So recently I’ve been having a lot of trouble playing the game due to my frame rate jumping up and down like a yoyo without any cause nor reason. I’ve finally managed to get to the root cause of the problem and have a solution so I wanted to share my experience and my findings to help other people in a similar position.

Tools you will need:

Task Manager (already installed, right click on start bar and select from menu)

This allows you to view a decent overview about your memory and processor utilization and your currently running processes. Process Explorer (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx):

This is basically task manager on steroids and gives you a detailed view of what each line of software is doing on your PC at any one time Core Temp (http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp):

This allows you to monitor your CPU load and the temperature of your CPU [NVIDIA] MSI Afterburner (http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm):

This allows you to monitor your Nvidia GeForce GPU load and the temperature of your GPU [ATI] AMD System Monitor (http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/AMDSystemMonitor.aspx):

As above but for ATI Radeon chipsets

EDIT: GPUZ might actually be better for you guys (http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/)



Step One

The first thing you want to do – even before we even load the game – is to open Task Manager and find out what your PC is doing. Open the task list and look at the running processes to see what is happening:

This is what my computer looks like after I have cleaned it up. Notice that the CPU is idling around 16%, I have plenty of memory still available (I am only using 37%) and my disk and network are both idle. This is a good sign because it means that when I start playing League that all of these resources are free to calculate minions and draw pretty swaying bushes.

Chances are that if your computer is running slow then your CPU might be sitting around 40% or higher and your memory usage. might be up around 60% or 70%. If this is the case then you need to clean up processes which you are not using to try and free up resources. You can do this in several ways:

In Task Manager select any processes you don’t need at the moment and choose End Task.You only need to focus on those using 5% CPU or more (or using > 100mb memory) since the others won’t be slowing you down much Go to your Control Panel and go to Programs and Features then uninstall any programs which you do not use regularly – especially those which are hogging resources. Press Windows Key + R to open the run box and type services.msc then press go. This will open the services list showing all the running services on your PC. Services are just the same as processes and slow you down in the same way so “stop” any services which you don’t need. Be careful here as some services are required by windows so if you are unsure which to stop then there are plenty of guides on the internet to help here. Finally check your task bar (bottom right corner) for other programs which might be running. If you run lots of desktop assistants and driver helpers etc. then these might be taking up resources so right click on the icon and stop/close where possible.

Step Two

Once your computer is running better then the next step is to jump into the game. It is best to test in a Custom/Bot game so you don’t ruin other people’s fun, although if you can only replicate the problem on-line then start up an ARAM or normal game.

Before jumping in open process explorer, core temp, and MSI Afterburner.If you have a dual monitor setup then open these up in your second monitor so you can see all statistics and make sure you sort the process explorer list by CPU usage with highest processes at the top.

If you do not have dual monitors then you should set your League of Legends client to Windowed Mode and then try to arrange your screen as best as you can. Remember that idea here is just to monitor your PC while the game is running so if you’re playing in a game screen the size of a postage stamp then so be it. You’re trying to fix your game here, not stomp noobs 🙂

My setup looks something like this:

Note that we’re not interested in the clocking options inside Afterburner so we can save a bit of screen space by overlapping the windows like so.

Now there are certain metrics that we are interested in here and these are:

Our CPU temperature (shown at the bottom left of Core Temp). Don’t worry to much about all the cores as the temperature will generally be about the same across them all. Our CPU load: this is show both at the bottom right of Core Temp and at the top of Process Explorer. We can use Core Temp to get a general picture of the CPU stress while PS Explorer tells us exactly what our PC is doing to cause this. Our GPU temperature – this is the first chart in MSI Afterburner Our GPU load – this is the second graph down.

Don’t worry to much about the rest although the Commit Charge value shown at the bottom of Process Explorer is useful to get an indication of how much memory your PC is gobbling up.

With all this information ready jump into a game of League of Legends and let’s begin

Step Three (understanding the stats)

If you are experiencing problems with the game then at some point your FPS should nosedive. This is the point when you need to immediately grab your statistics and check to see what’s going. Now consult the following list:

SYMPTON: Your GPU is experiencing very high load 90%+ (your CPU load and Commit Charge might be average or low)

PROBLEM: You graphics card is simply struggling to render the game at the settings you have selected

SOLUTION: You either need to lower your graphics settings in game, or if that is not possible you will have to upgrade your graphics card – it simply can’t cope with the game.

