game lagging to unplayable all of a sudden

quick update on this. I had some free time so I did actually do a re-image of my PC. Same level of lag. I'm out of ideas. My natural next thought is that it's a hardware issue, but it's only apex where it lags like this. I don't think (?) it's the most intensive game I play either. I also play valorant, overwatch, total war warhammer 3, darktide, and rainbow six siege

@PeenyTenis

I'm no expert but have you tried loading all the video onto the gpu? Might help. Below is the nevidia example and some other pc stuff I've tried:

Have you checked the nvidia 3d setting below is not set to auto?

Configure Surround, Physx

If it is, try setting it to your "nvidia gforce gtx/rtx" instead.

Works really well putting the video load onto the gpu, taking it away from the cpu. Esp good if you have 2 monitors going.

Another issue I ran into with youngtree's pc, was that he was filling his dell sd up. He only has a small sd drive for system stuff and a 1T HD for data. If you are running everything on 1 HD, then fragmentation can also be a problem.

Is your drive over 75% full? If so these are things I do:

I moved the system page filing from the sd to a the HD.

Nvidia cashe dumps can be enormous, esp the DX cashe. I just delete all but the most recent every now and then.

Users/name/appdata/local/nvidia

Ccleaner for cleaning up the drive (free)

https://www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner

Windows disk cleanup to get rid of old Windows update files.

To defragment (only for HD not for sd drives) defraggler

I defrag files only monthly then complete defrag of drive every 4 months or so. (free)

https://www.ccleaner.com/defraggler

Also system/storage can show more categories, can show you where things are clogging the drive. Esp apps and features. A real culprit here for us was the clip champ app and old installations.

Another issue was: in a windows update my son's pc HD was reset to sleep after 20 min, crashing apex consistantly. I put it back as I previously had it to never sleep and all was well.

Temperature may be another issue. I use Speccy to keep an eye on my laptop temp, windows 10 dosnt give that specific info. It's free too

https://www.ccleaner.com/speccy

I put an extra silent exhaust fan into the pc to bring the temp down.