Micro stutter in certain games

[Akosjun]

I've had this PC of mine for quite a while now, and I've been wondering if the stutter I experience in most games is normal or not.

They occur is quite a lot of games. For example in The Witcher 3, BioShock Infinite, Burnout Paradise Remastered, Rise Of The Tomb Raider. In other games, there are no stutters (e.g. most older games, Project CARS, GTA 5).
 

I've attached MSI Afterburner graphs measuring certain usages and frame time in games for 15 minutes. 

(Note: the spikes at the very end of the graphs are just me minimizing the game to take the screenshot)

My Specs:
• Intel Core i7-4790 3.6 GHz

• ASRock Z97 Anniversary
• NVidia GTX 1060 6 GB
• 2×8 GB HyperX FURY RAM sticks, 1866 MHz, DDR3
• 1 TB 7200 rpm HDD and 500 GB SSD (most games are installed on the SSD)
• 450 watt Corsair PSU
• Windows 10 64-bit
I don't know if this is normal or not. The stutters don't make the game unplayable or anything like that, but maybe something might be off.

[Brooksie359]

Well it looks like you are encountering a cpu bottleneck because the gpu isn't under 100% load while gaming. I actually only see it in the upper 90s once or twice. Being cpu bottlenecked can cause microstutters so that might be the cause.   

[filippalfi]

1 minute ago, Brooksie359 said:

Well it looks like you are encountering a cpu bottleneck because the gpu isn't under 100% load while gaming. I actually only see it in the upper 90s once or twice. Being cpu bottlenecked can cause microstutters so that might be the cause.   

Seems like it but 4790 should not bottleneck the 1060 at all. 

[Brooksie359]

15 minutes ago, filippalfi said:

Seems like it but 4790 should not bottleneck the 1060 at all. 

And yet it most certainly is. Bottlenecking isn't as simple as a yes or no question. It is dependant on the game and the settings. The older quad cores are now beginning to be heavily taxed with the newer games causing bottlenecks on newer gpus. Now the bottleneck isn't horrible but it is definitely present unless they are running vsync. If they are running vsync then it would explain the less than 100% usage. 

[filippalfi]

2 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

And yet it most certainly is. Bottlenecking isn't as simple as a yes or no question. It is dependant on the game and the settings. The older quad cores are now beginning to be heavily taxed with the newer games causing bottlenecks on newer gpus. Now the bottleneck isn't horrible but it is definitely present unless they are running vsync. If they are running vsync then it would explain the less than 100% usage. 

Yeah,i realize that,but my neighbor has identical setup,with 12gb ram tho,and i myself have a similar one,and neither of us experience bottlenecks in almost any games out there. Only "bottleneck" that happens is in AC:Oddysey where his 1060 and 4790 both reach high usage,similar between two. I do use V sync,and aside the 60 fps lock,almost never experience CPU bottlenecks,of course settings adjusted for that.

[Akosjun]

Thanks for the replies.

11 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

And yet it most certainly is. Bottlenecking isn't as simple as a yes or no question. It is dependant on the game and the settings. The older quad cores are now beginning to be heavily taxed with the newer games causing bottlenecks on newer gpus. Now the bottleneck isn't horrible but it is definitely present unless they are running vsync. If they are running vsync then it would explain the less than 100% usage. 

Interesting, I thought my good ol' 4790 should still hold up well. Yep, I did use VSync, however I'll go make a benchmark without it to see if the bottleneck really is there. Also, since I don't really want to upgrade my mobo and RAM alongside the CPU, do you think buying an i7-4790k (and selling my non-k for around the same price) and overclocking it would help?

 

11 hours ago, filippalfi said:

Yeah,i realize that,but my neighbor has identical setup,with 12gb ram tho,and i myself have a similar one,and neither of us experience bottlenecks in almost any games out there. Only "bottleneck" that happens is in AC:Oddysey where his 1060 and 4790 both reach high usage,similar between two. I do use V sync,and aside the 60 fps lock,almost never experience CPU bottlenecks,of course settings adjusted for that.

Huh. I'm pretty sure that if there is a bottleneck it depends on the game too, as I mentioned, it only happens in certain games, not all. Odyssey is indeed a pretty unoptimized game.

 

Also, I forgot to mention the games benchmarked in the original post: (from top to bottom) Rise of The Tomb Raider, The Witcher 3 (the very long, high frame time part is a loading screen), Burnout Paradise Remastered, Fallout 4, GTA 5

[Brooksie359]

1 minute ago, Akosjun said:

Thanks for the replies.

Interesting, I thought my good ol' 4790 should still hold up well. Yep, I did use VSync, however I'll go make a benchmark without it to see if the bottleneck really is there. Also, since I don't really want to upgrade my mobo and RAM alongside the CPU, do you think buying an i7-4790k (and selling my non-k for around the same price) and overclocking it would help?

 

Huh. I'm pretty sure that if there is a bottleneck it depends on the game too, as I mentioned, it only happens in certain games, not all. Odyssey is indeed a pretty unoptimized game.

 

Also, I forgot to mention the games benchmarked in the original post: (from top to bottom) Rise of The Tomb Raider, The Witcher 3 (the very long, high frame time part is a loading screen), Burnout Paradise Remastered, Fallout 4, GTA 5

vsync would explain the gpu usage being low. I guess I am unsure o fthe cause as it was likely just the vsync making it look like something was holding back the gpu but it was the fps cap you put on the game and not the cpu capping performance. 

[Akosjun]

1 hour ago, Brooksie359 said:

vsync would explain the gpu usage being low. I guess I am unsure o fthe cause as it was likely just the vsync making it look like something was holding back the gpu but it was the fps cap you put on the game and not the cpu capping performance. 

Yeah, now I'm pretty sure it is not a bottleneck.

Here's a benchmark for Rise of The Tomb Raider, and the results are pretty obvious. Also, the spikes got more rare, almost all of them are caused by the two sequential loading screens or going underwater, so I guess this game is only messed up because of VSync? Anyways, in other games, I've tested without VSync too and the stutters still happen, but it's probably not a bottleneck.