Realtemp stops stuttering

[TomM]

Hi all,

I have a HP laptop with corei7 cpu and decent overal specs. Its running Windows 10.

When playing video on this machine (movies) they stutter constantly. I tried 3 different players and all 3 gave the same result. Impossible to watch it like that. Since the specs for this PC are like 100fold over what's needed to play movies i started searching. All my attempts to solve this problem failed untill i downloaded and started realtemp to take a look at the cpu temperature and clock. By miracle the stuttering stops when i start realtemp. When i stop the app the stuttering comes back after like 5 seconds. I tried several different 1080p movies and with all of them the same result. Run realtemp and the movie plays perfectly, even when assigned to 1 single core. Stop realtemp and the severe stuttering restarts after like max 5 seconds.

Any sugestions as to the reasons behind this for me very strange behavior and how i could solve it ?

thx

Tom

 

[Sasqui]

It would be helpful to have more details of your laptop, graphics and other software. It sounds like a hardware conflict, which is probably caused by drivers, either video or audio. Why realtemp has an effect is puzzling.

What are the 3 video players you tried?

 

[27MaD]

WTF Tom ?!

 

[Regeneration]

Sounds like clock throttling. Adjust power management settings or try ThrottleStop.

 

[Vayra86]

Sounds like clock throttling. Adjust power management settings or try ThrottleStop.

This. I think when just playing the video your laptop's power plan will keep the CPU in a low power / idle state and RealTemp forces enough load on top of that to trigger higher clocks.

An interesting experiment before tweaking settings is to put the power plug in while doing this - or, does it stutter when you're plugged in?

 

[TomM]

Hi. All testing was done plugged in. I tried vlc player, popcorn time player and third one i dont know the name. Its not my laptop.
One of the things i tried was to force minimal cpu clock to 80%. Realtemp showed a clear difference in the behavior of the cpu clock speed after that. But without realtemp running, movies still stutter.

Ill try throttlestop tomorrow.

 

[Mussels]

subbing to find the answer, this sounds quite bizarre

 

[unclewebb]

RealTemp 3.70 changes the default Windows Timer Resolution from 15.6 ms to 10.0 ms. Maybe that has something to do with it. This is one of those obscure Windows settings that most people have never heard about.

You can use ThrottleStop and go into the Options window to play around with this setting from 1 ms to 15.6 ms without needing to run RealTemp if you want to try to troubleshoot this issue. When you open the Options window, it will show you the current timer resolution value.

Post some pics. I have no idea what HP laptop you have or what Core i7 CPU you have.

RealTemp is pretty light on system resources. There will be no problem leaving it running. Minimize it to the system tray and enjoy your movies.

Edit - Are you using the Intel GPU or an AMD or Nvidia GPU?

 

[Mussels]

we had a thread with some guy who couldnt solve an issue with his PC stuttering in video playback, i wonder if this could be relevant to him too

 

[TomM]

Ok guys,

So here is my feedback on your tips. Problem solved ( I think )

I installed and ran throttlestop. I went in to the options window and found the windows timer to be set to 9.999.
I started a film and it played flawlessly.
So I then stopped throttlestop and the film stayed stutter free.
I rebooted the Pc and tried 2 films. Both of which played without any problem. Without Realtemp running.

So the issue seems to be gone. Has Throttlestop changed the windows timer resolution permanently ? I didn't change any parameters myself so this is again a bit strange to me .

Thanks for the help.

Edit - have to recall this post. Started Kill bill and guess what ...
I'll look into throttlestop a bit and see if i can figure something out.
I noticed the windows timer resolution is not fixed. i have seen it go between 1.0 and 15.6. Its not something I can set apparently ?

OK. new update. Cleaned up pc, removed all apps i didn't like. Problem seems to be gone. I still don't understand what realtemp does that made a difference but for now movies seem to be playing fine...

Its not gone :-(
Realtemp still does the job though.

 

[unclewebb]

Any application running on your PC can put in a request for a lower timer resolution value. Default is 15.6 ms. Windows compares all of the requests and uses the lowest value. Some applications like Google Chrome will put in different requests depending on whether you are trying to watch a video on YouTube or if you are just sitting here in the forums. At the moment, my computer is using the default 15.6 ms value.

Timer resolution was just one wild guess at what RealTemp might be doing that fixes your stuttering problem. The real problem might not have anything to do with timer resolution. Maybe there are a few other secrets in RealTemp that are helping you out. Some GPU driver versions have been known to cause stuttering.

You still did not post any pics. If I had a Core i7 laptop, I would try using ThrottleStop over RealTemp. It is a lot more up to date and ThrottleStop has lots of features to get the most out of a mobile Core i7.

 

[Mussels]

try enabling or disabling HPET in the BIOS, as that can affect the timers

you can see some info about it here
https://www.ghacks.net/2013/04/18/try-changing-hpet-settings-to-improve-your-pcs-performance/

 

[Solaris17]

try enabling or disabling HPET in the BIOS, as that can affect the timers

you can see some info about it here
https://www.ghacks.net/2013/04/18/try-changing-hpet-settings-to-improve-your-pcs-performance/

Me and you thin alike, I was about to suggest trying to play with HPET to see if it helps out.

 

[unclewebb]

WinTimerTester 1.1
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0dpSo9k93jDZlZ6NWNlV0RTcUU

There is a guaranteed clean Google Drive download link. When other third party sites host my software, never sure what they might add to it.

I have heard arguments both ways. Some users swear that using the 14.31818 MHz timer has solved all of their stuttering problems while other users claim that this causes mouse trails and all sorts of other problems.

You need to reboot after entering a bcdedit command to switch timers.

bcdedit /set useplatformclock true

bcdedit /deletevalue useplatformclock

After you boot up, use WinTimerTester to confirm what timer Windows is using.

 

[Ruru]

Can you give the full specs of that laptop?