Xbox Games Broken on PC

J-Mac1361 · Feb 2, 2022

Intro

I sincerely apologize for the lengthy and monotonous explanation; I have been having these issues for months now and I am desperate to have them fixed so I want to provide as many details as possible.

Also, I know these issues are Xbox-related but I was on the phone with Xbox support for an hour yesterday and they could not figure anything out so I'm reaching out to their higher-ups and anyone else who may be of assistance. I tried Reddit but no one cares there apparently.

The Problem

I have the Xbox game pass for PC and I have multiple games installed (Sea of Thieves, Hitman 3, Halo Infinite, Minecraft Windows 10 Edition). Ever since last October, each one of them has been affected by this incredibly annoying bug.

Every other time I start one of these games (sometimes every single time, sometimes 1 in 3 or 4 times), the video freezes. I can hear the loading music playing in the background, but the video either stops (in most cases) or progresses at like 0.25 frames per second. If I press the windows key on my keyboard, however, and the windows menu pops up, the video resumes again like normal in the background. When I click back into the game, the video freezes again. I'll do this like a dozen times (windows key, click on game, windows key, click on game, etc.) and sometimes it stops freezing after a dozen attempts or so, other times it refuses and I have to force the game closed and restart it.

If it does end up finally allowing me to play, in cases like Hitman 3 and Minecraft, I will have no problems for the rest of my play time UNLESS I minimize the game to, for example, browse the web to find a walkthrough video. After minimizing the game, the freezing issue returns but REFUSES to go away once I open the game back up again. I'll have the game open, wiggle the mouse a bit to try and get a reaction (nothing happens, totally frozen), and when I tab back out my character in-game suddenly snaps to wherever it thinks I aimed the mouse. I can even click while in-game, and the click doesn't register until I tab-out. For example, in Minecraft I'll attempt to face a tall grass block by moving the mouse just the right distance (since the video is frozen, my character doesn't actually move until I minimize the game and reopen it), then I'll left-click to destroy the grass but it won't actually happen until I minimize the game again.

It's infuriating, and sometimes it will happen out of nowhere without me even having to minimize the game. I'll be playing Sea of Thieves, running around fighting skeletons, and suddenly my video freezes and I can still hear the skeletons in the background, killing me. In cases like Sea of Thieves and Minecraft, once it begins in-game I have no choice but to restart, and in cases like Hitman 3 if I minimize and reopen several times it will eventually go away. Halo Infinite has issues similar to both, but mainly it's that while I'm playing the video will freeze for like two seconds then stop on its own, and one or two minutes later it will happen again. Every 1 or two minutes, for the entire match.

The strangest and most annoying thing about it is that this is ONLY affecting Xbox games. I have a dozen other games installed between Steam, Origin, Epic Games, Battle.net, and Ubisoft Connect, and NONE of them have issues even remotely similar to this.

Troubleshooting Steps I've Taken

Installed every Windows 10 update released since the problem began to occur, including the optional additional updates that are supposed to improve quality and fix bugs.

Installed every Nvidia graphics card driver update since the problem began to occur. As of the writing of this essay (sorry again for the length), everything is up to date.

Uninstalled and re-installed all Xbox games

Changed graphics options to their lowest possible setting

Uninstalled and re-installed the Xbox PC app

Logged out of the Xbox PC app and logged back in

Tested each game with Game Mode turned on and off (in the Windows settings)

Ran antivirus software (Norton 360) in case I have a virus (it scanned a few hundred thousand files on my computer, and not a single issue was found)

Conclusion

I don't know what happened. Before these issues began, I could play each of these games on the maximum possible graphics settings at 80+ frames per second and had absolutely zero issues. Then suddenly, they all broke and I have no idea how to fix it or why it's happening. If anyone has had a similar problem and knows how to fix it, or if an official Microsoft support member reads this, PLEASE help me figure this out. I would be more than happy to do a video chat or something so I can screen-share and demonstrate live what the problem is and get live assistance.

:)

XBF-JoannaDark

Hi, J-Mac1361,

I hope you are doing well today. Welcome to the Xbox Community. Thank you for reaching out to Xbox Forums. Thank you for providing a detailed explanation of the issues you have encountered via PC Game Pass. I see you have a problem with the specific games you mention and their performance, along with a stutter. I am happy to help and try my best to fix this issue. If the problems you describe are what I think it is, let me provide you with some suggested solutions to resolve this problem.

Disable Xbox Game Bar

Players experiencing low FPS and issues with stuttering or hitching should try disabling Xbox Game Bar, which has been shown to improve performance dramatically for many players. Here's how to disable it:

In the Windows search bar, type Settings.
Select the Settings app.
Select the Gaming page.
Turn off Xbox Game Bar.
Turn off Open Xbox Game Bar with the Xbox button.
Select the Captures tab.
Turn off Background recording.

Turn on hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling

If you're experiencing low FPS, another excellent way to improve your performance without compromising on image quality is to turn on hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling. Here's how to do it:

In the Windows search bar, type Settings.
Select the Settings app.
Select the System page.
On the Display tab, scroll down and select Graphics settings.
Make sure Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling is set to On.
Select Browse.
Select your Halo Infinite executable file.
Select Add.
Under Halo Infinite, select Options.
Select High performance.
Select Save.

Finally, you should avoid using the Alt+Tab shortcut while in-game, especially if you're playing in Fullscreen mode. This is because tabbing out of games can often negatively impact your performance, limiting you to 45-50FPS after you tab back in. Therefore, if you notice that Halo Infinite, Sea of Thieves, Hitman 3, or Minecraft's performance degrades after tabbing out of it and then back in, avoid using the shortcut in the future. You can try Exclusive Fullscreen, if available, and that works with minimizing those issue.

I hope these suggestions help! If this answers your question, please mark the thread as “Answered.”

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