Dual/Tri Monitors Lag Only When Playing Fullscreen Games

[ikrisskross]

Hey all,

(Sorry if this is rather long, I'm just making sure I'm being thorough in explaining the problem and everything I tried personally before asking, because I'm usually pretty good at figuring stuff out on my own, but this one has me stumped)

I'm encountering an issue that seems to be similar to a lot of questions asked on here (Yes, I've checked thoroughly before asking), but I haven't been able to find a solution and maybe someone can possibly help me out if they are having the same issue.

To begin, my laptop specs are:
Intel i7-4700MQ CPU @ 2.40GHz / 64-Bit
16 GB RAM
Graphics Cards:
Intel HD Graphics 4600
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M

Now, to describe my issue, I used to never have any problem playing games fullscreen on a dual monitor (or a third monitor at that, but just sticking with two for now). I have two ASUS VX238 monitors, along with the laptop built in display. I didn't make any changes to my drivers or the cards themselves, but now when I'm playing full screen games on either of the two external monitors, it causes the built in display frame rate to drop tremendously and I'm wondering if anyone has any solutions because I'm out of ideas at this point besides factory resetting my laptop to be completely honest.

I've done quite a bit of troubleshooting before posting here, here are some things I've tried, and some things I've taken note of to help possibly deduce the issue:

• 
  - I've tried Uninstalling GeForce experience like someone had suggested in one thread, this didn't help.
  - I've tried updating my drivers to the latest versions, this didn't help. Similarly, I've tried rolling back both graphics card drivers back to their original state because I still have the installation CD and uninstalled > re-installed them.
  - Re-flashing BIOS
  - Something interesting I noted is that the lag does not exist when I hook up one monitor (Built-in Display | ASUS) and I run the games full screen on the Built-In Display and I have the Built-In Display set to "Make this my main display." The lag does not occur on the monitor. Contrary, the lag does appear when I run the games on either of my two external monitors in fullscreen only. If I close the Built-In Display and run the games in Fullscreen with just the two external monitors active, the lag exists as well.
  - The frame drops don't occur when in window mode, but it causes some games to eat inputs, which I don't like.
  - I've tried going into NVidia Control Panel and setting the Global Settings for preferred graphics processor to both High-performance NVIDIA processor (tried games again, failed) and tried Integrated graphics (tried the games again, failed).
  - I have my NVIDIA control panel preferences set to emphasize performance.

Would anyone have any other advice, solutions, things to try, etc? I'm really stuck here and would appreciate some help. Thanks in advance, I appreciate it!

- Chris

 

[DigitalHamster]

It can always be good to know how well the graphics card is performing when running games.
Personally, if you have not already tried, install MSI Afterburner
You can look at GPU usage, VRAM usage, GPU frequency and GPU temperature to see if the GPU is causing any issues.
Things we are looking for here are:
low load - e.g. the problem is somewhere else *note below*
95% to 100% GPU load - just too demanding
VRAM nearly completely used - lag caused by shunting data from VRAM to RAM and back again
high temperatures causing throttling - temperatures over 85c are likely causing throttling and can reduce performance

*the note* --> Open task manager and look at CPU usage - if it is really high, this is the cause of the lag.
Potentially all the RAM is used up - this can cause lag.

Obviously this is unlikely to solve your problem but it can help to just keep this in mind.
I have had issues with DiRT Showdown lagging due to the 'Advanced Lighting' being buggy and maxing out one or both GPUs randomly.

 

[ikrisskross]

It can always be good to know how well the graphics card is performing when running games.
Personally, if you have not already tried, install MSI Afterburner
You can look at GPU usage, VRAM usage, GPU frequency and GPU temperature to see if the GPU is causing any issues.
Things we are looking for here are:
low load - e.g. the problem is somewhere else *note below*
95% to 100% GPU load - just too demanding
VRAM nearly completely used - lag caused by shunting data from VRAM to RAM and back again
high temperatures causing throttling - temperatures over 85c are likely causing throttling and can reduce performance

*the note* --> Open task manager and look at CPU usage - if it is really high, this is the cause of the lag.
Potentially all the RAM is used up - this can cause lag.

Obviously this is unlikely to solve your problem but it can help to just keep this in mind.
I have had issues with DiRT Showdown lagging due to the 'Advanced Lighting' being buggy and maxing out one or both GPUs randomly.

I haven't gave Afterburner a try yet, and after reading your comment I downloaded it to give it a shot. I'm not noticing any irregularities however. I wish I could say it was just one game, but it's several games, emulators, etc. all of which work great in windowed mode, just starts causing lag in fullscreen. At the absolute most, the CPU being used is about 13.5%, which is not much at all. All my apps (including Chrome to write this, total CPU usage to be about 21%, 34% memory being used as of now).

The temperature gauge seems to only track it at 61 degrees Celsius so it doesn't seem to be coming from there either.

I'm not really sure what the other statistics you mentioned are located though (first time using Afterburner).

Does anything look odd to you? (Yes, the game is running).

https/snag.gy/82BP3N.jpg

 

[DigitalHamster]

Nothing appears to be wrong.
It would seem that the problem lies else where, as the hardware is working perfectly.
Potentially I would say it is a bug with the drivers, but that is unlikely.
An extreme measure would be to reinstall the OS, but the hassle of backing up then recopying everything is a reason to avoid this.

Not sure I am of any help I hope someone else can help you more than I have!
Good luck!

 

[ikrisskross]

Nothing appears to be wrong.
It would seem that the problem lies else where, as the hardware is working perfectly.
Potentially I would say it is a bug with the drivers, but that is unlikely.
An extreme measure would be to reinstall the OS, but the hassle of backing up then recopying everything is a reason to avoid this.

Not sure I am of any help I hope someone else can help you more than I have!
Good luck!

That's what I'm seeing too, because everything seems very normal. This just started happening randomly and it just won't go away now.

That's what I figured, that was something I said in the OP as well, because that literally seems to be my last option at this point; re-installing the OS. Which I don't completely mind doing, just would rather not if I can avoid it. I felt like I've done everything imaginable! Haha.. Ah well, I'm going to hold out and see if anyone else has any other suggestions before I give it another shot. Thanks for your help.