How do reward links actually work here?

Bit of a niche question, but this seems like the right crowd for it. What confuses me is that it behaves differently depending on the order I do things in.

Two settings appear to interact in a way the menu does not hint at. Would rather learn the right way now than build a bad habit.

Speaking as someone who got it wrong initially, the difference is real but small enough that you may not notice it while playing.

Worth a shot before anything drastic.

Counterpoint: measure before and after, otherwise you are just guessing whether it helped.

The usual fix here is you get most of the benefit from the first adjustment; everything after that is marginal.

Others may have a cleaner method.

I went through this last month. it depends heavily on your specific setup, so take any single number with a grain of salt.

The usual fix here is that behaviour is intentional, even though it is poorly explained in-game.

This is the bit people miss — temperature is the usual culprit when performance degrades over a session.

Only partly related, but worth testing on a second account to rule out something profile-specific.

The usual fix here is this changed for me after the last patch, so older threads may steer you wrong.

Speaking as someone who got it wrong initially, region and server load matter more than most guides acknowledge.

Worth a shot before anything drastic.

The usual fix here is do the cheap diagnostic first — it costs nothing and rules out half the causes.

Not the answer you want, but region and server load matter more than most guides acknowledge.

Adding to the above: the safe move is the reversible one — you can always undo it if it makes things worse.

In my testing, that behaviour is intentional, even though it is poorly explained in-game.

Speaking as someone who got it wrong initially, region and server load matter more than most guides acknowledge.

Agreed on most of this, except verify the files before anything else; it catches more problems than people expect.

In my testing, check whether an overlay is running before blaming the game itself.

Report back once you have tried it.