Laggy Video After Upgrade

[Quboid]

After upgrading my CPU, motherboard, and RAM, I am getting poor video performance on my secondary display when running intensive applications such as games on my primary. This makes watching videos and streaming content hard to watch while playing games.

 

My system:

Windows 10 Home 64bit

Nvidia Geforce 1070 8GB

Intel Core i7-8700K 3.7Ghz (was i7-3750K 4Ghz)

Asrock Z370 Extreme4 (was mid-range Asus Z270)

32GB DDR4 RAM (was 24GB DDR3)

240GB SSD (OS and games installed here)

2x3TB HDD (RAID1)

27" 1440p Dell 60hz Primary (DisplayPort)

24" 1200p Dell 60hz Secondary (DisplayPort)

 

Performance is otherwise good and benchmarks are as expected. Games are better than they were, videos remain perfect - except when using both at once. Before the upgrade, the most intensive video (1080p60) would cause game performance to crash (Cities Skylines would go from 25 FPS to 10 FPS) with the CPU causing the bottleneck. Now game performance is only slightly affected but video is laggy (slow-motion) or jumpy (freezes for couple of seconds) even for less intensive content like 720p60 or 1080p30. Standard definition content is fine, except that it's standard definition.

 

Increasing the browser's CPU priorities seem to help a bit. I've tried changing where the monitors are plugged into, using DVI and plugging the secondary monitor into the on-board graphics port; no difference. Graphics drivers are updated, the confusing bundle of software and drivers I got from Asrock's site seem to be installed and up to date. This problem happens across different browsers (Chrome and Firefox) and with video from different sources. Live streams are worse than videos. It happens with different games too, but CPU intensive ones seem to affect video most.

[Rieka]

I had this exact thing a while ago.

 

My system specs should have been fine but i had the laggy video on the second screen.

I did manage to fix it by basically turning off Hardware Acceleration in whichever application you're watching video, be it a browser or VLC or something.

In Chrome, you should be able to find it easily just by searching Hardware in the settings (same in most browsers).

 

I think the issue lies with either Windows or your GPU drivers (especially as it seems to be linked to updating your drivers) as now mine's back to working as expected but the above should sort you out in the meantime!

[Quboid]

Thanks Rieka. I have not reinstalled Windows since the upgrade, so if all else fails I'll try that.

 

I'm running Cities Skylines while trying to stream 720p video now and the problem is occurring. According to OpenHardwareMonitor and Windows Resource Monitor, my CPU is running at about 25%, spread reasonably well across all 12 virtual cores (none are maxed out). I'm using 75% of my RAM, about 75% of my GPU power and 90% of my video RAM.

 

I have been getting some VRAM related slowdowns in CSL; poor performance when looking at a new area. It's the same graphics card as before the upgrade, so I don't think this relevant but maybe it is.

[Rieka]

Ahh, may not be but i guess it's a quick thing to test so worth a try?

[Quboid]

Quick? I thought a Windows reinstall would be a pain.

[Rieka]

Oh sorry, I misunderstood.

I was referring to changing the browser setting.

 

What OS do you have on there atm?

[Quboid]

Oh, my bad. Yes, I'll try changing hardware acceleration. I have Windows 10 64bit.

[Rieka]

Ahh ok cool.

 

Fingers crossed it works!

[DevTech]

4 hours ago, Quboid said:

After upgrading my CPU, motherboard, and RAM, I am getting poor video performance on my secondary display when running intensive applications such as games on my primary. This makes watching videos and streaming content hard to watch while playing games.

 

My system:

Windows 10 Home 64bit

Nvidia Geforce 1070 8GB

Intel Core i7-8700K 3.7Ghz (was i7-3750K 4Ghz)

Asrock Z370 Extreme4 (was mid-range Asus Z270)

32GB DDR4 RAM (was 24GB DDR3)

240GB SSD (OS and games installed here)

2x3TB HDD (RAID1)

27" 1440p Dell 60hz Primary (DisplayPort)

24" 1200p Dell 60hz Secondary (DisplayPort)

 

Performance is otherwise good and benchmarks are as expected. Games are better than they were, videos remain perfect - except when using both at once. Before the upgrade, the most intensive video (1080p60) would cause game performance to crash (Cities Skylines would go from 25 FPS to 10 FPS) with the CPU causing the bottleneck. Now game performance is only slightly affected but video is laggy (slow-motion) or jumpy (freezes for couple of seconds) even for less intensive content like 720p60 or 1080p30. Standard definition content is fine, except that it's standard definition.

 

Increasing the browser's CPU priorities seem to help a bit. I've tried changing where the monitors are plugged into, using DVI and plugging the secondary monitor into the on-board graphics port; no difference. Graphics drivers are updated, the confusing bundle of software and drivers I got from Asrock's site seem to be installed and up to date. This problem happens across different browsers (Chrome and Firefox) and with video from different sources. Live streams are worse than videos. It happens with different games too, but CPU intensive ones seem to affect video most.

