Your laptop game is running on the wrong graphics card
Gaming laptops have two graphics chips: a weak one built into the processor (Intel or AMD) that saves battery, and the real one (your NVIDIA RTX or AMD Radeon). Windows is supposed to pick the real one for games. Sometimes it doesn't, and the game runs at a third of the FPS it should.
How to tell
- Start the game, then press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open Task Manager.
- Go to Performance. Click each GPU on the left (GPU 0, GPU 1).
- The one working hard while the game runs is the one the game uses. If it's the "Intel" or "AMD Radeon(TM) Graphics" one, that's the problem.
The fix (Windows 10 and 11)
- Open Settings → System → Display → Graphics.
- Find the game in the list. Not there? Add desktop app and pick the game's .exe (for Steam games:
Steam\steamapps\common\<game>). - Click the game → Options → High performance → Save. Restart the game.
Also check: plug the charger in (on battery the graphics card gets a fraction of its power),
and put your laptop's own app (Armoury Crate, Lenovo Vantage, Control Center, OMEN Hub…) in Performance mode.
Some laptops have a MUX switch / "dGPU only" mode there too: that's the fastest setting for games.
Or let the hamster do it
Frame Hamster's free Health Scan checks every game you have for this (and the battery, the laptop mode and a dozen other things). Pro fixes it in one click, with an Undo.
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