There was a Windows Update yesterday (or maybe it wasn't and this is instead a virus?) for my Windows 10 PC, and ever since then I can't play Gothic 2 anymore. Had been running just fine and dandy. Now, the frame rate is so slow it is far beyond unplayable, it is unwatchable.

And now every time I go into Task Manager it shows CPU usage at 80-95%. Every. Time.

The funny thing is, if I leave Task Manager Open, it just stays at 1%. Then when I close it, then look again maybe a second later, it's back up to 80+ again.

The listed apps causing the spike are two that I see most often. One is "Start" and one is "Runtime Broker" and I'm guessing they're valid files. But for whatever reason all of a sudden I can't play Gothic 2 anymore. Is this maybe a DX11 thing with the new update messing things up maybe?

I don't want to uninstall and reinstall vanilla just to check it out so I thought I'd ask here. But this is night and day difference and it happened after yesterday's update.

Oh yeah, another of the listed hogs in the task manager is "Gaming Services" or something like that. I have no idea what that is. Steam is not open, and I don't even have Galaxy installed.

EDIT: I restarted, went back into Gothic 2 and it is TOTALLY UNPLAYABLE. Mother fuck. This is so far beyond frustrating there are no words. I guess the next thing to do is see if it's other games. I'm gonna try Fallout 4 and maybe one other.

EDIT 2: OMG, Sid Meiers Civ IV is even awful. Civ IV. Moving the cursor to edge of screen that makes view move suddenly it just lurches. Awful. I've got a goddamned virus don't I.

Try disabling fullscreen optimizations in windows settings. Updates automatically re-enable it and it can cause issues with some games:
https://winaero.com/disable-fullscreen-optimizations-windows-10/amp/

The CPU spikes make sense for runtime broker. It only runs when a universal app launches. So as long as its CPU usage settles down shortly after you initially launch an app it's normal behavior.

Start would be the start menu.

You can test your theory by uninstalling the Windows Update:

https://www.makeuseof.com/manually-uninstall-windows-10-updates/

I disabled Game Mode, restarted and it seems things are better. Not really sure what game mode is anyway.

I do know I played all day yesterday without issue. Then when I turned everything off last night, I noticed an update was scheduled, so I hit "Update and Shutdown".

Then this morning when I started, all of a sudden couldn't play Gothic 2 anymore. And the performance was awful in Civ IV and Fallout 4. I mean AWFUL. Unplayable.

Ran a full security scan. Came back clean. Uninstalled Gothic 2, reinstalled it. Deleted all of the screenshots I had taken for a thread I was going to do (I read something online that said either "Start" or "Runtime Broker" high usage was somehow related to pictures/images).

Anyway, I just checked Civ IV and Fallout 4, and they're back to normal. Gonna reinstall Gothic 2 again. I know yesterday I was constantly manipulating the Gothic 2 stuff because I was changing texture packs, starting gothic 2, take screenshot, change texture pack, start gothic 2, screenshot.... about a hundred times. But this huge performance hit didn't happen until this morning. But, to be safe, I wasn't sure what all of that manipulating and taking so many screenshots would do so I just uninstalled it and deleted all of the screenshots.

It might just be that the update had not totally finished, and update related tasks resolved after your more recent restart.

So in the future it's not a bad idea to restart windows an additional time after an update to ensure everything is finished before launching a game.

Those are indeed valid processes. "Start" is quite literally the Start menu. "Runtime Broker" is a sort of middleman service which provides security permissions to Windows apps. The trick is -- even though those two processes are showing high CPU usage, they aren't really the root cause of the problem. Some other app(s) are running in the background and constantly hammering away at the Runtime Broker and Start processes.

Here's few quick troubleshooting steps you can try. And sorry, I don't have Windows 10 anymore so I'm not sure of the exact location of these settings in the Control Panel - but you should be able to use "Find a setting" / Search in the Control Panel to find where they are.

First, search for "get tips about windows". The actual setting name has changed a few times through various Win10 updates, but it should be something to the effect of "Show me tips and tricks about using Windows". Untick that.

Next, search for "background apps". This shows a list of every app that's allowed to keep running in the background. Even if it looks like that app is closed, its still allowed to keep a process running behind the scenes to send notifications to you. Uncheck everything except for processes that relate to system security (like Windows Defender).

Most likely, you've got some misbehaving app running in the background that's chewing up way too much processing time, which is why Runtime Broker is spiking. And it's probably something that's pinned to your Start Menu as a live tile (as or at least, has the ability to be a live tile), which is why the Start process is also spiking.

Note: I've seen some tips on other forums saying you can use a registry edit to disable the Runtime Broker. Don't do that. That's throwing the baby out with the bath water, and it's going to cause more problems than it solves.

EDIT: Just noticed your problem was fixed while I was typing this. Glad it got sorted, but if it happens again you could also try these troubleshooting steps if you get stuck.

Back before i moved (2017) and Microsoft was pushing their big Windows 8 and Windows 10 thing, a gamer/streamer had noticed his performance would suddenly tank. This was the result of how Update works now. Now you not only download patches (and they are forced on you), but you are supplying them too, making them more-or-less a viral torrent.

So... try unplugging your internet entirely, see if your CPU usage drops down.

edit: Oh right, and after an update Windows LOVES to forget your privacy settings... so check those.

Weren't you dabbling with your PC over the last few days/weeks to get your game(s) to run?

Maybe that's the reason.

It's Microsoft's attemp at minisculy improving performance by suspending some background processes and functions when it thinks it detected a game running. Usually causes more isses than benefits, especially in older games.

Glad disabling it helped you. Keep in mind it will get enabled again with any future Windows updates.

It's unlikely the reason. I bet he could turn it back on right now and it would still perform fine.

If you're using an AMD cpu it could be the power plan settings were reset or updated (could be the case with intel too, just i know its an issue with AMD as ive had it happen recently).
Go into the advanced power plan settings and look at Processor power management and then Minimum processor state. Good chance its set really high.

NVM, found that you didn't install Gothic2_PlayerKit-2.8.exe and G2NoTR-SystemPack-1.8.exe (both are flagged on Virustotal).

PS: installed Gothic 2: Gold Remaster mod. Looks great, but there is a feeling you're in jungles (especially with GD3D11 renderer; with dgVoodoo2 - not so much). =)
Torch glare is absent only if you start a new game (d'loaded an endgame save file from internet and it has glare on torches). Also, water has no blue'ish tint (it's just transparent).
Reddit user made a tutorial on how to extract the needed file (ZFLARE6-C.TEX) to make a custom mod to remove torch glare.

edit: screenshots added

Assuming it were not malware, it could be indexing your drives.

Could try Malwarebytes. Its free. ClamWin is crappy, but also free. A few others like Avast are free.

In case it was that ... turn off drive indexing for SSDs in the first place. For fast drives It has very little benefit and causes more stress to the drive.



However ... I would first check the task manager if the processor frequency is still correct. If not, go to the BIOS and check if the processor speed (multiplier) was reduces.
It could be that it went to a safe state to prevent overheating and was not reset afterwards.