Iris Xe Underperforming

[MrOrg11]

Recently I started having issues with Intel Iris Xe performance. To be exact, I experience often stuttering while playing League of Legends, and FPS tends to drop from around 90 to below 10 several times a game. It also makes no difference whether I run the game on Very low, Medium or even High settings, the FPS changes insignificantly, yet the problems remain. Also worth noting that I was able to play at around 80FPS on high settings about a year ago, with no noticeable drops.

The system in question is an Acer Aspire 5, with the following specs:

• i5-11357G 2.40GHz

• 20GB RAM (16 in one slot, 4 in the other)

• 512GB SSD

• Intel Iris Xe

In addition, I couldn't identify any bottlenecks myself. CPU and RAM usage are usually below 50% when I play, and GPU usage hovers around 60% and peaks to 100% for a few seconds, several times a game. I ran the Intel Processor Diagnostic tool and everything passed. I also performed a clean Windows 10 Pro installation a few days ago, but the issue remained. Also, the latest driver is installed and power mode is set to Best performance.

Please help

[Hugo_Intel]

Hello MrOrg11

Thank you for posting on the Intel Communities. I am sorry to hear that you are experiencing performance issues on league of legends when using Intel Graphics.

As a first approach to this issue, please completely uninstall the game from your system and reinstall it.

If the issue persists after reinstalling the game, please let us know the following information:

• Is this the only game experiencing this issue?
• Share a short video showing this issue.
• Create a log file with the Intel® System Support Utility and attach it.

Best Regards,

Hugo O.

Intel Customer Support Technician.

[MrOrg11]

Unfortunately, the issue persisted after reinstalling the game. To answer your questions:

• I experienced similar issues while playing Valorant and WoW;
• I've been unable to capture the requested video, because of the severe frame drops that occur while recording. My overall in-game FPS dropped to 10-20 during recording, so I couldn't replicate the problem effectively. I used the Windows Game Bar recording setup. If you could recommend other recording software that wouldn't lower the FPS this severely, I would be glad to try it;
• Find the log file attached below.

[Hugo_Intel]

Hello MrOrg11

Thank you for the information provided. Based on the log file that you shared with us, please let's try the following:

1. Visit your system manufacturer's website and update your Bios to the latest version. The latest Bios seems to be 1.31.
2. Do a clean installation of the latest driver provided by your manufacturer since this should be optimized for your system the version posted on their website is 30.0.101.1404. If the issue persists, proceed to step 3.
3. Do a clean installation of our latest generic driver version 30.0.101.4125.

If the issue continues to happen after doing the above steps, please check your task manager when your system is idle and make sure that the processor is not been highly used or that there are no background applications consuming system resources.

Best Regards,

Hugo O.

Intel Customer Support Technician.

[MrOrg11]

Unfortunately, the recommended fixes only made matters worse.

Updating the BIOS first resulted in a BSOD, which led to some tweaking in the BIOS settings to resolve the issue. Afterwards, I tried out both drivers you recommended, and game performance degraded from earlier, with both of the drivers.

Now the game runs under 60FPS 80% of the time, making it almost unplayable. Random FPS drops to under 10 still occur. I monitored CPU, GPU and RAM usage while playing and the results are as follows:

• CPU usage was constantly around 15-20%, with no noticeable spikes;
• RAM usage was around 30%, also with no spikes;
• GPU usage was above 85% most of the time, often spiking at 100%.

Testing was conducted on the lowest possible settings in League of Legends. No background applications were active and system was idle.

[Hugo_Intel]

Hello MrOrg11

I appreciate the troubleshooting you have performed. Before we further research this issue, please completely uninstall the game from your system and reinstall it to make sure there are no corrupted files.

Best Regards,

Hugo O.

Intel Customer Support Technician.

[MrOrg11]

Reinstalling the game didn't help. However, I noticed that the game runs smoothly when the power cord is unplugged, and all of the problems I described kick in as soon as I plug it in and start charging.
How can I resolve this?

[n_scott_pearson]

That sounds to me like there is something wrong in the laptop itself. This is the opposite of what would (I hesitate to say 'normally') be expected, That is, issues like this (if they are going to appear) should occur while on battery, not while on A/C power. I would thus suggest that you have a talk with Acer about this. It may be an issue in the laptop's configuration or it may be a physical issue in the laptop itself.

Hope this helps,

...S

[MrOrg11]

Agreed, it seems it's not the Iris Xe underperforming, but rather something else causing the issue. If I manage to find a solution I will post it here, in case anyone else faces this issue in the future.

Thank you for your time

[InputWrong32]

I also have an Acer laptop with an extremely underperforming, graphics card the Intel Iris Xe. Have you found any solutions with contacting with the manufacturer (Acer)? Anything would help thank you.

[Hugo_Intel]

Hello MrOrg11

Thank you for letting us know. It is actually interesting that the issue happens when unplugging the A/C adapter, as @n_scott_pearson mentioned it should be the opposite. Please, also check that the power plan when connecting the charger is well configured for max performance.

Best Regards,

Hugo O.

Intel Customer Support Technician.

[Newperson99]

Hello,

I have been having a similar issue with my own laptop recently and found your post while searching for possible solutions. My laptop is a Dell Inspiron 15 - i5 core, 12GB RAM, 521GB SSD, and Intel Iris Xe graphics. My gaming performance took a dive in the past week or so and games that once performed well became unplayable. Thankfully, I have found a solution that has currently fixed the problem, at least for my system.

Uninstalling Windows Update KB5022497, which was released on the same day you reported your sudden performance issues, seems to have solved the problem for me. My system reverted back to Windows Update KB5022404 and my gaming FPS is now back to normal. My GPU is also behaving normally again - it had been almost always maxed at 100% while running games under the newer update.

I don't know why this fixed the issue for me - the Windows update notes don't mention any changes affecting GPU performance that I can see - but if you you are still experiencing FPS problems you might want to check if you have update KB5022497 installed and attempt to roll it back if you have the option to do so.

I've seen a few other people with similar systems complain of performance issues this past week. One individual commented that they solved their problem by changing their laptop's battery mode from 'performance' to 'cool' - this could explain why your laptop performed better while unplugged. My best guess is that an update somehow caused problems with how laptop temperatures impact GPU throttling, at least while on 'plugged in' power settings. I am definitely no expert though, so this is all just speculation on my part. I just wanted to pass along this info.

Hope it helps.

[Newperson99]

Unfortunately, my FPS problems have gradually returned after I uninstalled the update described in my initial post. After several days, my gaming frame rate had significantly dropped again. I decided to reinstall update KB5022497 today and my FPS is back to normal, but it seems uninstalling and/or reinstalling Windows updates only temporarily solves the problem for me.

[DeividA_Intel]

Hello MrOrg11, 

As you and n_scott_pearson, the behavior of this issue could be related to the laptop itself. I recommend checking also with the laptop manufacturer so they can run some tests on their unit to confirm if there is any malfunction with the laptop.

Thanks for your time and comprehension.

Please keep in mind that Intel will no longer monitor this thread.

Regards,  

Deivid A.  

Intel Customer Support Technician