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I noticed that my Counter Strike: Condition Zero game is not as smooth as when internet is not connected.

I mean when I walk/run in game, the screen hangs (hang could be a wrong word here) for milliseconds. It's very subtle but irritating. So overall, game is not smooth. I think it is called FPS drops.

Note that I don't play online game. I just play Tour of Duty in this game, which requires no Internet.

One way to fix this problem is disconnect Internet when I play, but I don't even understand how Internet is messing up with the game.

I feel it is somehow trying to connect to internet, don't know why would that happen when offline version don't need Internet at all. Could it be because of platform/config/MasterServers.vdf file? I saw there are lot of IPs.

IMPORTANT EDIT:

Today I noticed that it wasn't happening to this game only, it is happening with 2 other games I play, GTA5 and COD4. Earlier I thought it might because my Graphics card is not strong (940MX), but even when I play at lowest settings, I saw this non smooth fluctuations in the games.

So I feel it's definitely not because of Graphics card and my PC (which is i7 processor, 16 GB RAM). Because CS:CZ used to run pretty smooth even with Intel HD graphics. And it consumes very less RAM.

This similar problem I face when my laptop is not plugged in for charging i.e., it runs on its battery. But I guess that is a power related issue and makes sense.

So what could be the reason? All of these games I play in offline mode, Internet not needed. Can Wi-Fi Internet really mess up with games like this?

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    You mention your CPU and your graphics card, but not how much memory you have. Your internet could be trying to do things in the background that use up computer memory and mess up your game.
    – Kadima
    May 14, 2021 at 13:38
  • @Kadima sorry updated in details. But it's strange. Wi Fi wouldn't take so much memory. I have sufficient RAM.
    – Vikas
    May 14, 2021 at 13:44
  • Have you run a full virus scan?
    – Comic Sans Seraphim
    May 14, 2021 at 14:16
  • @Studoku yes, using Windows defender. Now, I noticed another thing and that might help indentify problem. I saw that my windows updates were pending for install and I installed and restarted system. All 3 games run smooth after that when Internet was conncected. I kept testing for 1 hour. In the end, CS: CZ showed a tiny bit of lag. I'll test it again, because my browser was open maybe browser was causing issue.
    – Vikas
    May 14, 2021 at 14:59
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    @Vikas sorry, looked for it but I guess I'm blind! My bad!
    – Penguin
    May 15, 2021 at 5:31

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Problem is solved.

When I had posted this question, I was still trying to find issue on my end. After a lot of hit and trials, I felt that if the problem is because of Internet, let's check who's using Internet.

I closed my OneDrive and other apps that consume Internet in background.

Firefox was also using Internet in background. I ended the processes of Firefox and restarted my PC. But issue was still there.

Again I checked who's using Internet. Same story. But I was surprised to see Firefox again in process list of Task Manager, even when I didn't start the Firefox browser.

I tried setting a few config false to disable auto start in background, but it didn't work. Then I noticed it was using my CPU from 70% to 80%. And it would use CPU only when it is connected to Internet.

So I thought this might be messing with my games.

When I couldn't fix the browser problem, I asked a question on Superuser about this specific problem.

So all problems were originated from a few crypto-currency malwares. Once the browser got disinfected from malwares, the game problem was fixed!

It was very weird thing. Never imagined there could exist a malware like crypto-currency mining malware.

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  • That was my theory though I couldn't be sure- hence my suggestion to run a virus scan.
    – Comic Sans Seraphim
    May 18, 2021 at 15:10
  • @Studoku actually I had done a scan using Defender, but it didn't caught any malware. So I used MalwareBytes.
    – Vikas
    May 18, 2021 at 19:10
  • Was the malware using Firefox to mine crypto-currency? I believe you can use uBlock Origin with anti-malware or cryptocurrency filter lists to block websites from using your browser to mine crypto-currency.
    – galacticninja
    Aug 1, 2021 at 3:40
  • @galacticninja I don't know exactly how Firefox was linked with that crypto bitcoin, but definitely there was direct link/relation between them, which caused the problem.
    – Vikas
    Aug 1, 2021 at 5:37

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