* Checking that I've updated my graphics card
* Closing any other apps while the game is running
Oops! I totally forgot about this game called Wallpaper Engine and that's who made me have a crash. It worked better after I turned it off. Not sure if there is any other reason for this though.