[Bug Report] GPU/CPU Throttling Mid Gameplay

@bdcovington  I think your laptop has a G-sync screen, and if so, please try disabling any G-sync features you can find.

If that doesn't help, try playing in a clean boot:

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-clean-boot-windows-10

After you reboot, go through the Task Manager's background processes list and shut down anything not absolutely essential, e.g. RGB software or MSI Afterburner.  Disable your antivirus as well, at least long enough to test.

You can also try playing with Origin in offline mode.

Thanks for the suggestions @puzzlezaddict , I've updated my original post to reflect these additional attempts to fix the problem.  Unfortunately, none of them worked, the same issue is persisting, occuring no more than 1 minute after the start of gameplay.  Any other ideas are appreciated, though I really think this is something on the games end at this point, something that is causing it to stop utilizing the graphics card properly.

@bdcovington  I think I might be out of ideas for the moment—you'd already covered most of what I'd have suggested by the time you posted.  But someone else here might have more suggestions.

One thing I'm not sure would help, but is worth trying just so you can say you did, is undoing all overclocks.  It's always useful to know that this happens on completely default settings.

Actually, this is completely random, but try playing while your computer is offline.  This helps a few people with a similar issue in a totally different game, and I don't know why it would apply here, but should be easy enough to take your computer offline after putting Origin and Steam in offline mode and before launching the game.

One thing of note, your CPU is also dropping in usage.  You can easily see the normal period and then a drop when it starts acting up.  This may be related to bios or chipset issues on the CPU instead of the GPU.  CPU for some reason not sending data to the GPU can also cause this kind of issue.  This is an odd issue.  Last time I heard of this was AMD and a Bios update fixed it for a different game.....or it could be a cross program interference, maybe a clean boot of your system and make triple sure only the bare minimum of programs are running.  Also maybe a sfc/scannow of your op system may also be in order.

Looks like throttling tbh.

You might be overheating somewhere.

@bdcovington 

Throttling would be my guess as well.

Also, there is a lot of info, but no actual data in you post or Video. It would be more helpful if FPS and Framtimes as well as Single thread CPU usage would be logged.

So, lets see that is going on in your System.

Don't play this part on the Citadel, it is a place were performance is not good overall, play on the Normandy, preferable at the start of the game.

• Download hwinfo64 (The green button) > Install and execute the program > Sensors only. 
  
• Click on the sheet with the green cross (logging) > give the file a name and save it to a place of your choice. 
• Wait 5 Minutes > Start the MELE> Play for 10 Minutes > Stop the hwinfo logging (the sheet again)
• Rename the Log to > ">your name for the file<.CSV.txt"
• Upload the Log file here as you did with the DxDiag.

Alright, so @puzzlezaddict I tried undoing all overclocks, did not have an effect other than lowering my overall package temp, which is to be expected.  Still, package temp never exceeded 55C while playing OC'd anyway, so I don't think the issue was there.  Also tried full offline as suggested, no effect.

@mcsupersport Chipset and Bios drivers fully up to date, double checked each to make sure.  I did perform both a DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth as well as an sfc /scannow, no issues found, no effect on game after performing both.  Edit: Also, you are right about the CPU usage.  I ran another test, and it looks like, while the game is running with smooth FPS, CPU usage is 26% Avg, but as soon as it turns choppy, it drops to about 15% Avg, and this happens directly in time with the GPU.

@devSin They do appear to be throttling, but Intel XTU shows no power limit or thermal throttling, and the highest temp being reached is 55C by the CPU, which is well below the upper limit, and significantly lower than some games I've played without issue.  Edit:  Just as a general note, when the stuttering starts, the package temp overall drops from ~50c Avg to ~40c Avg, both the GPU and CPU, likely due to the decreased usage.

and finally @holger1405 , I downloaded HWiNFO as requested and have attached the results.  Note that I did wait 5 mins before launching the game, and when I did launch, I played about 5 mins in the normandy and 5 mins on the first planet you're sent to in ME:1.  If I need to run another one of these fully in the Normandy, let me know.  Either way, I didn't see anything glaring on the monitor while I was playing, but I also don't know what I'm looking for, so hopefully this will give some insight.

Thank you all for attempting to help me fix this btw, I'm really grateful.

@holger1405 Just so you have some comparative data, I took the liberty of running another analysis while playing Outriders, which I've attached.  I've also attached 2 screenshots of the Task Manager readouts for GPU/CPU Usage for 2 games (Outriders and Sniper Elite 4).  Sniper Elite 4 shows very erratic behaviour of the GPU, however, the CPU experiences no throttling, and there is no issue from an FPS perspective while playing.  Outriders runs smooth and the readouts show consistent usage with no throttling as well.

Hopefully, this can help determine the cause.

@bdcovington 

The First planet you are send to as is in Feros or Noveria?

In general, the MELE has performance issues in specific places that afaik effecting about anyone.

I have a i5 10600k overclocked to 5Ghz meaning a CPU with a relatively high single core performance, and I experience FPS drops on specific places at the Citadel from 165FPS (Vsync) to around 90 at worst 80 FPS.

In some places, such as the Citadel, this happens because the MELE still use a thread (not core, a single thread) and this thread is simply maxed out, i.e. a classic CPU bottleneck occurs where the CPU simply cannot drive the GPU anymore.

But in other places the problems seems to be different.

What I see in your HWInfo log is that your CPU is not taxed at all.

You did al lot of troubleshooting, I would suggest you disable the energy saving features of your INTEL CPU in the BIOS and test afterwards.

(That are EIST, CPU C State Control, CPU P-States Control and so on.)

Edit: Thanks for the additional files, and yes I don't think your GPU is the problem here.

@holger1405 By first planet, I meant the first mission in ME:1 where you start the game on the Normandy, then meet with Captain Anderson, then go down to the planet where

As far as the power settings go, unfortunately, it doesn't look like I have any options in the BIOS that have anything to do with power saving, the closest I can do is manage the processor power settings via the windows power plan advanced interface (screenshot for current settings attached).