Why is my computer running games so booty?

Tech Talk
1

hey guys, i have a lenovo “gaming laptop” I bought like 2-3 years ago that cant run anything stable and its really bothering me. hopefully someone here can give me some guidance on how to fix that. now to be clear, im not asking alot of this thing. I only play Cuphead and Rivals of Aether on it, and they both have requirements a fricking 2001 dell pos could run. yet im getting dropped frames in cuphead and rivals will lag out on some characters move animations every time and will just straight up freeze for like 2 seconds mid game, not even online, just story or practice. the eff is going on with my comp? it should be able to run 3 copies of both of these games simultaniously but i cant even get a smooth experience in 16 bit 2d fighters offline? i just updated my geforce drivers and it changed nothing and i have auto updates for all the others and windows claims everything is up to date. it cant be viruses i just dumped the entire system and reinstalled windows 10 last month and literally the only thing i have on the computer is steam, those 2 games and firefox. and i dont even browse the web aside from checking system requirements so no porn or torrent aids or nothing lol. why cant i get these things to run? any help would be greatly appreciated. id love to be able to play my 15 dollar indie games on this 1200 dollar piece of garbage.

here are the specs from system requirements lab:

Processor
Intel® Core™ i7-4720HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz
Manufacturer
Intel
Speed
2.6 GHz
Number of Cores
4
CPU ID
BFEBFBFF000306C3
Family
06
Model
3C
Stepping
3
Revision
Memory
RAM
8.0 GB
Video Card
Video Card
Intel® HD Graphics 4600
Manufacturer
Chipset
Intel® HD Graphics 4600
Dedicated Memory
128 MB
Total Memory
3.0 GB
Pixel Shader Version
5.0
Vertex Shader Version
5.0
Hardware T & L
Yes
Vendor ID
8086
Device
0416
Plug and Play ID
VEN_8086&DEV_0416&SUBSYS_397817AA&REV_06
Driver Version
20.19.15.4624
Video Card #2
Video Card
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M
Manufacturer
Chipset
GeForce GTX 860M
Dedicated Memory
4.0 GB
Total Memory
4.0 GB
Pixel Shader Version
5.0
Vertex Shader Version
5.0
Hardware T & L
Yes
Vendor ID
10DE
Device
1392
Plug and Play ID
VEN_10DE&DEV_1392&SUBSYS_397817AA&REV_A2
Driver Version
21.21.13.7667
Operating System
Operating System
Microsoft Windows 10 (build 15063), 64-bit
Service Pack
0
Size
64-bit
Edition
Intel
Version
10.0.15063
Locale
0409
BIOS
BIOS
9ECN33WW(V1.16)
Version
LENOVO 9ECN33WW(V1.16)
Manufacturer
LENOVO
Date
Sound
Sound Device
Realtek High Definition Audio
Driver
6.0.1.7525
Drives
DVD
CD
Drive 1 Size
888.9 GB

Free Memory
841.1 GB

Drive 2 Size
25.0 GB

Free Memory
22.2 GB

2

Because your video card is a Intel® HD Graphics 4600. That is a crap integrated video adapter built into the motherboard. If your laptop has that it is more definitely not a gaming laptop. Its a best a business laptop, or home use laptop.

In other words, that is the free video card that comes with motherboards that can’t do much beyond display the desktop of your computer.

You aren’t going to be playing any games on that require a tiny bit of 3D performance to work. Time to build a new computer or buy a real gaming laptop.

3

it has a 860M, but nvidia optimus drivers suck ass hard

4

i mean i would totally understand if it was strictly running that card but it also has a gtx 860m. far from a great card but its literally like 5-10x more powerful than what these games require. rivals for instance recomends 32mb dedicated video ram, this has 4096. it recomends 1.2ghz processor, im at 2.6ghz. recomends 512mb ram, i have 8gb. free disk space recomended 50mb i have 841gb. so one would think i have more than enough juice to run these low end games?

5

How many programs running in the background?

Do you have a ton of shite showing up in Task manager?
You might have to go into Services or MS Config and go into Start up and shut down any unnecessary or resource hogging programs

Also when the last time you defrag your drive?

6

i actually went in and disabled all background tasks and it didnt help which seemed like it should have for sure. and i havent defraged it ever. though i did do the entire system wipe and reinstall of windows 10 about a month ago

7

You should try speccy for showing us what kind of computer you have.

Also check temperatures using some kind of stress test, if they are too high you might want to change thermal paste and clean all of the heatpipes/fans that your laptop is currently using.

Try using Nvidia Control Panel to force your games to run under the Nvidia GPU instead of the integrated GPU. If you can’t do it you might want to use some kind of driver wiper/uninstaller to do a clean installation of nvidia drivers :slight_smile:

8

+1 for checking temperatures. Laptops have notoriously bad cooling. If it’s the temperatures, you have a few options to work with - the easiest is just picking up a good laptop cooling pad and using that.

Also, definitely check which graphics card is being used. Sometimes the integrated graphics are used by default, instead of the installed video card. I have a hunch this might be the problem.

9

Hey fellas sorry for the delayed reply work has been crazy. But here’s what I’ve done.

I’ve disabled permission for ALL background tasks.

I’ve disabled all non essential startup processes.

Did a defrag.

Updated all drivers including geforce

I’ve deleted all apps that aren’t steam and Firefox(anime tube, iheart radio, and stuff like that)

I went in threw the graphics control panel and overrided the basic graphics card and forced it to use the geforce.

The issues still persist though.

Temperature is not an issue it doesn’t even get warm let alone hot.

I’m still getting 100% CPU usage spikes and its blowing my mind.

Should I maybe downgrade the os to windows 7 or 8?

Any input would be appreciated.

10

No, Win 10 is actually less resource intensive

Maybe a fresh clean reinstall

If that don’t work, your laptop is just Booty
Because after this point were looking into hardware repairs, and they are ass on a laptop

11

THIS
(Remember to back up that data)

12

Alright I’m doing a fresh clean install right now, hoping for the best. Idk how the hardware could be fucked I never used it for anything demanding, ever. It would be one thing if I was over clocking or pushing it’s limits with stuff but it literally was a vessel for animetube and thats it, no gaming, web browsing, nothing. Anime tube was the entirety of its purpose since I got it up until a few months ago when I got cup head and rivals. I just went with the keep nothing option and I’ll redownload steam and my 2 games only, no superfluous bullshit. Fingers crossed, thanks for the advice so far guys. I’ll stop back in afterwards and give an update.

13

you don’t need to use hardware for it to go bad. capacitors, especially cheap ones can go bad just sitting there own there own doing nothing. Just leak their dialectic fluids which happens to be corrosive to everything else.

14

Fresh install is the best ticket. Also, when you say 100% CPU spikes, what process is causing that spike? Task Manager should tell you that. Find out what it is and kill it or remove the software that runs it. If it’s a needed program, google “xyz task is causing high CPU usage” to see what other people are doing about it. Good luck man.

15

Something you can also use to diagnose spikes in CPU usage is Process Lasso. Semi-free program after the 30-day trial ends (has a nag screen that stays up at start for 20ish seconds); but as a IT person I’d recommend that over Task Manager though.