Large FPS Dips during game

Technical Support
1

Hey Blizzard team,

Reaching out to see if we can figure out what’s causing me to have so many significant DPS drops in game. I just put together a new PC well above the recommended specs for hots, and I can’t seem to make a dent in the FPS by lowering the graphic settings.

The issue is that I am able to start the game off at 166 fps, and holds steady until fights start to break out. Looking at my task manager, the game isn’t using more than 45% of my cpu, and barely hits 50% on my GPU on high settings. My Ping is 1ms and download/upload speeds are 1 gig each.

Thanks in advance for any advice or help.

1 Like
2

You might want to mention your processor. Because on modern high core count CPUs HotS uses a lot less. For example average CPU usage for myself is just ~7%, which is expected given I run the game on a 12 core and 24 thread Ryzen 9 3900X. If the game was loading that processor to 50% then something is seriously wrong.

A DXDiag listing will mention processor, memory and GPU which might be useful for people to help find the problem.

Stutter (not FPS dips) can be caused by network connectivity issues. It is a matter of reliability and not average speeds since if packet latency spikes to over 1s (1,000ms) then the game will freeze for the same length as the spike.

FPS dips can be caused by a lack of memory. After playing many matches I noticed this when I was running on a 4 GB Windows 10 system last year. More memory solves the problem with at least 8 GB being the minimum I would suggest and personally I would recommend 16 GB so that the OS file cache remains efficient during long play.

3

Thanks DrSuperGood, I appreciate the quick run down. I grabbed my DxDiag listing and pasted it below:

Unfortunately, I appear to be experiencing frame dips and not lag. As for my memory, I do have 16gb of Ram, but I was curious to see if it was getting utilized all the way. Is there a way to do that?

System Information

  Time of this report: 7/31/2020, 13:10:39
         Machine name: DESKTOP-4JSRC51
           Machine Id: {47623542-80E4-4F47-BA0C-A4C51438E2C2}
     Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit (10.0, Build 19041) (19041.vb_release.191206-1406)
             Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
  System Manufacturer: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd.
         System Model: MS-7A38
                 BIOS: B.71 (type: UEFI)
            Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core Processor               (12 CPUs), ~4.2GHz
               Memory: 16384MB RAM
  Available OS Memory: 16334MB RAM
            Page File: 10629MB used, 8137MB available
          Windows Dir: C:\Windows
      DirectX Version: DirectX 12
  DX Setup Parameters: Not found
     User DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
   System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
      DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled
             Miracast: Available, with HDCP

Microsoft Graphics Hybrid: Not Supported
DirectX Database Version: 1.0.8
DxDiag Version: 10.00.19041.0084 64bit Unicode

4

I have seen cases of reported performance issues being caused by the improperly setup Zen2 based CPUs.

Make sure to install the latest AMD chipset drivers. These should generally be obtained directly from AMD, and not the motherboard manufacture or OEM. These drivers are critical for proper operation of Zen2 processors like the Ryzen 5 3600. Once installed and the system has been restarted, make sure that under operating system power management settings that the selected profile is “AMD RyzenTM Balanced” as this will assure the CPU is power managed correctly.

Since AMD also rolls out AGESA updates for their CPUs via BIOS (UEFI) you should update that as well. Download the latest BIOS for your motherboard from your motherboard vendor’s website. If your system is OEM then check the OEM website for a BIOS update. If there is one then this can get quite technical so if you have not updated BIOS before I suggest watching a few tutorials. Updating BIOS might reset the BIOS settings to factory default, as such you may want to make a note of the settings before the update.

If both chipset drivers and BIOS are up to date and you still suffer from frame dips then the problem must be caused by something else. I would suggest monitoring thermals.

Your DXDiag was cut-off as such all GPU information is missing. Make sure your GPU drivers are up to date, preferably with DDU to remove the existing ones first before fresh installing the latest. Also make sure that these frame dips occur with vertical sync disabled as vertical sync option can cause frame rate to drop to nearest whole number of frames so a dip from 60 FPS to 30 FPS over even the smallest timing delay is possible even when the CPU and GPU are mostly idle.

