New potato

Heya tech-heads,

So frustratingly my laptop is just starting to slow right down. When I play NYR and everyone is dropping MH and fists and pods my FPS screeches to a halt for 1-2 secs and I just have to play a littl game of "let's hope the fist lands somewhere else".

My rig is about 3 yrs old now at least. It is a pretty good one. ASUS rog g75x I think. The gfx card is an nVidia 570M and has 12g ram.

So here is the question.....

What is it about my rig that would be causing it to get over-worked in theses occasions? I play dx9, lowest settings possible, nothing in the background etc.

So is it my Graphics card, ram, old motherboard or just everything? I don't recall having this issue so frequently a year ago for example.

I ask because it's very likely I could save money and just upgrade the GFX card or possibly ask to get an SSD installed or something else that would save me.

I estimate to buy a newer rig that would be a considerable upgrade will cost in Aussie $$ about 2400. So hoping I can just upgrade, rather than buy. So lemme know.

SSD will not help with FPS in this fight, as assets are already loaded. If the problem is resent then it's likely caused by an update, could be gfx card driver update, game update, or windows update. Can also be lacking update, like for example gfx driver too outdated. There is also a chance that your laptop is due for a windows reinstall, and your issues are caused by general OS slowdown.

I would start with gfx driver, if it's not up to date I would try to update it. If that fails, I would get different versions and try them one by one until I hopefully find one. If that fails I'd actually go with windows reinstall unless TSW is the only thing running slow, then I would look for other things. Do you have same/worse/better performance with dx11?

Have you opened it up at all? Laptops, especially gaming ones, can get really choked with dust, then things can overheat and start throttling.

I know EffectsUI kills my frame rate during anything demanding, but your box looks much more capable than mine, and it's unlikely you've just recently installed it.

I would agree and say its probably software related slowdown. If you have Windows 7/8 and are due a years free Win10 upgrade you could consider that. I have made the move this time and I have noticed performance increases on literally everything. Quite possibly not just Windows 10 but the combination of that and clean install, Hlop mentioned.

I have upgraded to Win 10 and I did experience an initial increase in the "base" level FPS. Like when standing around I get like 35-50 or so. Then it just slows right down, it's less pronounced in lower global populations. For the event I got 1 FPS. Totally unplayable. In NMs I don't really seem to get any reduction. In NY it will be fine and then about 1st pod I go slow And then around 2nd wave in P3 I go slow. Nothing on birds or that sorta stuff.

I have never cleaned it out in 3 yrs :/. Gfx driver would be the most up-to-date for that driver (570M).

Effects UI is fairly recent. But I don't have a lot of on-screen effects. Pretty much just the player buffs and ele counter. Perhaps I will try to uninstall it and see.

With respect to a "fresh install" are you saying the upgrade to Win 10 doesn't qualify??

Fresh or clean install means installing new copy of windows, as an upgrade will keep of the installed application, registry entries and unneeded services accumulated over time.

However if you see a slowdown only in specific situations and after a while, it might be a good idea to see if dlls made by iindie will help you, it's probably better to have a chat with him first.

Yeah definitely look into removing recent mods, some seem to effect others differently. If Effects UI was recent give it a bash without you can just copy out the folder have a check and then return it if no different.

I upgraded to Windows 10 first in order to tie my license to it, instead of entering a key or whatever. Then I put the windows 10 installer on a USB drive and started from fresh (clean). That involves formatting the partition Windows is currently on and basically starting again. Like Hlop says the upgrade does it's best to keep everything the way it was, including any problems brought along usually. And also quite possibly adding some with compatibility issues. It is worth noting that when I upgraded it was much slower than Windows 7, but then fresh much faster. It is the first time I have used an SSD too, it literally boots Windows 10 in less than 10 seconds!

Periodically it is one of the best performance gains you can make but it is a real pain in the ass too. You literally have to start again with all your programs/accounts et..

Thanks guys. I might try a few interventions first. Make a back up of files and then get the machine cleaned and serviced. Will talk to them about doing a fresh install and see how I go. If that doesn't work, then maybe I will try a newer GFX card or look for a new rig. Just will see how that goes!

Thanks for info guys.

I tried removing effectsUI and that seemed to work. No more grinding to a halt. The only problem was I just completely lost my EF counters in p3 and did rubbish DPS. I see a trimmed down EF counter so I might try that and see if it's less strenuous on my laptop.

Regardless of the machines performance these mods do not help at all. I like to have them, some I couldn't do without. But having started fresh as a returnee recently having lost all mods and builds, the game felt so snappy. Now its back to a little micro stutter here and there but playable still.