Performance degradation in first 5 minutes of game launch

Technical Support
1

I see quite a few posts here and on Reddit regarding this issue without any concrete solution being presented, so figured I’d try to make my own post.

Issue:
After starting Overwatch 2, I have extremely low FPS for the first 2 to 3 minutes, before it stabilizes and begins running as expected given my hardware. Once I’m finished and shut down Overwatch 2, the game remains running for 60-90 seconds and consumes a significant amount of system resources before finally shutting down.

System Components:

  • AMD Ryzen 9 7900X
  • AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT
  • ASRock A620m Pro RS Wifi
  • 2x 16 GB Corsair Vengeance Memory
  • M.2 SSD Crucial P5 Plus 2TB
  • Corsair RM750 750-watt Power Supply

Peripherals:
(No Razer components)

  • Redragon keyboard
  • Logitech G502 Lightspeed Mouse
  • Logitech Pro X2 Lightspeed Headphones

Behavior:

  • Game starts normally
  • Menu screen gets approximately 50 FPS for approximately 75 seconds. If a match is booted during that timeframe, game gets approximately 25 FPS over that time period, and resolution is degraded (despite that setting being disabled in the game options).
  • After 75 seconds, game gets approximately 50 FPS for approximately 60 seconds. Resolution remains degraded.
  • After both timeframes, game immediately goes to full resolution and gets 144 FPS capped.
  • No other issues are encountered during game play.
  • Once game is shut down, Overwatch process remains running in the background and consumes significant CPU and memory resources for approximately 80 seconds before finally ending.

Drivers:

  • All drivers are up to date.
  • AMD Radeon Adrenalin software is using the latest driver release from November 2024. Attempted using Beta drivers that were released in Feb 2025 and encountered the same issues.

My troubleshooting steps:

  • Disabled OneDrive and migrated OW2 files from OneDrive’s “Documents” folder to the actual Documents folder under C:\Users\<My Username>\Documents. Did not resolve issue.
  • Attempted to use AMD Adrenalin’s beta drivers from Feb 2025, did not resolve issue.
  • Performed full re-installation of Windows 11 OS with OneDrive integration fully disabled. Did not resolve issue.
  • Added command-line argument --tank_WorkerThreadCount 6 to game and manually reset driver cache in AMD Adrenalin. Did not resolve issue.

DXDiag:
https://pastebin.com/3BcQ77bE

1 Like
2

Problem signature:
P1: RadeonSoftware.exe

You have many video card errors popping up, likely because the drivers are out of date.

Edit 1: I did see your notes about the driver, but that is what’s producing this error, so a more current version is recommended. There’s one from December, too.

Edit 2: https://www.amd.com/en/support/downloads/drivers.html/graphics/radeon-rx/radeon-rx-7000-series/amd-radeon-rx-7800-xt.html

Driver Date/Size: 2024-11-26 18:00:00, 141720 bytes

Windows Error Reporting:
+++ WER0 +++:
Fault bucket , type 0
Event Name: LiveKernelEvent
Response: Not available
Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:
P1: 1a8
P2: a

About this error:

Automatically triggered when a physical monitor is connected but the system failed to perform a mode set to enable at least 1 path

If you updated the driver, you have remnants of previous versions causing a conflict. Try Display Driver Uninstaller.

3

Bumping this since I have the same issue. First game from application launch absolutely tanks FPS stuttering like crazy then after 2 minutes or so runs perfectly fine at 144fps.

Basically identical to OP except my system has a 7800X3D CPU and a 7900XT GPU.

Yes the drivers are up to date.

My own dxdiag does not match up with OP’s so the LiveKernelEvent Nicole latched onto is almost certainly unrelated. By my understanding dxdiag displays system diagnostics and wouldn’t display application level issues anyway. A LiveKernelEvent is slightly more serious than a frame drop.

4

Unfortunately, these cards have to rebuild the shader cache on every Overwatch 2 launch. That is the way AMD designed the driver.

5

rip. thanks amd I guess

6

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