Far Cry 5 - Dunia engine stutter?

[Whitestar]

Maybe you guys with newer processors can help me. I'm still rocking a Core i7-2700K and it still works wonderfully next to my 1080 Ti.

But there is one problem I'm having, and I'm not sure if it's my good old Sandy Bridge CPU showing its age or if it's just simply a game engine issue. I had this issue in Far Cry 4 and now it's back in Far Cry 5. The problem is fps stutter/jitter/skipping (sorry, I'm just not sure what to call it). It happens at irregular intervals. I think maybe "frame skipping" would be the correct term, since that best describes what happens. But visually it also looks like a sort of very quick stutter.

PS! This happens with v-sync on, 1080p (and also 1440p) Ultra settings, @60hz, full screen. I always play with v-sync on because I can't live with the tearing. I also tried with v-sync @75hz. Same issue.

Try this:
Go to an area where you are facing trees, and where you can strafe freely to the left and right. I'm using trees for testing as it's easy to spot when looking at them. Now strafe far to the left and then far to the right. Repeat this over and over while looking at the trees. Your result should be that the trees slide by in a very silky smooth fashion. And in any other game that would be my result too. But in Far Cry 5 (and 4) at irregular intervals there are very small stutters or "hiccups" that occur now and then. And make the trees "skip" ahead motion wise. It's very minute and almost undetectable, but it's there. It doesn't really affect gameplay either because it's not like a "normal" stutter where the framerate clearly drops. The framerate is the same all the time here, it's just that there are these little "hiccups" or "skips". It also happens when I move my head around in-game, with the mouse.

So I was wondering if you guys experience this also, i.e. is it a Dunia engine problem? Or could this be an issue with my old CPU?
What are your thoughts?

 

[Space Lynx]

I always had stutter issues with my 2500k and vsync on.

I finally saved up enough money to buy high refresh gsync monitor and newer gear. I am eating ramen and apples for the next month to help pay for it too. worth it.

 

[Whitestar]

Ah, but do you think it's your new cpu that fixed it, or the gsync monitor?
I mean, did you try v-sync on your new cpu?

(btw, I posted this op in the General Hardware thread, since I thought it probably belonged there instead)

 

[R00kie]

vsync in general introduces stuttering, I never generally play with vsync, mostly because it does that and adds latency

 

[Whitestar]

That may be, but like I said: this is the only engine I have these sorts of issues in.

 

[Space Lynx]

Ah, but do you think it's your new cpu that fixed it, or the gsync monitor?
I mean, did you try v-sync on your new cpu?

(btw, I posted this op in the General Hardware thread, since I thought it probably belonged there instead)

gsync fixes everything.

 

[Finners]

Have a play with nvidia fast sync as well as nvidia control panel v-sync vs in game v-sync.

Also triple buffering and render ahead limits can help. Not all games let you adjust this and I can't remember what's in the nvidia control panel.

 

[Whitestar]

Have a play with nvidia fast sync as well as nvidia control panel v-sync vs in game v-sync.

Yes, I tried fast sync and switching between the different v-syncs. Fast sync made it maybe ever so slightly better, but still there.

Also triple buffering and render ahead limits can help. Not all games let you adjust this and I can't remember what's in the nvidia control panel.

Tried triple buffering, but didn't try render ahead. Will test when I get home, thanks. Btw, that's called "max pre-rendered frames" or something similar now, right? Should probably try to set it to 1.

gsync fixes everything.

Except monitor motion blur. I have kind of gotten addicted to the silky smooth CRT-like motion of my Benq XL2720Z (with the Strobe utility).

 

[R00kie]

Except monitor motion blur.

Which is not really an issue if you have a decent enough panel

 

[droopyRO]

Install MSI Afterburner and set it up so it shows the OSD with framepacing like in this screenshot, the closer you are to a straight line the better, regardless of framerate, try to post a screenshot here also.

 

[Whitestar]

Which is not really an issue if you have a decent enough panel

Ok, kinda off-topic, but did you have something specific in mind? I have actually considered getting a g-sync monitor.

Install MSI Afterburner and set it up so it shows the OSD with framepacing like in this screenshot, the closer you are to a straight line the better, regardless of framerate, try to post a screenshot here also.

I will try, but I'm already having problems getting Afterburner to work with FC5. I tried the usual tips, such as turning off the overlay in uPlay and/or setting the "intrusion" of Rivatuner to high etc. If anyone knows how to make Afterburner play nice with FC5 I'll be thankful. For now I'm using the built in fps counter in uPlay.

 

[R00kie]

Ok, kinda off-topic, but did you have something specific in mind? I have actually considered getting a g-sync monitor.


