All games require NVIDIA driver reinstall for correct FPS

[modest zealot]

[driver reinstall necessary before every game launch]

With a 3080ti and GeForce Game Ready Driver v566.36, I must reinstall the drivers before launching any game (playing Overwatch, Marvel Rivals) to get a 'correct' FPS value (est 144+)

Otherwise, the games will be running at around 20-40 FPS

CPU temp does not change (low 40C, liquid cooled, CPU% is around 20-40%)
GPU performance seems to be ok, system is not showing that the GPU is running at 100% and struggling

Changing game settings like shadows or detail quality does not improve FPS

Reinstalling the drivers will always restore the GPU to 'correct' performance levels, with the system showing the same resource consumption before & after reinstall

So my question is

• is this a software issue?
• is this a hardware issue?

By reinstalling the driver, am I also clearing the cache or resetting some config to default settings, which restores correct performance?

Is there a way to achieve the same result without having to reinstall the drivers before launching a game every time?

[worn bough]

This might sound a little weird, but just to make sure: When exactly does the issue occur? Do you launch a game (it runs correctly), then quit it, and then re-launch it, and now it's borked? Or is something else required between it working & not working (say a restart)?

[modest zealot]

No, this doesn't seem to be related to launching the game or anythjing about the game running.
All other processes are closed on the PC

After a few hours after not reinstalling drivers, I must reinstall drivers to have the FPS at a good value

[worn bough]

I see
Could you run the following two commands (inside the Command Prompt) and send in their output:

• nvidia-smi
• WMIC PATH Win32_VideoController GET Name,PNPDeviceID

Ideally run them both before and after reinstalling drivers (e.g. with and without the issue present)

[modest zealot]

I reinstalled the drivers a few hours ago (this morning) and am still getting good / proper FPS values

These are the outputs of the two commands you wrote:

• I will re-run the commands and paste the output once the FPS values decrease (most likely in a few hours or tomorrow morning)
• this issue seems to happen either after est 4h between playing games (or I only notice when gaming as normal PC usage does not require significant GPU usage)
  • It is safe to assume that the FPS values will no longer be good at the start of every morning
  • I lock the PC via windows key + L in the evening and allow it to go to sleep on its own (1h of inactivity iirc)
    • But the issue can happen while the PC is on, so I don't think a sleep or power cycle is causing it

nvidia-smi

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 566.36                 Driver Version: 566.36         CUDA Version: 12.7     |
|-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name                  Driver-Model | Bus-Id          Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp   Perf          Pwr:Usage/Cap |           Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                                         |                        |               MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti   WDDM  |   00000000:01:00.0  On |                  N/A |
|  0%   33C    P8             52W /  400W |    1190MiB /  12288MiB |      7%      Default |
|                                         |                        |                  N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                              |
|  GPU   GI   CI        PID   Type   Process name                              GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                               Usage      |
|=========================================================================================|
|    0   N/A  N/A      9260    C+G   C:\Windows\explorer.exe                     N/A      |
|    0   N/A  N/A     11340    C+G   ....Search_cw5n1h2txyewy\SearchApp.exe      N/A      |
|    0   N/A  N/A     13560    C+G   ...n\NVIDIA app\CEF\NVIDIA Overlay.exe      N/A      |
|    0   N/A  N/A     14592    C+G   ...CBS_cw5n1h2txyewy\TextInputHost.exe      N/A      |
|    0   N/A  N/A     20080    C+G   ...n\NVIDIA app\CEF\NVIDIA Overlay.exe      N/A      |
|    0   N/A  N/A     20980    C+G   ...\cef\cef.win7x64\steamwebhelper.exe      N/A      |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

WMIC PATH Win32_VideoController GET Name,PNPDeviceID

Name                        PNPDeviceID
Virtual Desktop Monitor     ROOT\DISPLAY\0000
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti  PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_2208&SUBSYS_88071043&REV_A1\4&22F77229&0&0008

[modest zealot]

@worn bough
output of commands when issue is present:
nvidia-smi

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 566.36                 Driver Version: 566.36         CUDA Version: 12.7     |
|-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name                  Driver-Model | Bus-Id          Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp   Perf          Pwr:Usage/Cap |           Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                                         |                        |               MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti   WDDM  |   00000000:01:00.0  On |                  N/A |
|  0%   44C    P0            138W /  100W |    4896MiB /  12288MiB |    100%      Default |
|                                         |                        |                  N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                              |
|  GPU   GI   CI        PID   Type   Process name                              GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                               Usage      |
|=========================================================================================|
|    0   N/A  N/A      8104    C+G   ...t.LockApp_cw5n1h2txyewy\LockApp.exe      N/A      |
|    0   N/A  N/A      9260    C+G   C:\Windows\explorer.exe                     N/A      |
|    0   N/A  N/A     10904    C+G   ...ekyb3d8bbwe\PhoneExperienceHost.exe      N/A      |
|    0   N/A  N/A     11340    C+G   ....Search_cw5n1h2txyewy\SearchApp.exe      N/A      |
|    0   N/A  N/A     13560    C+G   ...n\NVIDIA app\CEF\NVIDIA Overlay.exe      N/A      |
|    0   N/A  N/A     14592    C+G   ...CBS_cw5n1h2txyewy\TextInputHost.exe      N/A      |
|    0   N/A  N/A     17204    C+G   ...US\ArmouryDevice\asus_framework.exe      N/A      |
|    0   N/A  N/A     20080    C+G   ...n\NVIDIA app\CEF\NVIDIA Overlay.exe      N/A      |
|    0   N/A  N/A     20980    C+G   ...\cef\cef.win7x64\steamwebhelper.exe      N/A      |
|    0   N/A  N/A     24088    C+G   ...5n1h2txyewy\ShellExperienceHost.exe      N/A      |
|    0   N/A  N/A     24384    C+G   ...6.0_x64__cv1g1gvanyjgm\WhatsApp.exe      N/A      |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

WMIC PATH Win32_VideoController GET Name,PNPDeviceID

Name                        PNPDeviceID
Virtual Desktop Monitor     ROOT\DISPLAY\0000
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti  PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_2208&SUBSYS_88071043&REV_A1\4&22F77229&0&0008

[worn bough]

GPU Util seems to be sitting at 100%, and a lot more apps are now in the processes list

Might be something with Armory Crate? It wasn't listed before, and is the only one I would suspect there. Tried checking it for any bogus settings?