Game pauses during play but remains responsive when a video plays in the background
Game pauses during play but remains responsive when a video plays in the background
I recently made several upgrades to my system—CPU, motherboard, GPU, RAM, and power supply—and initially everything worked well. However, when I tried playing a video through a browser on the second monitor, it would stutter. I attempted various fixes, including enabling AMD EXPO on my RAM, but the issue persisted. The game would stutter at 250 fps whether V-sync was enabled or not, and even after loading a webpage, it would stutter again post-load. After disabling AMD EXPO and resetting my BIOS to defaults, the problem continued across all games I play. It seems the issue might be related to changes made step by step during setup and testing.
Interesting question: why would a game run while another video plays in the background? Could be inspirational content or music. I admit I’m not entirely confident about the host computer’s hardware—like monitors—to handle both tasks at once. My advice is to open Task Manager, Resource Monitor, and Process Explorer (Microsoft, free) to see how much each activity consumes. The goal is to identify which resources are being used in each scenario and compare them. In detail, I want to know exactly what resources are being utilized, which ones they’re using, and the percentage of usage. Ultimately, I think the system just can’t keep up with your expectations. More information would be needed.
I often watch or listen to a video on the second monitor while playing games such as World of Warship, City Skyline, or Transport Fever 2. The problem is that the game stutters when no video is playing and works smoothly only when a video is active or a webpage loads. Previously, with my 2070 super and i7 9600KF and DDR4 RAM, I could handle this perfectly fine. Although enabling and disabling RAM AMD EXPO improved performance while the game ran, during video playback it would still stutter—audio and game both affected. I’m considering a full PC reset and reinstalling Windows as a last resort, but I’d rather avoid that if possible.
Perform more troubleshooting instead of using Task Manager, Resource Monitor, and Process Explorer (Microsoft, free). Focus on simplifying by playing a game. Aim to eliminate as much as possible concerning what runs on the system. It might have started at startup or later via Task Scheduler. Check if the stuttering stops. If it does, gradually reintroduce other essential apps one by one to see if any trigger the issue again. Give the system a few boot cycles before making further adjustments. Record your observations.
OK I discovered something, the main technical change between my old setup and this one was that my previous CPU lacked integrated graphics while this one does, plus the game supported both 4070 and CPU integrated graphics simultaneously. I thought they might have been running together for the game, but the integrated one was limiting the performance of the 4070. I turned off the iGPU in the device manager and it worked perfectly—games run smoothly on the second monitor, with videos playing without stuttering or freezing. It’s strange, but I’m not sure if there’s a way to split the workload, like having the game only use the 4070 while the iGPU handles the browser.