Why Discord May be Draining Your Nvidia Graphics Card

If you use Discord on a PC with an NVIDIA graphics card, you may have noticed your card running slow. Apparently, Discord is the cause and it's probably due to a recent update that added support for AV1 streaming on GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs.

Don't worry though, Nvidia has already recognized the bug and is working on a automatic fix. If you're feeling tech-savvy, there's even a manual fix available on Nvidia's support website. Just remember, the memory slowdown only happens when Discord is running in the background, so if you use an Nvidia card, it might be worth checking out the fix.

The Problem

Nvidia graphics card users who run the messaging platform Discord on their PCs may have encountered a slowdown in performance. Reports from sources such as The Verge and users on Reddit and Linus Tech Tips Forum have indicated a reduction in memory clock speed by 200 MHz. The likely cause of this issue has been traced back to a recent Discord update that added AV1 streaming support for GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs, though the memory slowdown affects more than just RTX 40 cards.

The Discord update started rolling out last week, allowing RTX 40-series owners to stream with AV1 at up to 4K and 60fps with Discord Nitro at 8Mbps. Discord users that don’t have a GPU capable of decoding AV1 will see an H.264 stream, as Discord uses P2P streaming and will automatically switch over to H.264 so everyone watching your stream can see it.

The Fix

Nvidia has announced a resolution for a recent issue that resulted in a reduction in performance for some graphics cards when Discord was open in the background. The company stated in a tweet that the patch will be automatically downloaded when the user logs into Windows, eliminating the need for manual downloading of graphics drivers or software updates.

The issue, which impacted systems with graphics cards such as the RTX 3080 and RTX 3060 Ti, was caused by a recent Discord update that prevented GPUs from reaching their maximum memory clocks, with a decrease of approximately 200MHz. This led to a slight drop in performance while playing games, which is not ideal given that Discord is intended to be used while gaming to communicate with friends.

The fix will come in the form of an app profile update and, prior to this announcement, it was possible to apply it manually. However, the process was complex and involved downloading a profile manager, exporting, editing, and re-importing profiles.

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