5

Thanks again man. The Chipset drivers did seem to help me get a bit of a bump where the dips would get down into the 60s and moved the low to the 80s. However I’ve found that AMD Ryzen high performance was necessary to get that bump.

Everything else is most up to date from about a month ago. Brand new computer, so everything was a clean install. And the Bios and Drivers have both been updated.

One thing that does strike me as odd is that the AMD Radeon software doesn’t recognize this game natively when it’s installed the same way something like Rocket League or Titanfall 2. I can’t tell if that means it’s not applying some of the settings that I put in there to the game, or if my computer isn’t allocating the resources appropriately.

Rocket League for example I get max settings and 255 fps with barely a dip, but you can see my GPU crank up to 70% ish.

Here’s the rest of my info from DxDiag:

Display Devices
---------------
           Card name: AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT
        Manufacturer: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
           Chip type: AMD Radeon Graphics Processor (0x731F)
            DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
         Device Type: Full Device (POST)
          Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_731F&SUBSYS_E4111DA2&REV_CA
       Device Status: 0180200A [DN_DRIVER_LOADED|DN_STARTED|DN_DISABLEABLE|DN_NT_ENUMERATOR|DN_NT_DRIVER] 
 Device Problem Code: No Problem
 Driver Problem Code: Unknown
      Display Memory: 14271 MB
    Dedicated Memory: 6104 MB
       Shared Memory: 8167 MB
        Current Mode: 1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (60Hz)
         HDR Support: Not Supported
    Display Topology: Extend
 Display Color Space: DXGI_COLOR_SPACE_RGB_FULL_G22_NONE_P709
     Color Primaries: Red(0.650391,0.333008), Green(0.332031,0.623047), Blue(0.157227,0.052734), White Point(0.313477,0.329102)
   Display Luminance: Min Luminance = 0.500000, Max Luminance = 270.000000, MaxFullFrameLuminance = 270.000000
        Monitor Name: Generic PnP Monitor
       Monitor Model: VS248
          Monitor Id: ACI2498
         Native Mode: 1920 x 1080(p) (60.000Hz)
         Output Type: HDMI
Monitor Capabilities: HDR Not Supported
Display Pixel Format: DISPLAYCONFIG_PIXELFORMAT_32BPP
      Advanced Color: Not Supported
         Driver Name: C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\u0357168.inf_amd64_74ad8cf0ece664a3\B357146\aticfx64.dll,C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\u0357168.inf_amd64_74ad8cf0ece664a3\B357146\aticfx64.dll,C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\u0357168.inf_amd64_74ad8cf0ece664a3\B357146\aticfx64.dll,C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\u0357168.inf_amd64_74ad8cf0ece664a3\B357146\amdxc64.dll
