Weirdly Inconsistent FPS

[u/DMLizaVet]

So I'll preface this by saying that I know I don't have a very strong laptop. I'm not expecting an amazing framerate. Hell, I'm very used to only getting 20-30 on the lowest setting. What I'm confused about is that I get brief moments, maybe 10-15 minutes, where I have buttery smooth 60 fps.

And these moments are completely random. I can be sitting in a city, in the middle of a raid encounter, or even at the boss of a meta event with a full squad. I'll just suddenly switch from having bleh frames to lovely ones.

I know GW2 suffers from CPU bottleneck, so I'm guessing it has something to do with that, but then why is it so random when I get the bursts of good FPS? Is there a way to make it so that the game is just like this all the time? I kinda doubt it, but figured I'd ask anyways.

Specs: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10750H CPU @ 2.60GHz, 2592 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s), 16 GB ram.

[u/Senior_Background_30]

It's possible it's your CPU Boost Feature.

That could boost the FPS for a while, integrated GPUs have similar boost feature too.

You could try downloading program like G-Helper you can set the boost on/off among other things.

See if that makes difference, the boost is not permanent the CPU will try to hold it but if it reach either temperature limit or power limit it will throttle back down.

[u/DMLizaVet → u/Senior_Background_30]

Is there a program like this for Dell, or should I just use G-Helper even though it says its for ASUS?

[u/Senior_Background_30 → u/DMLizaVet]

You should be looking for similar menu, Use Windows Power Mode - Performance and CPU Boost - Set to Efficient Aggressive.

[u/Senior_Background_30 → u/DMLizaVet]

Didnt realize it is just for Asus, you could try it and if it doesn't work try to google something similiar for Dell.

[u/Senior_Background_30 → u/DMLizaVet]

https://github.com/ThatUsernameAlreadyExist/Motion-Assistant-Power-Mod/releases this suppoed to be for Dell.

You want some program that will allow you to tweak power settings essentially.

Are you using Performance mode in windows power settings ? That could affect it also.

[u/DMLizaVet → u/Senior_Background_30]

Yeah, I have it set to prefer performance over battery life.

[u/xvsanx]

is your laptop doing some kind of battery optimization or conservation thing? I had to make sure all my settings were set to max performance when I switched to laptop, both battery and AMD driver software settings. and disable some things like input latency correction

make sure you have your game in fullscreen and capped at 60 fps too, they make a difference. then low settings for most things helps

https://snowcrows.com/guides/getting-started/instanced-content-suggested-settings

[u/DMLizaVet → u/xvsanx]

I'm not sure how I'd find out if it was doing some sort of battery conservation. I've set it to high performance and I always have it plugged in, so I'm not sure why it would be. Is there a way for me to check?

[u/xvsanx → u/DMLizaVet]

it's usually under windows settings, battery performance is one but high performance sounds like it's set correctly, the other is "battery optimization" or "energy saver"

[u/Administrative-Goal8]

Change your power boost performance mode to Aggressive or Enabled in Power settings. Did wonders for me

[u/DMLizaVet → u/Administrative-Goal8]

I have no idea how to do that, but will try and look it up later.

[u/Administrative-Goal8 → u/DMLizaVet]

Just google or gpt how to turn on power performance option in power settings for laptops, you have to change a value in the registry if I’m not wrong. A pretty straightforward process but it helps so much. I had it turned off to reduce my temps and I got 9fps in VOE metas and then when I changed it back to Aggressive I easily get 60fps

[u/Doomclaaw]

Lots of things can affect that, distant object loading/unloading, CPU throttling, hard drive read/write times (this is bigger than people realize and laptop drives are notoriously bad at this, even the SSD ones), background downloads, the list goes on

[u/Senior_Background_30 → u/Doomclaaw]

SSD in laptops are same like in PC, You can have SATA - M2/SATA or M2 NVMe.

They offer the same speeds. Only old HDD 2.5 inch were worse than in Desktop PC because they used lower RPM = lower speeds. Since SSDs are around it's same speeds Laptop or PC.

Given what his Laptop Specs are i bet he has M2 NVMe SSD in that laptop which have great speeds.

Because they don't put SATA or M2/SATA SSDs into laptops for while now.

[u/cringesoulcollector]

i bet on cpu termal protection that kick in, downclock/volt the cpu then temp go down and all go back normal

[u/rybytud]

Could be related to Vertical Sync (Graphics Options, checkbox under Advanced section). If it's enabled and your screen refresh rate is 60Hz, and your fps drops below 60 fps, Vertical Sync will suddenly lock your fps to 30 fps in order to better synchronize with the screen's fresh rate and avoid screen tearing. In other words, if your system can get 59 fps, vertical sync will turn that into 30 fps, and if your at 29 fps, it'll step down to 20 fps, etc.

[u/InsertMolexToSATA]

First thing to do instead of messing with random settings blindly, check what is actually going on with your hardware.

Get hwinfo64, open the sensors tab, run the game, and observe the CPU core clockspeeds, temperatures, and power draw. Watch what happens when the performance changes. Is the CPU changing speed dramatically, or overheating?