This is also true and sometimes the “newest” drivers might cause issues. You can also try installing an OLDER version of your drivers from Nvidia. I would suggest rolling back at least 1 full number back (not just the x.1 decimal place number). IF/WHEN you do roll back MAKE SURE YOU PERFORM A “CLEAN INSTALL”. If you do not click the box for “clean install” it might not even let you install, and/or can leave the newer drivers installed negating the roll back attempt.
If you can remember the exact date you started having issues, I would suggest rolling back to an Nvidia driver before that date. So, you can cross the GPU driver off the list of possible issues and continue troubleshooting if that does not fix your issue.
Hope you get everything worked out man 🙏
Side note: since you have a 3xxx series GPU, I would assume your laptop is a couple/few years old, it MIGHT be the thermal paste/thermal pads drying out/going bad. OR maybe your exhaust vents could be clogged? Have you taken a look at your GPU/CPU temps under full load? (The odds of it being thermal paste/pads is probably pretty low, watching your temps should give you an idea before even considering that as an issue.) If you cannot get the temps high enough with War Thunder, try a different game and see how high your temps get. Let us know what your temps look like after you are able to do a little testing 👍
I changed to dirext x11 and it helped a lot! Still getting fps drops into the 30s and occasionally into the high 20s with high settings but it’s not nearly as bad as before. Think we might have found the culprit with this one!
Ahhh wonderful, where you getting higher FPS before? If so, you still might try rolling back to an older driver if you feel like testing it. I have a 3090ti and have found that DX 12 works MUCH better overall NOW, but it did NOT work well when War Thunder first added it. My point being, DX 12 and the drivers/game all affect each other and MAYBE an older driver will work better again with DX 12. Maybe not, DX 11 still might be better (even with an older driver). But anyway, glad something is starting to help.
I’ve been watching temps pretty closely and they aren’t abnormally high for a gaming latptop. 70s to low 90s. Never in the 100s. Exhaust vents seem clear from the outside, but I might crack open my laptop to see if they aren’t clogged. I have two cats and their hair gets everywhere haha.
Another person recommended I change to dx 11 and that improved things quite a bit. Hopefully it’s not my thermal paste. Not looking forward to trying to swap thermal paste on a laptop if it is.
Thanks for your advice! I’ll keep it in mind if I keep having issues!
I’ll try fiddling with drivers some more tomorrow and see if that helps. Could end up being drivers too because Helldivers 2 has had fps drops a lot for me too lately. Thanks again for the advice!
Yeah pretty “normal” for a laptop lol. If they aren’t even getting that high currently with your lower FPS definitely makes it sound like more of a driver issue. But still probably a good idea to check the vents. Might want to look up a quick YouTube video for your laptop’s intake/ exhaust locations, sometimes there is a hidden one that isn’t very obvious 👍
Quick note here too, IF you do conclude it might be a paste issue, the PADS could be left alone. Just make sure you take care not to introduce and dust/ hair onto them. Then make sure you only use non conductive paste so that any accidental extra paste won’t short anything. I looked this up recently with a friend with a laptop and helped him redo his laptop’s paste. Nocta’s paste is one of the best for temps and is non conductive. I will update this reply with a link here in a few mins.
We got a tube for about $10 on Amazon, BestBuy etc do not seem to carry it. There is an acceptable/good Corsair paste that they do carry, just again make 100% sure it is NOT electrically conductive 😉
(Side side not, absolutely do NOT mess with liquid metal, ANY stray drops will burn up your computer, especially in a laptop situation. I would also suggest not using the new thermal pad things with a laptop, because the thickness might prevent the CPU/GPU thermal pads from contacting correctly. The new thermal pads do seem to be quite good, but I would only attempt to use them on a desktop CPU where nothing else is affected by their differing thicknesses.)
