FPS drops even when motionless and indoors

[fbr]

I recently installed TLD in my HP laptop, which should be able to handle the game fine in low settings: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700HQ, 8 Gb RAM, NVidia 960M, game in a M.2 SSD.

However, I notice frequent FPS drops (every 30-45 seconds, more or less). With everything at the lowest, the game runs at 110-120 FPS, dropping to 30. With settings adjusted to run at 60 FPS (my monitor refresh rate), it drops to 15-20.

When I'm running the game, CPU usage, RAM and SSD traffic are always below the maximum, even during the drops. The GPU is constantly near 100%.

The curious is that this happen even indoors, without even walking around. Logically, it also happens outdoors, with good and bad wheather, in small or large maps... Toggling Vsync doesn't make a difference.

I noticed something similar happening in other game (Portal 2), and I fixed it by capping FPS at 65. However, doing this with Nvidia control painel didn't solve the issue for TLD.

Does anybody knows what could be causing these frequent and systematic drops? Any possible solution?

[SpanishMoss]

Try reinstalling your graphics driver.  Then make sure your graphics card is set as the default card instead of onboard (via nivida control panel) Also, make sure your laptop isn't overheating, your hardware specs are pretty outdated, so I assume you've had the laptop for a while. This might mean that a lot of dust has built-up in the fans. ( if you can ) try opening up your laptop and clean the dust out.

[fbr]

Thanks for the suggestions! The drivers are updated and the correct GPU is selected for the game. I thought that it may be the temperature also, but GPU temperature stays between 70-80 degrees when running the game (with maximum of 85). I guess that's not so high to explain the issue, right? I use a cooler plate an cleaned the laptop not so long ago.

 

[stratvox]

I'd be more inclined to think you should look at other programs on the system that might be hitting your CPU hard... HP tends to ship a lot of shovelware on their laptops, and even outright crap like McAfee or Nortons. When I get laptops that are destined for Windows I tend to download the Microsoft image and install that instead of using the software that comes from the manufacturer because the manufacturer's version usually includes a bunch of crappy software. It's just easier than going into the control panel and removing all the crap via add/remove programs...

In all seriousness, I bet that your antivirus is looking at the running instance of the game periodically to see if it's being "suspicious" (this is generally referred to as heuristic analysis in the literature); you may find that you can tell it to not bother looking at that program or you can maybe find a better antivirus than the one your using; both mcafee and nortons suck.

 

[SpanishMoss]

I agree, anti-virus software like that is basically adware PUP at that point (potentally unwanted program). Go to windows control panel and remove it. If you don't know how to do that, there are numerous guides online.