SYMPTON: Your GPU is getting very hot 80 degrees+ (your GPU / CPU load and Commit Charge might be average or low)

PROBLEM: You graphics card is overheating which maybe causing your system to “throttle it back” in order to cool things down. When this happens your GPU will perform much slower than normal

SOLUTION: You need improve ventilation around your graphics card or find a way to cool your system down. Check that the fans have not become clogged with dust and consider investing in a better cooling solution (such as a cooling pad for laptops or better fans/heatsinks for desktops).

SYMPTON: Your CPU is getting very hot 80 degrees+ (your GPU / CPU load and Commit Charge might be average or low)

PROBLEM: You CPU is overheating which maybe causing your system to “throttle it back” in order to cool things down. When this happens your CPU will perform much slower than normal

SOLUTION: You need improve ventilation around your processor or find a way to cool your system down. Check that the fans have not become clogged with dust and consider investing in a better cooling solution (such as a cooling pad for laptops or better fans/heatsinks for desktops).

SYMPTON: Your CPU is experiencing very high load 90%+ (your GPU load and Commit Charge might be average or low)

PROBLEM: You CPU is simply struggling to run the game. This might be because you have too many other processes running or because your computer is too old

SOLUTION: Go back to Step One and ensure that you have closed down everything you can to minimize stress on your CPU. Also try tweaking some of the game settings to lowest as this might help performance a bit. Sadly if this is happening then chances are you need a better PC.

SYMPTON: Your Commit Charge is hitting 90%+ (your GPU/CPU load might be average or low)

PROBLEM: You are running out of memory so your system is having to “page” information onto your disk. This will slow your PC down quite a bit.

SOLUTION: Go back to Step One and ensure that you have closed down everything you can to free up resources. If you have closed everything and are still running out of memory then you will need to buy more

SYMPTON: All of your major vitals (CPU load, GPU load, Commit Charge) are showing average or low

PROBLEM: This could point to a problem with your network card, disk, or memory. If your CPU and GPU are not being taxed then it means you have a bottleneck somewhere else and your PC cannot push the data down the pipeline fast enough.

SOLUTION:

Go back to Step One and use task manager to check for programs which are accessing the disk or your network adapter.

Use Windows chkdsk to scan your hard drive for problems and also try de-fragmenting the hard drive to improve performance

use the Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool to scan your main memory for problems as corrupt sectors could be causing read/write errors which slow you down a lot

Close down bit torrent apps!!!

Check your Power Settings to ensure you are not running in Power Saver Mode . This will slow you down so switch to Balanced or High Performance

to ensure you are not running in . This will slow you down so switch to or Consider replacing your Hard Drive or Memory if you find a lot of problems with either

Step Four (bonus round driver problems)

When using Process Explorer you might also notice that one or more of the following processes are hogging resources and CPU time:

explorer.exe

WUDFHost.exe

System

If so then – like me – you might be running into some driver problems. Things are slightly different in each version of Windows but certainly in Windows 8.1 (which is what I’m stuck with) any of these 3 processes can suddenly swell up and start consuming an awful lot of CPU time.

If so then you need to start figuring out which driver is causing the problems and the best way I’ve found to do this is just to open up Windows Device Manager and start disabling drivers until the the CPU usage for these processes drops back down. I would recommend disabling devices in the following order:

Non-Essential I/O devices such as Bluetooth adapters, Card Readers, Web Cams, Peripherals (GamePads etc.) Sound Cards and Microphones Network and Wireless Adapters [CAREFUL!! IF YOU HAVE MULTIPLE GFX ONLY] try disabling your Nvidia or ATI gfx adapter and then if that does nothing, switch it back on and try disabling your Intel gfx adapter. Skip this one if you are even remotely unsure about this as you will have to use safe mode to put things right otherwise

Be careful when disabling devices as this can seriously break your PC.

Hopefully through trial and error you should be able to figure out which device is causing all the problems. Once you have then you need to uninstall the device, uninstall any drivers under Programs and Features, then attempt to download so better drivers which don’t screw up your PC. Note that newer is not always better so sometimes it is worth going to the manufacturers page of your PC/Laptop and downloading the older, reference drivers from them instead of the latest and greatest models.

For me it was my Realtek Card Reader which was causing all the problems so the moral of the story is don’t always go blaming your graphics card 🙂

And that is all. Hope this helps someone, I have been very guilty of blaming Riot in the past for their game not working but often the problem is closer to home!