[SOLVED] Frametime spikes/Stutters/FPS drops in all games.

[Kanon82]

If it occurs at same points in a game, it is the game itself then. You would need to take it up with game maker.

only happened in one game I would agree with you, but I see it in several games tried these stutters, and has see YouTube videos in the gameplay shown are not seen

 

[Mussels]

If it occurs at same points in a game, it is the game itself then. You would need to take it up with game maker.

Another example is antivirus: i had a stutter when i held down a radial menu in star wars squadrons, easily reproducable - and the same stutter in Project zomboid if i sped up game time
Both were caused by bitdefender, somehow - disabling didnt fix it, uninstalling did

After hardwares ruled out, software (including network) comes next

 

[eidairaman1]

Another example is antivirus: i had a stutter when i held down a radial menu in star wars squadrons, easily reproducable - and the same stutter in Project zomboid if i sped up game time
Both were caused by bitdefender, somehow - disabling didnt fix it, uninstalling did

After hardwares ruled out, software (including network) comes next

It's because a portion was using cpu cycles inspite of being disabled, this dates back to Norton in Windows 9X, disable the AV and the games work fine...

 

[Mussels]

It's because a portion was using cpu cycles inspite of being disabled, this dates back to Norton in Windows 9X, disable the AV and the games work fine...

No it was a downright mysteryious bug: no other AV caused those issues and it caused no issues in other games or programs. The AV triggered specific lag only by specific in game actions.

These mystery lag spikes can have a thousand different causes so we can only offer ideas to look at, its upto the end users to find out what their cause is

 

[KnightLion]

Hey everyone, an update on my side. The post I made a few weeks ago identifying old HDD/SSD as the issue turned out to NOT be the issue. There is nothing wrong with those drives.

The issue ended up being stupider.

After a variety of testing, I eliminated any hardware related items. Hardware was not the issue. Using a clean install and local account, I was able to eliminate the stutters. However, once I logged back into my Microsoft Account, the stutters returned.

After a bit of Googling, I stumbled upon a thread identifying background settings as the source. When I logged into my Microsoft account, my background settings synced up, so this checked out. It turns out that turning OFF the Colors > Automatically pick an accent color from my background was the solution. That setting was the culprit. Using shuffled backgrounds and that option causes the stutters. Every time the background changed, there was stutter. I was able to confirm this with that option selected and using Right Click > Next desktop background on multiple machines to reproduce the stutters I was experiencing. With the option off, the stutters were gone in all cases.

If you're having unexplainable stuttering, check if you use similar background settings and see if that can help you!

My dude sorry to dig up a old post but by G did this help me out hs. Thanks so much

 

[Mussels]

My dude sorry to dig up a old post but by G did this help me out hs. Thanks so much

totally worth bumping it to say the fix helped you, as it gets more attention for others with the same issue as well

 

[Vayra86]

No it was a downright mysteryious bug: no other AV caused those issues and it caused no issues in other games or programs. The AV triggered specific lag only by specific in game actions.

These mystery lag spikes can have a thousand different causes so we can only offer ideas to look at, its upto the end users to find out what their cause is

Topic could definitely use a bulleted list of troubleshooting options... and stickied as a best answer at the top of the thread even. I suppose you can't convert the whole thread to a help topic?

 

[AsRock]

No it was a downright mysteryious bug: no other AV caused those issues and it caused no issues in other games or programs. The AV triggered specific lag only by specific in game actions.

These mystery lag spikes can have a thousand different causes so we can only offer ideas to look at, its upto the end users to find out what their cause is

Gotta watch out for those overlays some times, even more so when there is more than one active, between vsync, gpu scaling, integer scaling, Anti Lag and enhanced lag can drive one crazy haha. Which has so many outcomes on time framing.

 

[Mussels]

Topic could definitely use a bulleted list of troubleshooting options... and stickied as a best answer at the top of the thread even. I suppose you can't convert the whole thread to a help topic?

Infinite and never-ending. I make threads like that, stick them in my sig and then they never get read by new users anyway.

 

[SpanishGuy]

Hey everyone, an update on my side. The post I made a few weeks ago identifying old HDD/SSD as the issue turned out to NOT be the issue. There is nothing wrong with those drives.

The issue ended up being stupider.

After a variety of testing, I eliminated any hardware related items. Hardware was not the issue. Using a clean install and local account, I was able to eliminate the stutters. However, once I logged back into my Microsoft Account, the stutters returned.

