Severe FPS Drop Between Halves – Still Unresolved After Extensive Testing

Hello,

I’ve been struggling with a persistent issue in EA FC 26 on PC where the FPS drops to 4–5 between halves and stays there until I restart or alt+F4 the game. This problem has been ongoing for months, and despite extensive troubleshooting, it still happens.

Here’s everything I have tested and updated so far:

🧩 System & Drivers

• Updated BIOS to the latest version.
• Installed the latest NVIDIA Game Ready Driver (GTX 1650).
• Installed the latest Intel Graphics Driver (32.0.101.7076) for 11th Gen CPUs.
• Updated Intel Chipset Driver, MEI (Management Engine Interface), and Dynamic Tuning Technology (DTT).
• All Windows Updates and Optional Driver Updates are fully installed.

⚙️ Graphics & Display

• Tested both switchable graphics and UMA-only modes in BIOS.
• Disabled Intel GPU temporarily → game instantly crashed with DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_REMOVED.
• Confirmed that the display output is routed through Intel GPU (Optimus setup).
• Adjusted Intel settings:
  • Power Efficiency: set to 0
  • Scaling Mode: tested both Display Scaling and GPU Scaling
• In NVIDIA Control Panel:
  • Set EA FC 26 to run on High-Performance NVIDIA GPU.
  • Disabled V-Sync and G-Sync tests.

🔧 Additional Fixes Tried

• Clean driver reinstall using DDU.
• Disabled Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling (HAGS).
• Disabled background apps and overlays (EA App, Xbox Game Bar, MSI Afterburner).
• Monitored temperatures and power limits — no thermal throttling.

Despite all these steps, the issue remains exactly the same:

FPS locks at 4–5 between halves and sometimes after replays, then returns to normal after restarting the match.

This clearly looks like a render pipeline or GPU handoff issue between Intel iGPU and NVIDIA GPU.

Please escalate this issue to the dev team — it seems to affect many users with dual GPU laptops (Intel + NVIDIA) since release.

Thank you for your time and support.

System Specs:

• Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 (15IHU6)
• Intel i5 (11th Gen)
• NVIDIA GTX 1650
• Windows 11 64-bit
• 16 GB RAM