Annoying issue with games. Please help before I punch my monitor.

[DLPB_]

It's only a matter of time before I end up smacking my monitor, so please help me not do that.  Here's the issue - some games (FF7 Steam, and FF8 original and Steam, and I think EPSXE emulator too) show "Not responding" for very brief and random(?) intervals. When this happens, the game window jumps a bit or flashes. It seems to happen on FF7 and 8 a whole lot more when the window is not in focus.  I am not sure if this happens in full screen mode.

I've tried different graphic card drivers. This is a very good system using i7 processor and GTX760. Perhaps this is some silly bios setting for the CPU? Because that's all I can narrow it down to.  I do not have an antivirus software installed - and this issue happens from a Fresh Windows installation. I am using Win 7.

 

[White Wind]

Is it your monitor that tells "Not responding"?  like if it was disconnected from your graphic card and getting no signal?
It has to do with the fresh reinstall.

What I can think of:
-Faulty driver from nVidia, which you weren't using before reinstall. But you said you've tried previous versions.
-Some driver setting that your monitor doesn't like, which was correctly on/off prior to reinstall.
-Maybe you had special driver settings for those applications (FF7/8/epsxe) and now they're following the global settings.
-Maybe your card-monitor wire is the culprit?
-If you can, try some other port from your card/on your monitor, if you have a corresponding wire.
-Maybe updating to a newer bios version (if there's one) would be good? (but you know, beware, don't brick your board..)

Also, get in touch with nVidia and/or your monitor manufacturer tech service.

 

[DLPB_]

No, task manager.  This is a problem with the actual game not responding. But I can try some of those recommendations.  Already have latest bios and drivers

 

[Galm]

This may not help since it's only the window and not the whole display freezing, but it kind of reminded me of a problem I had with Evolve on PC. (that buggy effin mess)

Which was solved by the following:

https://community.amd.com/thread/180166

Basically tell Windows to not panic as quickly when it thinks the GPU has frozen up. See if it helps, if not, I'd put it back to the default value.

 

[DLPB_]

I think you may have jogged my memory.

HungAppTimeout

I changed this value ages ago to 500 from 5000.  So a program will be declared unresponsive after half a second as opposed to 5 seconds.  Clearly certain games like ff7 and 8 are doing something which is still shitty and not professional, but putting it back to 2500 or 5000 should fix it.  We'll see.  (Small values help with faster shut down).