G73H: Borderlands and Black Ops only work right on fresh driver install

Hey all,

As the title implies, I'm having a weird issue with my g73h in that two specific games Borderlands and Black Ops work seemlessly upon a fresh driver install, but as soon as I turn my computer off and then back on they go down to about half the frame rate. Does anyone know why this might be or if there is a solution outside of just putting the laptop to sleep instead of shutting down?

Thanks for any help provided.

 

I have the same issue with this game...and this game only. Ive reinstalled other games and they performed just as well as they did on the initial install.

On my black ops initial install i only updated to the first update, i had everything on ultra including AAx18 and the damn thing ran flawlessly. With sync it was constant 60fps. Throughout the whole campaign. Lowest FPS i got was about 28FPS and that was a 1-2sec dip due to all kinds of hell going on. Well, i accidentally uninstalled it and upon reinstall, immediately updated it to the latest update (which was 4 or 5), and it ran like crap. With the same settings, it semi-hangs in the campaign intro clip for 15-20secs before the level loads. Then on that very first scene as soon as action starts in the bar, its a lag fest all the way to the car. Same issue with medium settings. Never had this issue before.

I tried reinstalling again and only updating to the first update to no avail. Game still played like crap. I havent played the game in a while so im not sure if the recent updates have fixed this...if not I would try to reinstall it and update only to the first or second update..might work for you like it did for me the first time.

good luck

 

That's an interesting problem but different than mine. My problem appears to be that Black Ops and Borderlands run flawlessly upon a fresh video driver install (in my case 10.12 mobility) but it I shut down my computer and turn it back on later they run like crap unless I install the driver again. Maybe if you try re-installing your drivers it'll work better for you to.

The only solution I've had so far is to put my computer to sleep rather than shut it down but that's sub-optimal. Anyone else have any ideas or the same probelem?

 

Try turning off the AI. Maybe the ATI profile is b0rking things.

 

I have tried that just now and it still seems to be that the only time both games work smoothly is if I go through the installation process for my drivers before playing them if the computer has been off (not if it's been asleep though).

I have no idea what would cause this and I'm interested if any other g73h users have a similar strange problem. Again, if the drivers have been just installed, Borderlands and Black Ops work great. Turn computer off and back on and load times are dramatically longer and the frame rate goes through the floor until I go through the installation process again (don't even have to uninstall first, just activate the installation exe and make it go through the motions). These specific games are also the only two where this is a problem.

Thanks again so far.

 

Try this: Uninstall all things ATI, reboot to safe mode, run the ATI Crap Cleaner, reboot, and run the installer, custom install, and install ONLY the drivers.

By the way, you are the only person I've heard of with this issue.

If this doesn't help, go ahead and install CCC, and install the latest Application profiles.

https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/203...on_profiles/10-12_ATICatalyst_AppProfiles.exe

 

I've tried just installing the drivers without the CCC and still performance on those two specific games drops if I restart the computer. I guess I'll just have to live with this little problem.

One last question though, simply going through the installation process for my drivers every time I want to play either of these games after a hard shut down even though they're already installed couldn't be harmful could it?

 

It's a potential to make a big registry mess. It would be more helpful if you give us more info on how you have the games and drivers setup. It would also help to know what else you are running at the time. The slowness could be from throttling. Have you disabled PowerPlay? Are you overclocking? If so, how? Do you play on AC power?

Have you patched the games at all, or are you on Steam?

 

Have you tried setting it to high performance, and turning off powerplay? (As chastity has said).

 

Thanks for all the help guys, I'll give you my basic setup but let me know if you need further info (I've just recently gotten back into PC gaming).

The games are from Steam and therefore fully patched. I don't run anything else in the background other than McAfee. My vBios is the one that was posted on this forum to fix the GSOD (without overclocking). The drivers settings don't appear to make a difference as I've tried literally everything in terms of setting them to all performance, disabling catalyst AI or enabling it etc. I play on AC power and have always been set to "High Performance" in powergear but I'll try disabling ati's power play (should I also uninstall p4g?).

After googling for hours I have found that this does appear to be a problem unique to me outside of one other guy who had this issue with borderlands and resided to just install the drivers every time before playing it which I guess is a bad move.

 

I can install Borderlands on my lappy and see how it plays. Also, have you tried disabling the Steam In-Game Community overlay?

 

I have tried that yes. If you could let me know how borderlands goes (great game BTW) that'd be helpful. It's the worst offender. For Black Ops basically the only difference between playing on a fresh driver install vs. after a shut down is that after a shut down load times are longer and the first few seconds of a level stutter before a solid frame rate is achieved. For borderlands, playing on a fresh driver install my fps is about 45-60 with all settings max and after a shut down and restart those numbers are halved.

Like I said before, this appears to be a problem unique to these games for me as I've just purchased BFBC2 and the expanshion Vietnam which notoriously had problems on ATI cards and yet works like a dream on my lappy. I also have basically been ignoring it since I don't play borderlands as much as I did when I first bought the lappy a year ago but with Black Ops being a second offender I'm trying once again to figure our just what is wrong. It just seems very strange to me.

 

I've played a tonne of borderlands on mine, but it's been a few months. IIRC, you can max everything and still have smooth framerates.

 

Yup. Borderlands runs flawlessly for me maxed out. Its just Black ops giving me issues.

 

Well it's good to know (I guess) that this really is a wonky problem with me. It would make more sense to me if all my games worked better on a fresh driver install but all the othe games I play (Starcraft II, Dragon Age, BFBC2, Crysis, Civ V, L4D etc.) are fine.

I guess while I'm addicted to Black Ops I'll just have to hibernate instead of shut down and chalk this up to perhaps Microsoft monkeying around with my Drivers on startup in a way that makes no sense to me.

 

I installed Borderlands, and got 45-60 fps with all maxed except for Ambient Occlusion (never cared for it) @ 1920x1080 8x Aniso.

 

Well since this problem has been specific to me and to only a couple games that I own and I've had it since buying the laptop and playing on stock drivers I guess there's not much that can be done except hibernate instead of shutting down when I want to play Borderlands or Black Ops. Was hoping my problem wasn't so unique but oh well.

Thanks for your time guys and Merry Christmas.