Video games stutter on laptop

[Tania98]

Hi,

I've had my HP Pavilion 15-au104nv laptop for a few months now. I did not purchase it for the sole reason of playing video games, however I expected it to run a few basic Steam games. I've already played things like The Witness at high settings with roughly 30-45 fps and it all works smoothly, sound doesn't cut out etc, in short it runs great for me.

However, recently I bought Overwatch and Little Nightmares. I didn't expect to run Overwatch at high or anything since from what I've seen online in terms of requirements and other people's play tests on YouTube etc, I'm above minimum requirements and should easily play the game well at Low at my native resolution. Instead when I run the game, enter the training range or a game, everything stutters heavily, including the sound, and my fps are below 20.

Little Nightmares runs smoothly enough on low settings, but every so often there's a period of heavy stuttering and everything moves in slow motion.

To try to fix the issue, I tried changing the Global settings in Nvidia Control Panel to solely use the GPU and not integrated graphics. The issues persisted. Please help!

[The_Fossette · Accepted solution]

Hi @Tania98,

Thank you for posting your query in this forum, it's a great place to find answers.

I reviewed your post and I understand that the computer shutters when you play games and the frame rate drops to 20.

I appreciate that you've attempted the steps mentioned and I'll be more than glad to help you out:

Please follow below steps and check if it helps.

Right-click your desktop background and select NVIDIA Control Panel. You can also find this tool by performing a Start menu (or Start screen) search for NVIDIA Control Panel or by right-clicking the NVIDIA icon in your system tray and selecting Open NVIDIA Control Panel.

To quickly set a system-wide preference, you could use the Adjust image settings with the preview option. For example, if you have old hardware that struggles to play the games you want to play, you may want to select “Use my preference emphasizing” and move the slider all the way to “Performance.” This trades graphics quality for an increased frame rate.

By default, the “Use the advanced 3D image settings” option is selected. You can select Manage 3D settings and change advanced settings for all programs on your computer or just for specific games. NVIDIA keeps a database of the optimal settings for various games, but you’re free to tweak individual settings here. Just mouse-over an option for an explanation of what it does.

If you have a laptop with NVIDIA Optimus technology — that is, both NVIDIA and Intel graphics — this is the same place you can choose which applications will use the NVIDIA hardware and which will use the Intel hardware.

For more assistance, please check a similar HP Forums post (Resolved): Click here  

(Though the header is different the steps will help get you a fix).

Let me know how it goes and you have a great day!

To simply say thanks, please click the "Thumbs Up" button to give me a Kudos to appreciate my efforts to help. If this helps, please mark this as “Accepted Solution” as it will help several others with the same issue to get it resolved without hassles.

Take care.

Cheers!

[Tania98]

---

@The_Fossette wrote:

Hi @Tania98,

Thank you for posting your query in this forum, it's a great place to find answers.

I reviewed your post and I understand that the computer shutters when you play games and the frame rate drops to 20.

I appreciate that you've attempted the steps mentioned and I'll be more than glad to help you out:

Please follow below steps and check if it helps.

Right-click your desktop background and select NVIDIA Control Panel. You can also find this tool by performing a Start menu (or Start screen) search for NVIDIA Control Panel or by right-clicking the NVIDIA icon in your system tray and selecting Open NVIDIA Control Panel.

To quickly set a system-wide preference, you could use the Adjust image settings with the preview option. For example, if you have old hardware that struggles to play the games you want to play, you may want to select “Use my preference emphasizing” and move the slider all the way to “Performance.” This trades graphics quality for an increased frame rate.

By default, the “Use the advanced 3D image settings” option is selected. You can select Manage 3D settings and change advanced settings for all programs on your computer or just for specific games. NVIDIA keeps a database of the optimal settings for various games, but you’re free to tweak individual settings here. Just mouse-over an option for an explanation of what it does.

If you have a laptop with NVIDIA Optimus technology — that is, both NVIDIA and Intel graphics — this is the same place you can choose which applications will use the NVIDIA hardware and which will use the Intel hardware.

For more assistance, please check a similar HP Forums post (Resolved): Click here  

(Though the header is different the steps will help get you a fix).

Let me know how it goes and you have a great day!

To simply say thanks, please click the "Thumbs Up" button to give me a Kudos to appreciate my efforts to help. If this helps, please mark this as “Accepted Solution” as it will help several others with the same issue to get it resolved without hassles.

Take care.

Cheers!

---

This has definitely made a significant difference in the games I play. Thanks so much for the help!

[The_Fossette]

Hi @Tania98,

Perfect, I am really glad to hear that!

If any other questions arise, please feel free to write back to me.

Take care.