After a bit of Googling, I stumbled upon a thread identifying background settings as the source. When I logged into my Microsoft account, my background settings synced up, so this checked out. It turns out that turning OFF the Colors > Automatically pick an accent color from my background was the solution. That setting was the culprit. Using shuffled backgrounds and that option causes the stutters. Every time the background changed, there was stutter. I was able to confirm this with that option selected and using Right Click > Next desktop background on multiple machines to reproduce the stutters I was experiencing. With the option off, the stutters were gone in all cases.

If you're having unexplainable stuttering, check if you use similar background settings and see if that can help you!

BROOOOOO!! made an account here just to reply. I almost cried after turning off auto pick colors for my background and the stuttering stopped. It must have synced across my settings when I got a laptop and synced it across my Microsoft account. I played a game with the color accent window opened and saw that every time my background changed and the colors changed would be when my PC stuttered. I switched out my components thinking it was hardware and thought it was my GPU. Since prices finally dropped got a new RTX 3070 only to get the same problem and now realize that it was the stupid accent color setting. Thanks again for posting and hope its just as easy for other people as well

 

[Mussels]

Just because this came up in another thread:

Anyone who finds this thread looking for answers: cap your FPS 2 below your refresh rate. (In order of preference: game options first, then Nvidia/AMD control panels, then afterburners sister program RTSS)

Just try it. Render latency can drastically reduce, as well as cutting the power used and heat produced in your PC giving an overall smoother experience

Artificially capping mine to the "bad" config of too powerful hardware hitting the Vsync limit was just... oh god. Stuttery mess.

 

[Wasaki]

It doesn't do anything on my pc.
I hoped only hope 1 day wants to know which part causing this.

 

[Mussels]

It doesn't do anything on my pc.
I hoped only hope 1 day wants to know which part causing this.

You will - it's just that there is a lot of potential causes, in software and hardware.

 

[Wasaki]

I have Question about Virtual memory. I saw it was recommended to change it cause in windows 11 it was ok only 2990mb.

 

[Mussels]

I have Question about Virtual memory. I saw it was recommended to change it cause in windows 11 it was ok only 2990mb.

leave it on default, unless your C: drive is full it'll never be an issue since it will automatically enlarge it

 

[LifeOnMars]

Didn't want to start a new thread but found something today that caused 1fps drops randomly, with a visible stutter on screen in various games on my setup. I game at 75 hz (no gsync) and kept seeing drops from 75 to 74fps randomly even though CPU/GPU usage was well below 100% on both.

(I conducted a long round of testing to find the culprit/trying different things each time)

Finally, I stumbled across the fix to the issue when I went on this site https://www.vsynctester.com/ I noticed that every once in a while it would drop down to 74.5** hz, I decided to close Afterburner and try the site again, it settled on 75Hz and stayed there for 10 mins with no hitch EUREKA! Initially thinking it was an overly ambitious GPU oc I reset the clocks but it was still doing it? Then I noticed I still had the fan profile active so disabled that and VOILA it once more remained at 75hz for as long as i wanted it to. This was repeatable every single time so I knew I had found the culprit. I've been gaming all evening without any of these annoying random micro 1fps drops. I then added the fan curve profile back and again the random 1fps drops, conclusive evidence but now thankfully FIXED

To conclude, I had a fan curve profile setup on afterburner which was causing it, if I set a fixed fan speed it no longer happens. No temp issues at all on my hardware .

I understand this will not be the case with the majority but anyone who uses afterburner with a fan curve and is also having random 1 fps drops, try a fixed fan speed. It may be your solution to this annoying problem.

 

[Mussels]

Didn't want to start a new thread but found something today that caused 1fps drops randomly, with a visible stutter on screen in various games on my setup. I game at 75 hz (no gsync) and kept seeing drops from 75 to 74fps randomly even though CPU/GPU usage was well below 100% on both.

(I conducted a long round of testing to find the culprit/trying different things each time)

Finally, I stumbled across the fix to the issue when I went on this site https://www.vsynctester.com/ I noticed that every once in a while it would drop down to 74.5** hz, I decided to close Afterburner and try the site again, it settled on 75Hz and stayed there for 10 mins with no hitch EUREKA! Initially thinking it was an overly ambitious GPU oc I reset the clocks but it was still doing it? Then I noticed I still had the fan profile active so disabled that and VOILA it once more remained at 75hz for as long as i wanted it to. This was repeatable every single time so I knew I had found the culprit. I've been gaming all evening without any of these annoying random micro 1fps drops. I then added the fan curve profile back and again the random 1fps drops, conclusive evidence but now thankfully FIXED

To conclude, I had a fan curve profile setup on afterburner which was causing it, if I set a fixed fan speed it no longer happens. No temp issues at all on my hardware .