I will try, but I'm already having problems getting Afterburner to work with FC5. I tried the usual tips, such as turning off the overlay in uPlay and/or setting the "intrusion" of Rivatuner to high etc. If anyone knows how to make Afterburner play nice with FC5 I'll be thankful. For now I'm using the built in fps counter in uPlay.

Depends on your resolution and screen size preferences, as long as you stick to G-Sync enable monitors, there shouldn't be too many options to confuse you

If on topic, i remember experiencing this same issue when far cry 3 and 4 used to drop framerate below 60, but that would usually happen when there were CPU bound scenarios with the likes of Q6600 and the FX8320 that i had at the times, but as soon as the upgrade was done to an i7 4770K all of that miraculously disappeared.

 

[Tomgang]

Have you far cry 5 installed on a hdd or a ssd?

 

[hapkiman]

Have you far cry 5 installed on a hdd or a ssd?

This.

Because that game runs very well and your system specs seem fine. It's not the Dunia engine.

 

[Whitestar]

All my games are on SSD.

Depends on your resolution and screen size preferences, as long as you stick to G-Sync enable monitors, there shouldn't be too many options to confuse you

Ah ok, I thought you meant that some g-sync monitors had less motion blur than others.

 

[R00kie]

All my games are on SSD.


Ah ok, I thought you meant that some g-sync monitors had less motion blur than others.

Like I said, depends on the monitor and its panel, the higher the refresh rate, the faster the panel needs to be to avoid it. My Z1 from Acer has some blur, but its easily rectified by turning overdrive option to medium. All panels have it to some extent, you’ll need to do some research before committing yourself to that.

 

[Space Lynx]

Except monitor motion blur. I have kind of gotten addicted to the silky smooth CRT-like motion of my Benq XL2720Z (with the Strobe utility).

165hz 1440p Gsync... can't say I see much motion blur, but yes strobing techniques are better i admit, at the cost of hitching/tearing/etc I choose gsync, enjoy your strobing.

 

[natr0n]

Lock fps and don't use vsync.

 

[INSTG8R]

Lock fps and don't use vsync.

Certainly better advice than selling the guy a new monitor...

 

[Space Lynx]

Certainly better advice than selling the guy a new monitor...

That strobing won't last long anyway. It's no different than your light bulb, except your turning it off 120 times a second.... so yeah probably will be dead in a year or two of hardcore gaming regardless.

 

[Tomgang]

All my games are on SSD.


Ah ok, I thought you meant that some g-sync monitors had less motion blur than others.

Alright. It where just because a friend of mine had lag and that is caused by hdd he used. But since you use ssd that is not the case then.

 

[OneMoar]

the way Dunia's rendering pipe works enabling vsync will cause stuttering on slower cpus
Duinia in general really eats a bunch of cpu time

 

[phanbuey]

i dont have any stutter now, but i did a little here and there when one of my ram timings was unstable... also on my laptop with farcry 4 when windows assigned an HT core to do the heavy loading - it looked a bit like the stutter you described.

Try turning off HT and see if that fixes your stutter, also be sure to enable 'max prerendered frames to 1' and set it to realtime priority in task manager - that should net you some nice fps boosts.

 

[Whitestar]

i dont have any stutter now, but i did a little here and there when one of my ram timings was unstable... also on my laptop with farcry 4 when windows assigned an HT core to do the heavy loading - it looked a bit like the stutter you described.

Try turning off HT and see if that fixes your stutter, also be sure to enable 'max prerendered frames to 1' and set it to realtime priority in task manager - that should net you some nice fps boosts.

I'll try HT off and set priority. Tried "max prerendered frames to 1" yesterday and it didn't make a noticeable difference.

I hope this issue will disappear when I upgrade my system. Just waiting for Pinnacle Ridge to hit the shelves before I make up my mind. My good old Sandy Bridge has done it's duty, but it's about time to retire.

EDIT: Btw, there is one other game that exhibits this type of "stutter" also, GTA 5. Less noticeable there though.

 

[Upgrayedd]

Does it still have bad stutter if you cap the frame-rate to monitor native refresh and turn v-sync OFF? I use NvidiaInspector to lock the fps. This method has many games much smoother than uncapped. I get a constant tear right at the very bottom edge of the screen with this method, its unnoticeable during gameplay.

The only other thing I can think of to try is unparking CPU cores. I've heard of some games loading up one thread heavy until you alt+tab and uncheck cores in the task manager to rebalance the load out, don't know much about that though, sorry.

FYI When using g-sync, v-sync is meant to be turned ON, no extra lag added like non gsync.