 Driver File Version: 27.20.2001.9003 (English)
      Driver Version: 27.20.2001.9003
         DDI Version: 12
      Feature Levels: 12_1,12_0,11_1,11_0,10_1,10_0,9_3,9_2,9_1
        Driver Model: WDDM 2.7
 Hardware Scheduling: Supported:False Enabled:False 
 Graphics Preemption: Primitive
  Compute Preemption: DMA
            Miracast: Not Supported
      Detachable GPU: No
 Hybrid Graphics GPU: Not Supported
      Power P-states: Not Supported
      Virtualization: Paravirtualization 
          Block List: DISABLE_HWSCH
  Catalog Attributes: Universal:False Declarative:False 
   Driver Attributes: Final Retail
    Driver Date/Size: 7/10/2020 8:00:00 PM, 1959776 bytes
         WHQL Logo'd: Yes
     WHQL Date Stamp: Unknown
   Device Identifier: {D7B71EE2-305F-11CF-395D-C0C371C2D635}
           Vendor ID: 0x1002
           Device ID: 0x731F
           SubSys ID: 0xE4111DA2
         Revision ID: 0x00CA
  Driver Strong Name: oem19.inf:cb0ae41454c41b55:ati2mtag_Navi10:27.20.2001.9003:PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_731F&REV_CA
      Rank Of Driver: 00CF2000
         Video Accel: Unknown
         DXVA2 Modes: DXVA2_ModeMPEG2_VLD  DXVA2_ModeMPEG2_IDCT  DXVA2_ModeH264_VLD_NoFGT  {4245F676-2BBC-4166-A0BB-54E7B849C380}  {6719B6FB-5CAD-4ACB-B00A-F3BFDEC38727}  {9901CCD3-CA12-4B7E-867A-E2223D9255C3}  DXVA2_ModeHEVC_VLD_Main  {EA72396A-67EC-4781-BEDE-56F498F04EF2}  {C152CA8F-738C-461B-AD89-FC292CF8F162}  {514A356C-7027-4AFF-8A60-AFD2C1F672F1}  DXVA2_ModeH264_VLD_Stereo_Progressive_NoFGT  DXVA2_ModeH264_VLD_Stereo_NoFGT  DXVA2_ModeVC1_VLD  {CA15D19A-2B48-43D6-979E-7A6E9C802FF8}  {7C74ADC6-E2BA-4ADE-86DE-30BEABB40CC1}  DXVA2_ModeMPEG4pt2_VLD_AdvSimple_NoGMC  {D1C20509-AE7B-4E72-AE3B-49F88D58992F}  {84AD67F6-4C21-419A-9F0B-24F0578906C1}  {725AD240-786C-471E-AD3C-38F739936517}  {95664FF5-9E03-4C74-BB4F-9178D6035E58}  {5EF7D40D-5B96-49E7-B419-23342094A4CF}  DXVA2_ModeHEVC_VLD_Main10  {65D1FA41-58AF-453A-9CAB-5D981156DA9F}  {2DB154B6-DBB2-4079-A3FF-60D7A898A6AB}  {C74A3FD0-D713-4581-A02E-8EDFB112ACE3}  DXVA2_ModeVP9_VLD_Profile0  DXVA2_ModeVP9_VLD_10bit_Profile2  {603A4756-A864-4F91-BB62-2C935B7A1391}  
      Deinterlace Caps: n/a
        D3D9 Overlay: Not Supported
             DXVA-HD: Not Supported
        DDraw Status: Enabled
          D3D Status: Enabled
          AGP Status: Enabled
       MPO MaxPlanes: 2
            MPO Caps: ROTATION,VERTICAL_FLIP,HORIZONTAL_FLIP,YUV,BILINEAR,STRETCH_YUV,HDR (MPO3)
         MPO Stretch: 16.000X - 0.250X
     MPO Media Hints: rotation, resizing, colorspace Conversion 
         MPO Formats: NV12,420_OPAQUE
    PanelFitter Caps: ROTATION,VERTICAL_FLIP,HORIZONTAL_FLIP,YUV,BILINEAR,STRETCH_YUV,HDR (MPO3)
 PanelFitter Stretch: 16.000X - 0.250X

