Nomad, your problem could be use of your graphic cards, As I see you have dedicated card, but there is usually also Integrated Intel HD graphics that is automaticaly used most time because of low power consumption,
1. Check your graphic card drivers and DirectX driver versions and actualise it
2. Look for graphic configuration for apps, GeForce usually has it in Control panel options where can you configure what applications do you want to run with dedicated graphics and what you run with Intel HD, and also set options for them.
And as I see Loki's problem, his spect should be enought to run game like that, so it software problem, check your DirectX and also look for newest drivers, I had same problem with some games running on my PC, I lowered details and so on but FPS was still same, updating my drivers helped.