I understand this will not be the case with the majority but anyone who uses afterburner with a fan curve and is also having random 1 fps drops, try a fixed fan speed. It may be your solution to this annoying problem.

You need to set your FPS cap to 3 below your Vsync rate, prevents double and triple buffering from causing input latency issues

74.5Hz vs 75FPS would absolutely explain some issues, i've had a few screens display as 59.97 on HDMI and 60 on VGA and DP

Fascinating that a fan curve was involved however, that's something i've never heard of

 

[gQx]

downloading modded nvme controllers for samsung(my ssd is not samsung) from winraid fixed my stutters if anyone wants to try

 

[fers301]

downloading modded nvme controllers for samsung(my ssd is not samsung) from winraid fixed my stutters if anyone wants to try

Hi,
Please more info and link; need to test it.
Thanks!

 

[fers301]

BROOOOOO!! made an account here just to reply. I almost cried after turning off auto pick colors for my background and the stuttering stopped. It must have synced across my settings when I got a laptop and synced it across my Microsoft account. I played a game with the color accent window opened and saw that every time my background changed and the colors changed would be when my PC stuttered. I switched out my components thinking it was hardware and thought it was my GPU. Since prices finally dropped got a new RTX 3070 only to get the same problem and now realize that it was the stupid accent color setting. Thanks again for posting and hope its just as easy for other people as well

Can explain better, please. I cannot understand how to do it.
Thanks!

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

Can explain better, please. I cannot understand how to do it.
Thanks!

In settings app, you can pick your accent color. This affects most solid color areas such as taskbar, top window bar, etc. Windows has a setting to automatically pick these to compliment and contrast your desktop background. This means that if you are using a slideshow, it will be changing colors often.

Disabling this helped @SpanishGuy

 

[gQx]

Hi,
Please more info and link; need to test it.
Thanks!

here is the link

Recommended AHCI/RAID and NVMe Drivers

deleted

winraid.level1techs.com

under
b) mod+signed generic Samsung NVMe drivers:
>mod+signed generic 64bit Samsung NVMe driver v3.3.0.2003
I think you need to download and apply a certificate before install. you can find it on the same post and how to do it.

 

[Mussels]

I saw a great example of stutter and issues caused recently by having a mapped drive letter to an offline server PC - steam was having an absolute fit, freezing and crashing trying to search for a library on a drive letter that never had one on there - this was triggered any time steam loaded a new ad for some reason, or I went to the games or download tabs

I finally figured it out when another PC had the same issue, but related to saving files from a web browser - it was trying to reach the same offline share and i realised they behaved the same with a good 15 second freeze up before windows realised the drive wasn't responding and letting them continue


There is simply so, so many things that can go wrong causing stutter and it's very easy for a person to change something and mistakenly think they have the solution when they don't
(Change network adaptor and blame USB wifi device, but it was changing from private to public that fixed things by using different firewall settings, etc etc)

In settings app, you can pick your accent color. This affects most solid color areas such as taskbar, top window bar, etc. Windows has a setting to automatically pick these to compliment and contrast your desktop background. This means that if you are using a slideshow, it will be changing colors often.

Disabling this helped @SpanishGuy

This is what goes wrong with wallpaper engine for a lot of people


Transparency effects here is one of them

and then lower down

Any time the wallpaper changes, windows has to basically restart explorer and update them

 

[gQx]

I saw a great example of stutter and issues caused recently by having a mapped drive letter to an offline server PC - steam was having an absolute fit, freezing and crashing trying to search for a library on a drive letter that never had one on there - this was triggered any time steam loaded a new ad for some reason, or I went to the games or download tabs

I finally figured it out when another PC had the same issue, but related to saving files from a web browser - it was trying to reach the same offline share and i realised they behaved the same with a good 15 second freeze up before windows realised the drive wasn't responding and letting them continue


There is simply so, so many things that can go wrong causing stutter and it's very easy for a person to change something and mistakenly think they have the solution when they don't
(Change network adaptor and blame USB wifi device, but it was changing from private to public that fixed things by using different firewall settings, etc etc)



This is what goes wrong with wallpaper engine for a lot of people


Transparency effects here is one of them
View attachment 263697


and then lower down

View attachment 263698


Any time the wallpaper changes, windows has to basically restart explorer and update them

.\Steam\config
.\Steam\userdata\config

I think in here you can disable some things where you can't on interface I remember helped me with some ping issues

 

[XHydraX]

Hi,
I tried all the methods described but nothing...

For me is happening frametime spikes with a good pc, no OC, all by default

Any tool to guess what is happening?

Thanks,
James.