# Steam causing lag issues



## ThinkingQuill (Feb 22, 2012)

So for the last couple of days I've been experiencing lag spikes when playing most of the games on my PC, it started after downloading several games from steam at once. After i downloaded these games, even games that worked perfectly previously were experiencing the lag spikes. The problem is not my internet in anyway. When i turn off steam to play a game unrelated to it, it works perfectly. Obviously though this doesn't help me when i want to play games on steam. The list of games I installed are as follows:

Audiosurf

Braid

Crysis

Fallout: New Vegas

Mass Effect

Mass Effect 2

Resident Evil 5

Street Figher IV


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## mprain13 (Mar 20, 2011)

have you tried updating steam to its latest version? Have you updated your graphics drivers? Also, try monitoring your CPU usage with task manager. Compare the results of a non-steam game (preferably a heavy one) vs an equally heave steam game. Also, you could get SpeedFan and monitor your computer's temps to see if there is any difference.


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## TrentonMarquard (Oct 17, 2011)

I've had a nearly identical problem in the past and the solution was updating Steam. You should probably check to see if that is the problem.


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## mprain13 (Mar 20, 2011)

^^ already said that


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## relic222 (Feb 28, 2012)

Intrusion:
I had this kind of problems too,i solved by de-activating steam-ingame,try and let me know


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## Hyatice (Mar 7, 2012)

Yeah, this definitely fits within the timeframe of my issue too.

Every game I play with Steam open starts to lag unbearably. I sent a ticket to steam support, with several screenshots from different lagspikes. Each spike had Steam using 20-30% of my CPU power and as soon as it went down to the normal 0-5% the spikes would stop.

The games play totally fine (100+ FPS) for an uncertain amount of time, then for 20-30 seconds drop to 5-8 FPS, then go back up. Not overheating, no external programs except for Steam, drivers and the game itself. It only started happening maybe a week or 2 ago.

Disabling in-game decreased the frequency of the problem, but it did NOT fix it completely. Happens for every game, from Terraria to CoD4 to Skyrim and Crysis.


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## spudy12 (Nov 7, 2010)

try whats mentioned above:
also try, auslogics disk defrag (free) (dont go full version trial its worse) 
install go to settings and algorithms and select move system files to front of disk
also tick delete temp files first.

Next download TFC oldtimer, close all your programs and run that. 
Reboot and run the defrag!

if your still having problems, launch the game, ALT + TAB out, open task manager, go to processes and select the game, right click and select set priority, and set it to high **** THIS CAN CAUSE SYSTEM INSTABILITY BUT IT IS RARE (If it does just end the process)

let us know how that goes!


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## spudy12 (Nov 7, 2010)

also type msconfig in start bar, go to start up, disable anything you dont need there, go to services hide all Microsoft and disable un used ones there


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