           Card name: AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT
        Manufacturer: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
           Chip type: AMD Radeon Graphics Processor (0x731F)
            DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
         Device Type: Full Device (POST)
          Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_731F&SUBSYS_E4111DA2&REV_CA
       Device Status: 0180200A [DN_DRIVER_LOADED|DN_STARTED|DN_DISABLEABLE|DN_NT_ENUMERATOR|DN_NT_DRIVER] 
 Device Problem Code: No Problem
 Driver Problem Code: Unknown
      Display Memory: 14271 MB
    Dedicated Memory: 6104 MB
       Shared Memory: 8167 MB
        Current Mode: 1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (144Hz)
         HDR Support: Not Supported
    Display Topology: Extend
 Display Color Space: DXGI_COLOR_SPACE_RGB_FULL_G22_NONE_P709
     Color Primaries: Red(0.639648,0.330078), Green(0.299805,0.599609), Blue(0.150391,0.059570), White Point(0.280273,0.290039)
   Display Luminance: Min Luminance = 0.500000, Max Luminance = 270.000000, MaxFullFrameLuminance = 270.000000
        Monitor Name: Generic PnP Monitor
       Monitor Model: C27
          Monitor Id: SPT0ADD
         Native Mode: 1920 x 1080(p) (60.000Hz)
         Output Type: Displayport External
Monitor Capabilities: HDR Not Supported
Display Pixel Format: DISPLAYCONFIG_PIXELFORMAT_32BPP
      Advanced Color: Not Supported
         Driver Name: C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\u0357168.inf_amd64_74ad8cf0ece664a3\B357146\aticfx64.dll,C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\u0357168.inf_amd64_74ad8cf0ece664a3\B357146\aticfx64.dll,C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\u0357168.inf_amd64_74ad8cf0ece664a3\B357146\aticfx64.dll,C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\u0357168.inf_amd64_74ad8cf0ece664a3\B357146\amdxc64.dll
 Driver File Version: 27.20.2001.9003 (English)
      Driver Version: 27.20.2001.9003
         DDI Version: 12
      Feature Levels: 12_1,12_0,11_1,11_0,10_1,10_0,9_3,9_2,9_1
        Driver Model: WDDM 2.7
 Hardware Scheduling: Supported:False Enabled:False 
 Graphics Preemption: Primitive
  Compute Preemption: DMA
            Miracast: Not Supported
      Detachable GPU: No
 Hybrid Graphics GPU: Not Supported
      Power P-states: Not Supported
      Virtualization: Paravirtualization 
          Block List: DISABLE_HWSCH
  Catalog Attributes: Universal:False Declarative:False 
   Driver Attributes: Final Retail
    Driver Date/Size: 7/10/2020 8:00:00 PM, 1959776 bytes
         WHQL Logo'd: Yes
     WHQL Date Stamp: Unknown
   Device Identifier: {D7B71EE2-305F-11CF-395D-C0C371C2D635}
           Vendor ID: 0x1002
           Device ID: 0x731F
           SubSys ID: 0xE4111DA2
         Revision ID: 0x00CA
  Driver Strong Name: oem19.inf:cb0ae41454c41b55:ati2mtag_Navi10:27.20.2001.9003:PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_731F&REV_CA
      Rank Of Driver: 00CF2000
         Video Accel: Unknown
         DXVA2 Modes: DXVA2_ModeMPEG2_VLD  DXVA2_ModeMPEG2_IDCT  DXVA2_ModeH264_VLD_NoFGT  {4245F676-2BBC-4166-A0BB-54E7B849C380}  {6719B6FB-5CAD-4ACB-B00A-F3BFDEC38727}  {9901CCD3-CA12-4B7E-867A-E2223D9255C3}  DXVA2_ModeHEVC_VLD_Main  {EA72396A-67EC-4781-BEDE-56F498F04EF2}  {C152CA8F-738C-461B-AD89-FC292CF8F162}  {514A356C-7027-4AFF-8A60-AFD2C1F672F1}  DXVA2_ModeH264_VLD_Stereo_Progressive_NoFGT  DXVA2_ModeH264_VLD_Stereo_NoFGT  DXVA2_ModeVC1_VLD  {CA15D19A-2B48-43D6-979E-7A6E9C802FF8}  {7C74ADC6-E2BA-4ADE-86DE-30BEABB40CC1}  DXVA2_ModeMPEG4pt2_VLD_AdvSimple_NoGMC  {D1C20509-AE7B-4E72-AE3B-49F88D58992F}  {84AD67F6-4C21-419A-9F0B-24F0578906C1}  {725AD240-786C-471E-AD3C-38F739936517}  {95664FF5-9E03-4C74-BB4F-9178D6035E58}  {5EF7D40D-5B96-49E7-B419-23342094A4CF}  DXVA2_ModeHEVC_VLD_Main10  {65D1FA41-58AF-453A-9CAB-5D981156DA9F}  {2DB154B6-DBB2-4079-A3FF-60D7A898A6AB}  {C74A3FD0-D713-4581-A02E-8EDFB112ACE3}  DXVA2_ModeVP9_VLD_Profile0  DXVA2_ModeVP9_VLD_10bit_Profile2  {603A4756-A864-4F91-BB62-2C935B7A1391}  
      Deinterlace Caps: n/a
        D3D9 Overlay: Not Supported
             DXVA-HD: Not Supported
        DDraw Status: Enabled
          D3D Status: Enabled
          AGP Status: Enabled
       MPO MaxPlanes: 2
            MPO Caps: ROTATION,VERTICAL_FLIP,HORIZONTAL_FLIP,YUV,BILINEAR,STRETCH_YUV,HDR (MPO3)
         MPO Stretch: 16.000X - 0.250X
     MPO Media Hints: rotation, resizing, colorspace Conversion 
         MPO Formats: NV12,420_OPAQUE
    PanelFitter Caps: ROTATION,VERTICAL_FLIP,HORIZONTAL_FLIP,YUV,BILINEAR,STRETCH_YUV,HDR (MPO3)
 PanelFitter Stretch: 16.000X - 0.250X

