How To Fix Nvidia FPS Drops And Performance Issues

If your game is suddenly stuttering or your frame rate is tanking despite having a decent GPU, your graphics card is likely fine. You are likely dealing with a corrupted shader cache that built up after a recent Windows or driver update, which is now forcing your PC to struggle through frame pacing issues.

Why this happens

Shader caches allow games to pre-compile graphics data for smooth performance. When these files become corrupted or mismatched after an update, your GPU experiences constant frame spikes while trying to rebuild them in real-time.

Steps

1. 01
   Right-click your desktop, select 'Show more options', and open the 'Nvidia Control Panel'.
2. 02
   Navigate to 'Manage 3D settings' and select the 'Global Settings' tab.
3. 03
   Locate 'Shader Cache Size' in the list, change the setting to 'Disabled', click 'Apply', and restart your computer to force the current cache to purge.
4. 04
   Once restarted, open your Nvidia software and install the latest 'Game Ready' driver to ensure your system is on the most stable version.
5. 05
   Open the 'Disk Cleanup' utility, select 'Clean up system files', and check the box for 'DirectX Shader Cache' before clicking 'OK' and 'Delete Files'.
6. 06
   Return to the 'Nvidia Control Panel', set 'Shader Cache Size' back to 'Driver Default', click 'Apply', and perform one final system restart to finalize the repair.

Still not working?

If you are still seeing frame drops, check your GPU temperatures using a tool like MSI Afterburner to rule out thermal throttling. If your temperatures are fine, your specific game might have a configuration file that needs to be reset, or the issue could be a background application conflict with your overlay software.

Frequently asked questions

Will clearing my shader cache delete my game saves?

No, clearing the shader cache only removes temporary pre-compiled graphics data. Your game saves and personal settings will remain untouched.

Does this fix affect all my games?

Yes, since you are clearing the global shader cache and resetting the driver setting, this change applies to every game using the Nvidia API.

Why do I have to restart my computer twice?

The first restart ensures the Nvidia driver completely drops the old, corrupted cache files from memory, and the second restart ensures the new configuration is properly initialized.