Your problem is ridiculous with that hardware and also your previous hardware is pretty much equally powerful.

 

There is a fundamental configuration issue with your Windows setup.

 

1. Make sure you are using latest NVIDIA driver from GeForce.com

 

2. Make sure you are not using the Intel graphics - i.e. both monitors plugged into the 1070.

 

3. Download and install K-lite Mega Codec pack to eliminate codec issues. Use the default install settings.

 

(Using the PatchMyPc.com installer is the fastest way to get it going by just clicking a single check box)

 

4. Make sure your Anti-Virus is NOT scanning videos! 

 

5. You might have weird stuff happening with your SSD so check for firmware upgrades on that and provide brand and model number.

 

 

Keep in mind that you have so much performance in your computer that you don't have to do anything tricky to expect a game and a video to run at the same time. You literally have something configured hugely WRONG to be in this situation. So don't stop until you find it. 

 

 

 

 

[Anibal P]

I'd just wipe and install windows, install browser and nVidia drivers and test

if after that you have issues, look at what you may have installed after the original test

 

A windows 10 install on a new SSD with no data should be completed and at your desktop in under 30 mins, likely less, been a while since I did it on my system with an older cheap SSD

[Astra.Xtreme]

What power supply do you have, and what model 1070 do you have?

Typically the PSU makers recommend running individual cables to each of the GPU power connectors. So if the GPU has a 6 pin and 8 pin connector, run separate cables to the PSU.

 

Not sure if any of that is related, but it will ensure you aren't straining the power supply under load.

[Quboid]

I think the PSU is an 800W Enermax but I'd have to be at my PC to check. The card is a Gainward Phoenix Golden Sample 1070 with a single power connector, and both monitors are plugged into it. The website for K-lite Mega Codec suggested switching my graphics card's Power Management Mode to Adaptive, so I'll try that later when I install the Codec, and do more tests.

 

Performance is worst with Cities Skylines and to be honest, CSL is an absolute dog when it comes to performance. I have thousands of additional assets installed, it sometimes uses over 20GB RAM, I presume VRAM is fully used (and it reports around 90% because there's always data being transferred to and fro), and I don't get the impression it's particularly well optimised. I'm not surprised that performance is significantly hit, but I am sure it shouldn't be this bad in specific situation - and definitely not worse than it was on slower hardware.

[DevTech]

1 hour ago, Quboid said:

I think the PSU is an 800W Enermax but I'd have to be at my PC to check. The card is a Gainward Phoenix Golden Sample 1070 with a single power connector, and both monitors are plugged into it. The website for K-lite Mega Codec suggested switching my graphics card's Power Management Mode to Adaptive, so I'll try that later when I install the Codec, and do more tests.

 

Performance is worst with Cities Skylines and to be honest, CSL is an absolute dog when it comes to performance. I have thousands of additional assets installed, it sometimes uses over 20GB RAM, I presume VRAM is fully used (and it reports around 90% because there's always data being transferred to and fro), and I don't get the impression it's particularly well optimised. I'm not surprised that performance is significantly hit, but I am sure it shouldn't be this bad in specific situation - and definitely not worse than it was on slower hardware.

6. Go through the confusing bundle and replace the Asrock driver in every instance you can identify with the lastest driver from the manufacture's website

" the confusing bundle of software and drivers I got from Asrock's site seem to be installed and up to date"

 

7. As a test, run the game in a low res such as 720p

 

8. As a test, select low quality textures in the game settings

 

9. Run task manager when the game and browser are running and set CPU Affinity so that CPU 0 is not available to either and after that the game has one other CPU (real core probably CPU 2 or 3) and the browser is CPU 4 etc

 

 

 

 

[DevTech]

10. In NVIDIA control panel, turn on the task tray util that monitors which GPU is being used for each app.

 

[Quboid]

Not much luck. Changing the affinities seems to help a little bit, like increasing the priority. Lowering graphics settings also helps but even with Chrome at high priority, and with separate virtual cores assigned (0 for neither, 1-3 for Chrome, 4-11 for games) and graphics setting lower, video performance isn't good.

 

I might wipe the SSD and do a fresh install, or get an M.2 drive.

[DevTech]

On 1/17/2018 at 2:36 AM, Quboid said:

Not much luck. Changing the affinities seems to help a little bit, like increasing the priority. Lowering graphics settings also helps but even with Chrome at high priority, and with separate virtual cores assigned (0 for neither, 1-3 for Chrome, 4-11 for games) and graphics setting lower, video performance isn't good.

 

I might wipe the SSD and do a fresh install, or get an M.2 drive.

The cores are not really virtual.

 

For that test, 0 and 1 are both the first core.

 

You could also test by turning off HyperThreading

 

Make sure you have latest chipset drivers from Intel.com

 

[Quboid]

Update: I got an M.2 drive, with a fresh Windows 10 64bit installation - no improvement. I got the latest chipset drivers and updated the motherboard firmware.

 

I will try turning off hyperthreading, I'm sorry I didn't see that sooner.