Hey All, So I've been dealing with and trying to troubleshoot this issue for few months now. When playing DOTA2(specifically DOTA2), I randomly get a freeze in game for 1-3 seconds where nothing happens then everything catches up again. I can still move my mouse cursor, talk in discord alt tab etc.. MSI Afterburner, GPUZ shows a drop in GPU usage, to 0-5% during this time period. I don't experience this in any other game which led me to think this was a network issue with valve servers. I even tried 3 different valve data centers with the same issue occurring and even reinstalled steam after deleting whole folder. In game stats show 0 packet loss. Other things I've tried. Clean install with DDU - Past 4 driver sets Tried Windows build 1803-1809-1903 Reinstalled Network card drivers, chipset drivers, msi afterburner, cam software, adguard Uninstalled Antivirus program(during testing just had windows defender), adguard Memory test- 0 Errors Removed CPU overclock(left memory to default speeds 3200MHZ) Changed power supply cables Reset memory and graphics card and AIO block Tried 3 different bios versions Tried 3 different router firmware I have a 1080TI Duke OC which clock at 1924 with 50% usage when in DOTA, temps are pretty low in the 62-67C. When this freeze/lag happens the clock speed drops to 1500mhz something then works it's way back up again. Since I plan on getting the new Ryzen CPU with x570 motherboard in July, I rather not reinstall Windows ATM and just wait it out for a month or so. I was going to install Linux then test DOTA to rule out an OS issue. If anyone has something else for me to try or input in the meantime I'll appreciate it. Thanks
I wonder if new update messed something up. Having no issues on my system.You can try switching to DX9 or mantle API and try running dota with it. Considering the fact that freeze happens and you still can move the cursor, seems like loading issue. (Maybe RAM trying to fetch some files mid-game) Have you tried installing Dota2 on different drive?
I did a memtest with no errors. I tried DX11, Vulkan but can't remember if I tried DX9, I can give that a go and see. I have not reinstalled dota on a different drive only on the same SSD 960GB one. I have a spare 120gb ssd I can try installing on and see.
Some googling led me to this: https://steamcommunity.com/app/570/discussions/0/1744480967009251745/ Could be good idea to rule out software side issues. Set yourself to offline mode in friends when gaming. See if there other Steam issues that can mess game, like shader cache or something.
Update: So I installed PopOS on my second nvme drive, installed steam and dota2. I don't get any 1-3 second freezes. So something on Windows is causing it. I'm not sure what would be causing it, I only have msi afterbuner, malwarebytes, glasswire, nzxt cam and adguard. I got this freezing before malwarebytes and glasswire so it can't be that. I had cam software for 2 years now and never had this problem since building this pc. I disabled and stop the service of adguard and that didn't work. Only thing left is msi afterburner which I had forever but it controls my fan curve. Oh well, like I said above I guess I'll hold out to reinstall Windows when I get the new AMD stuff in a month or so. Edit: I guess I can install dota on different hard drive to rule that out but all my other games on the same ssd drive don't do this.
