Poor performance in the opening game of Fortnite and Battlebit.
Poor performance in the opening game of Fortnite and Battlebit.
Hello all!
Problem/Context: In Fortnite and on the BattleBit shooting area, after roughly five minutes of play, my PC becomes extremely sluggish. The frame rate drops to just about 1 frame every two seconds, and the numbers show "3 FPS." Once it starts stuttering, the whole system feels unresponsive. The issue happens consistently every time I launch either game. It affects not just the games but also other parts of my PC, making it nearly unusable until I restart. I managed to capture the screenshot below after it stops. After recovery, I can play for hours without trouble. But if I close the games and restart, it repeats. I test other titles, but only these two seem affected right now. When it starts, the "System" process uses more CPU than usual—usually less than 0.2% or 0.6%, which seems normal. Still, it doesn’t consume much when it spikes. The only clue linking the two games appears to be that BattleBit has Unreal Engine components, and both use Easy Anticheat. These similarities might be coincidental, though it’s worth noting. This problem doesn’t occur in other games I’m playing, such as Starfield, Rage 2, Rocket League, Wreckfest, Frozen Flame, Car Mechanic Simulator 2018, Fall guys, Half-Life Alyx, or CS2. It’s puzzling and hard to pinpoint. Unless I reinstall Windows—which I’m trying to avoid—I’m hoping to keep this system running. I’ve tried several fixes: updated drivers, BIOS, chipset updates, disabled apps, adjusted settings, and even reinstalled the OS. I followed all steps carefully but didn’t resolve it. If you’ve faced this before, any tips would be greatly appreciated. Otherwise, I’m at a loss and worried about needing another reinstall.
What matters most is that the PC behaves strangely only under these conditions, and I’m determined to get it working smoothly again.
Are the two games installed on your 980 Pro? This could indicate a possible drive issue. SSDs with 2TB or more in the 980 Pro are at risk if they came with certain firmware. Check your drive health using Samsung Magician and see if a firmware update is available.
Thanks for your response! The games are installed on the Crucial drives, but I also downloaded Magician and Storage Executive to ensure a thorough check. As mentioned in the 980 Pro article, the firmware is up to date (version 5B2QGXA7). The health indicator on the dashboard is currently "Good." During the Diagnostic Scan, both Short Scan and Short SMART Self-test scans confirmed everything is functioning properly. Storage Executive indicated that both drives require a firmware update, which I applied (latest version P9CR40D). Overall, the drives showed good health, but after updating, the issue persisted. I’ll share these troubleshooting steps with the OP.
I tried using procmon to identify system processes but got no results after filtering by PID. Since I haven’t used procmon recently, I think I might have made a mistake. Running it without the filter helped, and reviewing the logs didn’t reveal anything unusual. Eventually, I reinstalled Windows. After restarting, I only added Steam, BattleBit and Nvidia drivers, which fixed the problem. I’ve been reinstalling apps gradually, checking again, and it’s now functioning properly. If I restore everything to its original state before the reimage and still can’t pinpoint the cause, I’ll consider this the solution.
It seems the problem keeps coming back despite recent changes. I've tried installing new software and testing, but nothing seems to resolve it. It's frustrating since a full OS wipe didn't help. Could anyone suggest ways to investigate the system processes or identify what's causing the stuttering?
Hey there @MaximumSponge. I joined this forum just to mention that you're not the only one facing this problem. It's really frustrating trying to identify the underlying reason. I'm experiencing it with both Hunt: Showdown and The Finals after launching, but not with other titles. I also focused on games that use Easy Anti-Cheat, checked processes, updated drivers, scanned for malware, and even reinstalled Windows 11 Pro – yet the issue keeps coming back. Once the stutters disappear, everything runs smoothly, but it feels like my system is constantly lagging until it fixes itself. I have a setup similar to yours: Nvidia FE RTX 4090, AMD Ryzen 9 7950X, 4.5 GHz, ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E, BIOS 1709, AM5 PI 1.0.8.0, Kingston Fury Beast RGB 64GB (2x32GB) at 5600MHz, running Windows 11 Pro EVGA SuperNOVA G3 1000W PSU. Games are installed on two Kingston Fury Renegade PCIe 4.0 NVMe drives. I wonder if you use any DNS sinkholes such as Pi-Hole or AdGuard? Right now, my main concern is something disrupting the Easy Anti-Cheat mechanism itself. This problem didn’t occur consistently during my Hunt: Showdown sessions over the past year, so I suspect Easy Anti-Cheat is the root cause (possibly due to DNS lookup failures or another issue, not performance-related).
EDIT 2: I found another user with the same issue – EDIT 3: This workaround helped me – check the link provided. Updated December 22, 2023 by LazerVHSion
Wow... I was really surprised by this. Your help in signing up and guiding me to the right place made a huge difference—I was getting really frustrated trying to solve it. I put in a lot more time than anyone else should, and it really solved the problem in both games after I tried to recreate it recently. Thanks so much!
Thank you. The same issue occurred before and it was resolved.
I faced similar issues and applied a solution, but it didn’t fully eliminate them—it improved performance only temporarily. Now it lasts about 10 seconds, occasionally exceeds one frame per second. Previously I got around 1 fps before updating drivers, which worked only for that game session. My system specs include a Ryzen 5 5600 GHz, DDR5 5600W, 1TB SSD, B550 motherboard, ASRock Steel Legend OC6650, Lexar 2x16GB RAM at 3600MHz. I decided to reset all game and system settings back to defaults, which seemed to resolve the issue.