Performance issues and should I upgrade toWindows 11?

[Punisher]

So... I've been having some issues with Windows that I just couldn't fix so I bit the bullet and did a Windows 10 reset.

I'm still running into some performance issues with games, such as Miles Morales. Unless I drop everything to low quality even though I have decent specs and haven't had issues prior to a few months ago.

Current specs:
MSI GE76 Raider 10UH
Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10875H CPU @ 2.30GHz
32 GB RAM @ 1600 MHz
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Laptop GPU, 16384 MB
Drive: SSD, PCIe SSD, 7452.04 GB
Drive: SSD, PCIe SSD, 7452.04 GB
Network: Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX210 160MHz
Network: Killer E3100X 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet Controller (2)
UWP User Scenario: Extreme Performance, Performance: Turbo, Fan: Auto
Graphic Switch: Discrete Graphics

Temps all seem ok.
Windows and drivers are all updated. I haven't even added AV yet.
I'm seeing mouse lag in Windows itself with a fully charged wireless mouse. In the Miles Morales game (the only one I tested after reinstalling so far) I'm seeing it hit 10 fps and even 0 fps at times.
Any ideas on what else I can check? Oh. The laptop was new in 2021.

Separately but possibly a solution.
While I was not offered a free Windows 11 update before the reinstall, I am now being offered it. Don't know if it's time-limited or not.
Questions.
1) Is it worth it to upgrade to Windows 11?
2) are there any major issues with Windows 11 and compatibility with games or anything else?
3) Is it possible that upgrading will help my situation?
4) Can I roll back to Windows 10 if I want or worse case, reinstall Win 10? (Not sure if upgrading means my Win 10 license is permanently upgraded or not.

[Octavious]

I'd be worried that you have a drive going out. Backup anything important like yesterday. And run checks on your drive and your memory. Only other thing I could think of is if the drive you have Windows on is running out of space. Weird shit happens when you run low on space.

[Carpet_pissr]

I personally regret ‘upgrading’ from 10 to 11, but YMMV.

I would do it as a last resort only to fix any issues. This from someone who successfully fixed a problem I couldn’t resolve by upgrading my Windows (to ME unbelievably) many moons ago.

[Kasey Chang]

I seems to have read somewhere that Win11 can enable full time drive encryption, and that'd slow even SSDs down to a crawl. May want to look into that if you have SSD.

[Carpet_pissr]

I seems to have read somewhere that Win11 can enable full time drive encryption, and that'd slow even SSDs down to a crawl. May want to look into that if you have SSD.

My system was noticeably slower after I went from 10 to 11. Noticeably more crashy as well.

[Anonymous Bosch]

Separately but possibly a solution.
While I was not offered a free Windows 11 update before the reinstall, I am now being offered it. Don't know if it's time-limited or not.
Questions.
1) Is it worth it to upgrade to Windows 11?

Not in my opinion. From what I have personally tested, observed, and experienced, I have seen negligible performance gains and even worse performance in some instances using Windows 11 vs. Windows 10. Broadly speaking, I think the primary compelling factor as to whether one ought to upgrade to Windows 11 is if you prefer the way it looks. If not? I wouldn't bother, as Windows 10 still has support until 2025, so there's really no need to be in any rush to switch.

2) are there any major issues with Windows 11 and compatibility with games or anything else?

I don't believe so, but there are some drawbacks to running Windows 11. Personally, I think the Windows 11 taskbar is just plain awful, as it's based on a different Universal Windows Platform (UWP) that isn’t nearly as good as the Windows 10 taskbar. This means you can’t move it to the left, right, or top like you can in Windows 10. The Windows 11 context menu might look cleaner, but it's also far less functional. Changing default apps is pretty awful in Windows 11, too; everything is extension based, unlike Windows 10 where it's program based.

3) Is it possible that upgrading will help my situation?

I very much doubt it, and you may see worse performance using Windows 11.

4) Can I roll back to Windows 10 if I want or worse case, reinstall Win 10? (Not sure if upgrading means my Win 10 license is permanently upgraded or not.

If memory serves, you're given ten days after upgrading to Windows 11 to "roll back" to your previous Windows 10 installation. That option is only available for ten days because Windows only keeps your old operating system files around for that period of time. After ten days, Windows deletes them from your internal drive to free up space. If it's been more than ten days, you can reinstall Windows 10 on your computer. But doing so will then require performing a full Windows reinstall. In other words, you'd need to wipe and replace Windows 11 with a completely fresh Windows 10 system, which you'd have to set up from scratch.

So, in terms of the performance issues you're experiencing, I'm inclined to agree with Octavious that they could be indicative of potential hardware failure.

I'd suggest using something like CrystalDiskInfo to check the health status and overall condition of your solid-state drives.

If all looks well with your SSDs, run the Windows Memory Diagnostics Tool to check for possible memory problems.

Also, try using Open Hardware Monitor to check your CPU and GPU temperatures, sensors, fan speeds, voltages, and other system info:



UserBenchmark.com is also mighty useful for checking your hardware performance:

[Blackhawk]

I'd suggest using something like CrystalDiskInfo to check the health status and overall condition of your solid-state drives.

If all looks well with your SSDs, run the Windows Memory Diagnostics Tool to check for possible memory problems.