It’s much longer than that, so let me know if you want the full thing, or just the display information provided above. And again, thank you for the help, just want to enjoy this game the way it’s meant to be enjoyed.

6

Literally the only difference between the two is that “high performance” should be more willing to hit maximum boost frequencies when exposed to loads initially. A continuous heavy load, like any game, should make as good as no performance difference since outside the first sub second of the game loading, it should maintain the maximum sustainable boost from then on. This makes a difference for extreme benchmarking (a couple of measurable points) but for every day use it should not show anything a user can notice. This is why AMD recommends the balanced plan.

You seem to be using 2 displays. Have you tried running with just 1 display connected as a test? If this shows improvement then the issue is related to GPU scheduling or display refreshing in which case other tests and solutions might be applicable.

Try using HWInfo to monitor the temperatures of all your CPU cores. Through bad cooler contact it is possible one or more of the CPU cores is running significantly hotter than the others when exposed to the same load. Due to how “preferred cores” work it is possible that if such core was the preferred core there could be thermal throttling related performance issues even if other CPU cores remain cooler. Since the OS often pushes the demanding threads between 2-3 of the preferred cores, it is possible that could explain performance drops being semi-random.

HotS also streams a lot of data from storage. Make sure that the SSD it is installed to is mostly idle while playing to limit I/O bottleneck. This especially applies to SATA SSDs or SSDs that are being written to (like that house the boot partition) since SSDs are generally slower at writing than reading.

7

I have this issue too but it seems to come in at random times. It ran perfectly last month and now this week I get serious FPS drops in team fights. Nothing has changed with my hardware or internet. I do however play on a mac and the latest update may have caused it. Do you experience this in waves as well?

8

That SSD trick is useful as it stopped my fps dips completely. I was running a web server from it. After I dedicated the drive just to Hots, no more screen lag.

The game fetches a ton of data from the disk all the time. Like 3d models, map data, ability animations and such.
Oh, and the game being on SSD instead of my regular drive improved load times by about 10x.

1 Like
9

Once again, thanks. The high performance thing may be a stretch then. The testing is hard because the game does seem to have a lower FPS floor on certain maps more than others.

I have tried using one display, doesn’t seem to make even the slightest difference in fps.

I downloaded HWinfo and ran a report, is there anything in particular I should be looking for? My core seems to go up to low 40s Celsius while playing hots.

When you say ensure it is idle, I’m assuming for the SSD you basically mean don’t download things, move files, etc. during gaming sessions, which I don’t. Try to keep everything mostly shut down, minus discord and my browser. I have an S.2 SSD if that changes anything?

10

Your CPU being 40 degrees Celsius while playing HotS is kind of strange. Due to Zen2 processors having a small transistor size they usually run at 50-60 degrees Celsius or more when exposed to any sort of load due to the energy density of the cores, even with high end air or liquid cooling. This would mean that either you are bottlenecking badly somewhere else, or the CPU is running at some nominal frequency far below what is intended.

If GPU is overclocked, even from factory, revert it to stock settings. Unstable memory overclocks can massively degrade performance. Make sure the GPU is operating at a reasonable temperature while playing. Also check that with vertical sync disabled either your GPU or CPU is hitting close (less than 300 MHz odd) of their specified boost frequencies. If both are working correctly then one will be the main bottleneck running at limits while the other might be operating slightly slower as the result.

Make sure your memory is dual channel (2x8 GB DIMMs) and is working at the rated frequency, or 3200 MHz, whichever is lower. Zen2 processors are quite sensitive to memory but I do not know if it would make so much of a performance difference to induce the symptoms described.

