Framerates significantly lower in fullscreen than in windowed mode? 800M Series cards

Hello fellow NBR members, I have a Lenovo Y50 notebook that I received a month ago and I have noticed a problem. When playing games at fullscreen, framerates are significantly lower than in windowed mode. I've come to understand that it's supposed to be the opposite.

What's weird is when I monitor GPU usage of both Intel iGPU (HD 4600) and NVIDIA GTX860M in Afterburner, the GPU usage of the Intel card is as high as the NVIDIA card in fullscreen. In Windowed mode, the Intel card is not being used as much. I've tested different drivers for both Intel and Nvidia cards and tinkered with settings. Another person who has an 880M had experienced this issue as well, so I'm wondering if any other notebook owners with an 800M series card has this issue as well.

NOTE:
GPU1 = NVIDIA GTX860M
&
GPU2 = Intel HD 4600

Fullscreen:


Windowed (Note the spike at the beginning in GPU2 is when I switched to Windowed mode from Fullscreen):

 

in every game ?
try to see what setting you have in graphics adapter selector in the nvidia control panel !

 

NVIDIA card is selected as the preferred graphics processor.

Some games I have tested already.

CSGO (Tested with 9bots on de_dust2, in T spawn area):
Fullscreen: 110-150fps
Windowed(Windowed Fullscreen): 140-170fps (A lot more stable fps as well in Windowed)

CSS (benchmarking tool):
Fullscreen: 300fps average (it stuck around 280-330fps for the whole of the test)
Windowed: 412fps average (never dipped below 300fps, hit up to 560fps at certain points)

Killing Floor:
Fullscreen: 90fps
Windowed:100fps

FEZ:
Fullscreen: 100fps max
Windowed (not borderless): 300fps max

osu!:
Fullscreen: 300fps
Windowed: 800fps

Games that did not encounter this problem
Bioshock Infinite (framerate unlocked):
Fullscreen: 80fps
Windowed: 40fps

Fallout 3 GOTY Edition:
Fullscreen: 60fps
Windowed: 60fps

Skyrim: Legendary Edition:
Fullscreen: 45fps
Windowed: 45fps

 

driver version = ?

 

I've tried 340.52, 337.88 and currently on 332.50 (Lenovo's Official Driver).

 

Your GPU is too powerful for the games you have "problems" with. It doesnt need to be utilized full hence it downclocks and say "I`m done with this crap".

300FPS man. Think about it

 

But the thing is, it's not being downclocked. It's running the same as if it were in fullscreen. The only thing that's different is the GPU usage.

Fullscreen:
NVIDIA: 90+% usage
Intel: 90+% usage

Windowed:
NVIDIA: 90+% usage
Intel: 10-30% usage

Yet, in windowed mode it yields a higher frame rate.

And it is a problem actually, in CSGO if I want to play well on 128 tick servers (ESEA), I would need to maintain a stable 128fps (in which case I don't), and Windowed mode will introduce input delay on the mouse.

 

I have no idea how to force it to run at full utilization all the time when its just too powerful for CSGO.
Maybe its a game issue, but I feel its due to the insane high FPS.

What are the min FPS you get on fullscreen btw?

 

As I posted above 110-150fps in CSGO in fullscreen.
110fps being the min.

 

I observed the same thing on my Chronos 7 with GT 640m. Fullscreen: framedrops. Windowed silksmooth framerate.

 

Be sure to check each individual game in nVidia Control Panel if it's using Intel or nVidia. Just because it's the general "preferred" it doesn't always choose it for each specific game.

 

Yes, they are using the NVIDIA processor for sure. I manually adjust the settings before playing any game.