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FPS Drops When Watching Videos While Playing Games

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TrollaCake

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Discussion starter · #1 ·
So as the title says, I get huge fps drops when I'm watching any type of youtube videos (Usually 720p), twitch streams or any other streams. I am currently using 2 monitors; 1 with 144hz and the other is 60hz and my 144hz is connected to my R9 graphics card using a DVI-D while my 60hz is connected to the intel graphics using a VGA cord to minimize problems. Both monitors are using 1920x1080 resolution

I've checked to see if my graphics card drivers are up to date and my windows update and they are.
I've always used google chrome and before I wasn't having any problems but now it's starting to become a nuisance and I can't even enjoy watching videos while playing League of Legends or CS:GO.
I've tried switching from Google Chrome to Firefox to see if it was any problem, but they were still both giving me the same amount of FPS drops. I only play CS:GO, League of Legends, PUBG, and a few other games. My GPU should be very capable of running these games in high and still be able to watch videos. While trying to diagnose this situation on my own, I have pulled up task manager and monitor my temperature with HWMonitor. The temperature were normal and my ram were never used up.
My specs:
CPU: I5 4690k (Not overclocked)
GPU: Gigabyte R9 380x
RAM: 16GB DDR3
Windows: Windows 10 PRO
 
#2 ·
Try disabling hardware acceleration in chrome and see if that helps. Would move the work from the gpu to the cpu.
 
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Discussion starter · #3 ·
Alright, I just disabled Chrome's hardware acceleration and I've notice a slight increase in fps, but its very unstable and it fluctuates my fps a lot. Whenever the video is played in the background, then there will be no fps decrease, but whats the point in having a second monitor then.
 
#4 ·
Hardware acceleration puts AMD's recent GPUs into a special video decoding power state. If you look at clocks in MSI Afterburner or something, you'll notice that they drop alot the instant you start the video, then go back up when you exit it.

I've tried everything, but there are only 2 ways to counter it:

-Edit and flash your BIOS with a custom DXVA clock.

-Or disable hardware acceleration, like mentioned above.

Editing your BIOS is no small undertaking, but should fix it.

Disabling hardware acceleration means your CPU has to decode the video instead. How much overhead that brings depends on how much CPU the game uses, and what kind of video it is.
 
#6 ·
Well there is another alternative.

Get MPC-QT (under the releases section):

https://github.com/cmdrkotori/mpc-qt

Use the basic rendering profile and disable hardware acceleration. Then use a youtube-dl GUI (I personally use SVP 4 Pro, but that costs a few bucks. There are plenty of free alternatives) to get the URLs and play them in MPC-QT instead of the browser.

As a bonus, it'll let you select a h.264 stream instead of a VP9 one, which is easier to play.

That's about the most efficient way to play a video. It'll still have some overhead without hardware acceleration, but it should be less than the clunky YouTube player.

On a side note, even if you aren't gaming, that's a much better way to watch long YT videos anyway.
 
#7 ·
What kind of cpu usage are you seeing?
 
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#8 ·
Have you tried running both monitors on the R9?
It could be just the onboard intel with the issue. Those games are very CPU bound.
 
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#9 ·
Is your game in full-screen mode or are you using windowless-border mode? Full-screen mode should prioritize your GPU to run at full clock speeds and it may help to turn on GPU scaling in the Displays tab.

On older drivers and my previous R9 290, I remember having my GPU clock down when I had videos playing on a secondary monitor (both connected to the GPU), which would make my game FPS drop, but newer drivers fixed that without needing to turn off hardware acceleration for either Chrome/Firefox.
 
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#10 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kokin View Post

Is your game in full-screen mode or are you using windowless-border mode? Full-screen mode should prioritize your GPU to run at full clock speeds and it may help to turn on GPU scaling in the Displays tab.

On older drivers and my previous R9 290, I remember having my GPU clock down when I had videos playing on a secondary monitor (both connected to the GPU), which would make my game FPS drop, but newer drivers fixed that without needing to turn off hardware acceleration for either Chrome/Firefox.
Click to expand...
Sadly, newer drivers never fixed it for me on my 7950
frown.gif
. It's intentional behavior, I believe.

Not even locking the clocks with registry tweaks, Afterburner or other utilities fixed it for me. My card would even run at full clocks on the desktop at idle, but would still drop down to the video decoding clocks when using hardware decoding.

It might not have been fixed by a driver, btw. Youtube is switching more and more streams to VP9, which means your 290 can't hardware decode them anyway (and also means it won't down clock playing them).
 
#11 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by brucethemoose View Post

Sadly, newer drivers never fixed it for me on my 7950
frown.gif
. It's intentional behavior, I believe.

Not even locking the clocks with registry tweaks, Afterburner or other utilities fixed it for me. My card would even run at full clocks on the desktop at idle, but would still drop down to the video decoding clocks when using hardware decoding.

It might not have been fixed by a driver, btw. Youtube is switching more and more streams to VP9, which means your 290 can't hardware decode them anyway (and also means it won't down clock playing them).
Click to expand...
That would make sense, although I made the switch to my Fury X about a year ago, so there's no way for me to test it out. I currently have zero issues with video playback (locally or streaming) and running a game concurrently.
 
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#12 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kokin View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by brucethemoose View Post

Sadly, newer drivers never fixed it for me on my 7950
frown.gif
. It's intentional behavior, I believe.

Not even locking the clocks with registry tweaks, Afterburner or other utilities fixed it for me. My card would even run at full clocks on the desktop at idle, but would still drop down to the video decoding clocks when using hardware decoding.

It might not have been fixed by a driver, btw. Youtube is switching more and more streams to VP9, which means your 290 can't hardware decode them anyway (and also means it won't down clock playing them).
Click to expand...
That would make sense, although I made the switch to my Fury X about a year ago, so there's no way for me to test it out. I currently have zero issues with video playback (locally or streaming) and running a game concurrently.
Click to expand...
The Fury X can decode VP9. And it still has a DXVA mode in the BIOS (as does Vega).

Have you monitored core/memory clocks while starting/stopping a video you know is hardware decoded? If it stays at gaming clocks, that would be a fantastic change, and actually make me feel better about buying an AMD card in the future.
 
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TrollaCake
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