Severe Groupy 2 Bug: Foreground Game Performance Drops from 200+ FPS to 20–30 FPS

I am reporting a severe compatibility issue caused by Groupy 2.

from Stardock Forums

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Severe Groupy 2 Bug: Foreground Game Performance Drops from 200+ FPS to 20–30 FPS

 

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I am reporting a severe compatibility issue caused by Groupy 2.

 

When the Stardock Groupy service is running, VALORANT drops from more than 200 FPS to approximately 20–30 FPS whenever the game window has foreground focus. At the same time, GPU utilization becomes abnormally low.

 

The behavior is immediately reversible:

 

Game window focused: 20–30 FPS, low GPU utilization

 

Click outside the game window: 200+ FPS, normal GPU utilization

 

Click back into the game: FPS immediately drops to 20–30 again

 

 

The problem occurs consistently in fullscreen, borderless fullscreen, and windowed modes. I also tested resolutions ranging from 1024×768 to 2880×1920, with virtually no change in frame rate. This clearly rules out resolution, graphics settings, or insufficient hardware performance.

 

I spent an entire day troubleshooting this issue, including:

 

Graphics drivers

 

Windows graphics settings

 

Power and performance modes

 

Game settings

 

Hardware utilization

 

Background services

 

Other installed software

 

 

After isolating the services through a clean boot, I confirmed that disabling only the Stardock Groupy service immediately restores normal foreground performance above 200 FPS.

 

I then added:

 

VALORANT-Win64-Shipping.exe

 

to Groupy’s blocked application list. This also resolved the problem while allowing Groupy to remain enabled.

 

This confirms that Groupy’s interaction with the game window, foreground focus, or rendering process is directly responsible for the performance loss.

 

This is not a minor compatibility issue or normal software overhead. Groupy reduced foreground performance by nearly 90%, without any warning or indication that it was interfering with another application. Because Groupy is paid software, this level of interference is unacceptable. I purchased it to improve productivity in applications such as Microsoft Word, not to silently cripple unrelated programs and cause an entire day of unnecessary hardware and driver troubleshooting.

 

The blocked-application rule is currently a workaround, but it is not a proper fix. Users should not have to discover severe performance degradation first and then manually exclude every affected application.

 

Please investigate:

 

1. Why Groupy interferes with foreground rendering and GPU utilization.

 

 

2. Whether Groupy continues to hook or monitor applications that should not be grouped.

 

 

3. Why full-screen and GPU-accelerated applications are not excluded automatically.

 

 

4. Whether blocked applications are completely isolated from all Groupy window and focus handling.

 

 

 

Please reproduce and properly address this issue in a future update, and document the fix clearly in the changelog.

Stardock Software Groupy Type: Bug Report
548 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

This is absolutely outrageous.

Groupy silently reduced my game performance from over 200 FPS to 20–30 FPS and made me waste an entire day checking my hardware, graphics drivers, Windows settings, power settings, and game configuration.

There was no warning, no error message, and no indication whatsoever that Groupy was destroying foreground performance. The moment I disabled the Groupy service, the problem disappeared. Adding the game executable to Groupy’s blocked application list also immediately fixed it.

This is not a minor compatibility issue. It is a serious defect in paid software. A window-management utility has no business interfering with GPU utilization and reducing another application’s performance by nearly 90%.

Customers should not be expected to spend an entire day diagnosing damage caused by software they paid for. Manually blocking every affected application is not a proper solution. Stardock needs to identify the cause and fix this bug properly.

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Hello,

Sorry to hear you are having issues. I have forwarded your problem/question to Stardock Support Team for their assistance. Please keep an eye on this thread for any updates. We appreciate your feedback and patience. Thank you.

Basj,

Stardock Community  Assistant

 

 

Basj,

Stardock Community  Assistant.

Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

Hello, 

Thank you for the detailed report, and sorry for the lost time and frustration— spending a full day isolating drivers, Windows settings, and hardware only to trace it back to Groupy is exactly the kind of experience we don't want you to have.

Please know your report/diagnosis is helpful.  The behavior you've described has been forwarded to our team for investigation, and the details you provided (consistent across fullscreen, borderless, and windowed modes, and independent of resolution) should help. 

The workaround you've identified is the correct one and can stay in place safely.  I'll make sure to update our support documentation to help others with adding any problematic game's executable to Groupy's block list. 

For anyone else reading, in Groupy 2, this is done under Groupy > Grouping rules > Block / allow applications.  In the original Groupy, it would be Settings -> Application exclusions...   

This section of the app can be used to stop Groupy 1/2 from hooking the listed application entirely, or an option can be checked here to treat this as an inclusion list.

If you happen to notice the same drop with any other titles, please do let us know, as that information could also help us pin down potential causes and revise our documentation. 

Best regards,

Adam McGuinness
Stardock Support Specialist