Also, try using Open Hardware Monitor to check your CPU and GPU temperatures, sensors, fan speeds, voltages, and other system info:



UserBenchmark.com is also mighty useful for checking your hardware performance:

Both are great suggestions. The monitor will help you figure out exactly where your bottleneck is.

One thought: Double check that the game is using the correct graphics hardware. Sometimes a Windows or driver update, or the coding in a particular game will cause it to try to run on the wrong video card, which would result in you running it on the integrated graphics card (normally used only for the desktop) and instead of on the 3080.

[hitbyambulance]

i would move full-time to Linux rather than upgrade to Windows 11... which means i'll have to do so in the future.

[Punisher]

Thanks for all the replies!

I'll try some of those testers suggested.
Some notes.
1. all drives are m.2 SSDs
2. My laptop has software to monitor CPU and GPU usage and both seem fine.
3. drive space shouldn't be an issue, especially after doing the reset. My C drive has about 700GB+ in free space, the others have a few terabytes.
4. My laptop has software to change the GPU usage between Hybrid (onboard Intel and the Nvidia GPU) or discrete which is using the GPU only. I have it on discrete now but have tried both. I also found out that there is a way to force Windows to use a specific card and currently have it set to use the Nvidia one.
5. I am also going to load some other games that had performance issues to see if they still have them or if they are better and it's all on Miles Morales.
6. I am seeing some lag in normal windows again.

Another question.
Is it realistically possible that the Windows reset wasn't enough and I really just need to do a clean, from scratch, wipe, and reinstall or is reset mostly the same thing?

[Punisher]

disk scans
http://www.crescenthawks.com/OO/C&E-Drive.jpg
http://www.crescenthawks.com/OO/D-Drive.jpg
tried using the image tag but nothing showed.

[Blackhawk]

2. My laptop has software to monitor CPU and GPU usage and both seem fine.

4. My laptop has software to change the GPU usage between Hybrid (onboard Intel and the Nvidia GPU) or discrete which is using the GPU only. I have it on discrete now but have tried both. I also found out that there is a way to force Windows to use a specific card and currently have it set to use the Nvidia one.
5. I am also going to load some other games that had performance issues to see if they still have them or if they are better and it's all on Miles Morales.

#2 - Do they show it real-time while you're playing? (If you have GeForce Experience it can do this.) Or do they generate logs of usage over time? What you want to see is whether something is maxing out during the actual gameplay, not before, after, or while the game is paused.

#4 - Smart move. You'll want to try to double-check, as the 'automated' switch sometimes fails to switch them properly. You can usually check in-game with task manager if it will let you set it to 'always on top' in the options and then go back into the game. Click on the 'performance' tab and make the GPU visible on screen, then make sure the Nvidia card is under load. There's a way to check which specific applications are using what, but it's fiddly, and this method is easier to explain.

#5 - Have you tried a benchmark that you can use to actually record your specific framerate? They're not perfect reflections of game performance, but they can still be useful.

Some other thoughts:

~Make sure your graphics settings, including refresh rate and resolution are set correctly.
~Make sure that Windows is correctly detecting the amount of RAM you have.
~Make sure that you have your swap file set correctly.
~See what you have running at the same time as games that could be impacting performance.
~You said temps were fine (was that during active gameplay, or before/after?), but check for ventilation anyway. Components that aren't monitored could be overheating, and your ssds are operating at pretty high temps, just a degree or two short of max.
~Have you tried a clean install of your graphics drivers? If you download the Nvidia drivers (and given your situation, I'd recommend the ones directly from Nvidia), there's an option to do a clean install while you're going through the install process. It's possible that a setting is cockeyed and is, for instance, trying to run everything at a higher resolution.

And again, if you aren't doing it, testing should be under the full load of a game, not paused or after you exit.

[Blackhawk]

FYI, most of this is just testing to see where the problem lies, not the actual problem-solving.

[Anonymous Bosch]

If you happen to own a reasonably fast USB flash drive with sufficient capacity to install Miles Morales, here's a fun, simple and completely non-destructive method you can use to definitively confirm whether your Windows configuration really is the issue. The system requirements for Miles Morales suggest 75GB of storage. So, a 128GB or 256GB drive ought to be plenty sufficient.

Check out the video tutorial below to see how you can quickly and easily install and use HoloISO -- i.e. the Steam Deck OS -- on your external USB flash drive. This will allow you to boot from the external USB flash drive, and essentially (temporarily) turn your laptop into a lean and more powerful Steam Deck.

Just use balenaEtcher to flash the ISO to your external flash drive as shown in the tutorial below. In fact, follow every step shown in the tutorial video, except for two simple differences: after beginning the installation process, select your USB flash drive as the destination drive (i.e. the same one you booted from, and NOT your internal SSDs). Then select the appropriate NVIDIA option when prompted to choose your current GPU, reboot the system after the installation is complete as shown in the tutorial, and you'll be good to go.



After completing the initial set up of Steam OS and logging into your Steam account, go ahead and install Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and see if the game performs better on your laptop without using Windows at all.

[Octavious]

FYI I was playing Spiderman Remastered the other day and ran into an issue where the frames dropped to like 15. From what I read it's that the game doesn't handle cpus with more than 6 cores very well. The solution was to use a program to disable hyperthreading (or whatever it's called on AMD.) It's VERY possible you're running into the same thing with Miles as that's pretty much the same engine.

So it just might be that game and not Windows 11.