There’s nothing quite like settling in for a gaming session only to be met with frustrating crashes, inexplicable stuttering, or sudden, drastic performance drops. While hardware limitations can certainly be a factor, many common PC gaming issues stem from the complex world of software – conflicts between applications, outdated drivers, or corrupted files. Before you start questioning your hardware, it’s often more productive to investigate potential software culprits. Troubleshooting common PC gaming issues become very important.
This guide from MTI Software (updated April 9, 2025) provides a systematic approach to troubleshooting common PC gaming issues, helping you get back to smooth, stable gameplay.
Initial Checks: The Low-Hanging Fruit
Before diving deep, cover these basic troubleshooting steps:
- Restart Your PC: It sounds cliché, but restarting your computer clears temporary files and closes lingering processes, resolving a surprising number of minor glitches.
- Check Game System Requirements: Verify that your PC hardware (CPU, GPU, RAM) meets at least the minimum, preferably the recommended, system requirements for the game you’re trying to play. Find these on the game’s store page or official website.
- Monitor Temperatures: While our focus here is software, overheating can cause crashes and severe performance throttling. Briefly use monitoring software (like MSI Afterburner or HWiNFO64) during gameplay to ensure your CPU and GPU temperatures are within safe limits (generally below 85-90°C under load, but check specs for your specific components).
Diving Deeper: Common Software Culprits
If the initial checks don’t solve the problem, it’s time to investigate these common software-related causes:
Outdated or Corrupt Graphics Drivers
- The Issue: Your graphics card driver is the critical link between your GPU and your games. Outdated, mismatched, or corrupted drivers are a leading cause of crashes, visual artifacts (flickering, strange colors), poor performance, and compatibility issues with new game releases.
- The Fix:
- Update: Download the latest official drivers for your GPU directly from the manufacturer’s website (NVIDIA, AMD, or Intel).
- Clean Install: When installing new drivers, select the “Clean Installation” option if available. This removes old driver files and settings that could cause conflicts.
- Use DDU (Advanced): For persistent issues, use Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) in Windows Safe Mode to completely remove all traces of old drivers before installing the latest version.
- Roll Back: If problems started immediately after a driver update, try rolling back to the previous stable version via Device Manager or by reinstalling the older driver.
Background Application Interference
- The Issue: Applications running silently in the background consume valuable CPU cycles, RAM, and disk resources, potentially conflicting with your game or causing performance dips and stutters. Common culprits include web browsers with many tabs, cloud storage sync clients (Dropbox, OneDrive), RGB control software, streaming tools, and even some antivirus programs during scans.
- The Fix:
- Task Manager: Press
Ctrl+Shift+Escto open Task Manager. Check the “Processes” tab to identify applications consuming high CPU, Memory, or Disk resources. Close anything non-essential before launching your game. - Clean Boot: Temporarily disable non-Microsoft startup services and applications to see if a background program is the cause. Search Windows for
msconfig, go to the “Services” tab, check “Hide all Microsoft services,” then click “Disable all.” Go to the “Startup” tab and disable unnecessary startup items (or use the Startup Apps section in Windows Settings). Reboot and test the game. Remember to re-enable services/startup items afterward.
- Task Manager: Press
Overlay Conflicts
- The Issue: Many applications use in-game overlays to display information or provide features (e.g., Discord, NVIDIA GeForce Experience ShadowPlay, AMD Adrenalin Metrics, Steam Overlay, Xbox Game Bar, MSI Afterburner/RTSS). Sometimes, these overlays conflict with each other or with the game itself, causing crashes, input lag, or rendering issues.
- The Fix: Systematically disable overlays one by one within their respective application settings. Start with the ones you least need active while gaming (like Discord if you’re not actively using its overlay features) and test the game after each disablement.
Corrupted Game Files
- The Issue: Game files can become corrupted during download, installation, patching, or due to unexpected shutdowns. This can lead to crashes, missing textures, infinite loading screens, or other strange behavior.
- The Fix: Use the built-in file verification tool provided by your game launcher:
- Steam: Right-click the game in your library > Properties > Installed Files > Verify integrity of game files.
- Epic Games Store: Go to your library, click the three dots (…) next to the game > Manage > Verify Files.
- Ubisoft Connect / EA App / Battle.net: Look for similar “Verify” or “Repair” options within the game’s properties or settings in the respective launcher.
Windows Updates & OS Issues
- The Issue: Occasionally, a major Windows update can introduce compatibility issues or performance regressions with specific games or drivers. Less commonly, core Windows system files can become corrupted.
- The Fix:
- Check for Updates: Ensure Windows is fully up-to-date, as patches often fix compatibility issues.
- Roll Back Update (Use Caution): If problems started immediately after a major Windows feature update, you might consider rolling it back via Windows Update settings (usually only possible within 10 days).
- System File Checker: Open Command Prompt as Administrator and type
sfc /scannow, then press Enter. This scans and attempts to repair corrupted Windows system files. - DISM: If SFC finds issues it can’t fix, run
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealthin an Administrator Command Prompt to repair the Windows image.
Antivirus / Security Software Interference
- The Issue: Sometimes, overzealous antivirus or security software can mistakenly identify game files or processes as threats (“false positives”), interfering with game launch, causing crashes, or hindering performance by actively scanning game files during play.
- The Fix:
- Exclusions: Add the game’s installation folder and main executable file(s) to your antivirus software’s exclusion list or “allow list.”
- Temporary Disable (Test Only): Briefly disable your antivirus only for testing purposes to see if it resolves the issue. Remember to re-enable it immediately afterward. Be cautious when doing this.
- Gaming Mode: Check if your antivirus has a “Gaming Mode” or “Silent Mode” that reduces interruptions and resource usage during gameplay.
Malware Infections
- The Issue: Malware running in the background can consume significant system resources, leading to severe performance drops, instability, and crashes in games (and other applications).
- The Fix: Run a full system scan using a reputable anti-malware program (like Malwarebytes Free or your primary antivirus) to detect and remove any threats.
When to Suspect Hardware (Briefly)
If you’ve exhaustively tried software troubleshooting across multiple games and the problems persist (especially hard crashes or graphical corruption), you might need to investigate hardware: failing RAM (test with MemTest86), an unstable power supply, or a dying storage drive could be culprits, but these require different diagnostic approaches.
Conclusion
Troubleshooting common PC gaming issues often feels like detective work, but focusing on software conflicts and performance bottlenecks first is usually the right approach. By systematically checking your drivers, managing background applications and overlays, verifying game files, and ensuring your OS is healthy, you can resolve many common frustrations. Be patient, test changes one at a time, and you’ll often find the software culprit responsible for disrupting your gaming experience.
Here is a very nice walkthrough for troubleshooting common PC gaming issues.