Performance remains capped at 13fps even after optimizing gameplay following a hardware upgrade
Performance remains capped at 13fps even after optimizing gameplay following a hardware upgrade
Recently my friend upgraded his desktop with a new CPU, motherboard, and RAM. Everything else stayed the same, including the GPU. We didn’t change the SSD formatting, so the Windows setup remained unchanged. However, some games are behaving oddly—performance drops to around 13 frames per second when focused, then returns to normal if he switches tabs or opens another window on the secondary screen. The affected titles include Bloons TD6, Magic: The Gathering Arena, and Elden Ring. Civilization VI seems unaffected. We tried several fixes like disabling free-sync, turning off re-bar, updating drivers with DDU, closing overlay apps (like Telegram), but nothing resolved the issue. It only appeared after the hardware upgrade. I suspect it’s not related to thermal throttling or power issues since performance normalizes when focus is lost. I’m unsure what exactly is causing this and haven’t found a solution online. Please help, and thank you in advance for your assistance.
You're asking about the specifics of integrated graphics. It seems some games don't use the GPU, so you might need a compatible graphics card or adjust BIOS settings to turn off integrated graphics.
By focus refers to the game taking center stage, shifting attention away from other apps. For instance, with two monitors, the game appears on one while Discord runs on the other. When the game performance drops, changing focus to Discord restores it to normal speed—around 13fps—until the game returns to its usual state again. This behavior is typical when using integrated graphics; Windows may not be interfering, and the iGPU is likely disabled entirely, showing only the R9 380 as GPU 0 in Task Manager.