Make sure HotS is being played in windowed fullscreen mode. Otherwise the OS windows management system can drop frames due to other applications interacting with it or failing to process events promptly.

If hardware accelerated GPU scheduling is supported, try toggling the feature either on or off. Due to it being quite a new feature there may be bugs that could cause performance regressions, especially in games not designed for it.

11

Thanks for all the recommendations, I ended up doing everything mentioned, basically reverting to stock settings. The fps was pretty much the same situation where I just had massive dips in fights. I cranked the GPU up via overclocking in the AMD Radeon app that comes preloaded by them, and it doesn’t seem to make much of a different. I did crank my settings down to low, and while the floor didn’t seem to go all the way down into ths 80s/90s for FPS, it did get into the 100s/110s.

Temp wise, CPU is getting up to 45-50 degrees.

I’m not sure how to exactly test the RAM out as you mentioned here, I did see that my VRAM frequency is set to 1750, is that possibly too low?

Ping is 20ms btw, not sure if that matters. Oh and I’m definitely running full screen mode. Thanks again for your help.

12

Look at the manufacture site and it mentions what the VRAM should be for the GPU. If it is in the range specified it is fine as the cards should have been tested and verified at that frequency. It is only an issue if overclocking a GPU because if the memory is unstable the system may remain stable thanks to error checking but the memory bandwidth will act very low due to all the failed transfers.

I suggest using HWInfo or other reputable monitoring software and monitoring your CPU current clock speed. While playing HotS at least 1 core should be hitting between 3.9 - 4.2 GHz when frame rate is uncapped.

Make sure that your GPU is connected to the CPU directly with the full PCIe 16x bandwidth. Some AM4 motherboards may offer up to 3 PCIe 16x slots but only 1 of them can offer full 16x bandwidth. The two “GPU” slots will share the same 16x lanes with the CPU and if devices are installed in both it will only give each device 8x. The extra 16x slot is usually a 4x or so slot from the chipset so is not really recommended for GPU use due to latency and bandwidth constraints.

13

I’ll get onto looking into these items now, thanks. I did want to point out something that caught my eye. It might be pointless, but when I play HOTS my Task Manager shows that my Ethernet performance is like a huge up and down constantly.

When playing Rocket League however, the performance seems to be a consistent bump up to a steady speed.

Is there possibly a firewall or issue with ports that could be causing fps dips?

Edit: And an update here since this may be an issue. I have HWinfo up on my side, shows all 6 cores throttling up to 4.25 during HOTS. Meanwhile, task manager is still showing a 20% utilization rate on the CPU.

Thanks again!

14

This is fine. The cores should be boosting pretty high. 20% is about what one should expect from HotS since it does not scale well with core count.

Might be worth running the support recommend connectivity tests with the HotS battlenet servers. For a good play experience one needs 100ms or lower latency without much variation and 0 packet loss. Frame rate issues can sometimes be network related as the client has to pause and wait for the server. However this should not particularly affect team fights but be a constant problem.

Pathping and traceroute might be enough. Run them while you are experience the poor performance issues.

15

Tested the networks, 2 of the Host Names are: No Response from Host and have a 100% loss.

Other than that, one other thing you mentioned was the Motherboard, I looked at my motherboard from the side, I don’t happen to see another Video card slot. Is it possible that the motherboard I got (Which was not designated for gaming) is the bottle neck?

16

Not likely. At the bare minimum there should be 1 PCIe 16x slot which is connected to the CPU. If the motherboard is an unusual form factor then that slot might be on a riser board via an extension cable.

17

Got it, so everything appears to be in working order on my computer minus HOTS then. I’ve tested other graphic intensive games that run on Ultra with no dips (Titanfall 2, RL, even LoL which I never play but wanted to test).

The one consistent issue I’m still seeing is that my computer isn’t designating HOTS as an actual game when I boot it up though.

I mentioned that the AMD Radeon Software doesn’t identify it as a game, and another example I discovered was my Discord overlay. I have text notifications set to off for all my games, yet they somehow manage to pop up during HOTS as if I was sitting on my desktop.

This is while I’m running the game fullscreen too, so not windowed or borderless. Is it possible there is a correlation here?