Elden Ring has severe FPS drops unless I restart my PC first
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MellowCedar42
Elden Ring becomes nearly unplayable if I launch it after my PC has been running for an hour or more. The frame rate stays below 40 FPS and 1% lows can drop to 3–15 FPS. Restarting the computer completely fixes the problem, giving me a steady 58–60 FPS with the game's 60 FPS cap. This has been happening for over a year, but only in Elden Ring; other games run normally. My system has an Intel i7-12700K, RTX 3080, and 32 GB of RAM. The game files are clean, and I'm using high-performance power settings. What could cause this, and how can I fix it permanently?
Answers
Since restarting fixes it while resource usage remains normal, this points more toward a persistent driver, Windows, or game-cache state than a lack of hardware power. Try a proper clean GPU-driver installation with the latest stable driver, then reset the game’s graphics configuration and shader caches. If that changes nothing, test with a clean Windows installation because the problem may be tied to the current OS or driver environment.
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Check what is running when the issue appears instead of only checking after a reboot. Look at Task Manager or Resource Monitor, GPU and CPU temperatures, available disk space, startup programs, and Windows Event Viewer for warnings. If the usual driver and software checks do not help, a clean Windows installation may be worth considering as a last resort.
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A few things are worth testing: check dedicated VRAM usage before launching the game, clear the NVIDIA shader cache, set Elden Ring’s power management mode to Prefer maximum performance in NVIDIA Control Panel, and toggle Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling. Some systems develop game-specific performance problems after long uptimes because of driver, shader-cache, or scheduling issues.
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MellowCedar42: VRAM usage is only around 7% before launching and 40–50% while playing, and the other resource readings look normal. I already set the game to maximum performance and HAGS is disabled. I cleared the NVIDIA cache, but I still cannot find a separate Elden Ring shader-cache folder, and the issue continues.