Split-second stutter/hiccup in every game I play

[Omie]

Build: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/VJPPHN

 

Hey everyone, I'm having this weird issue where whenever the camera moves, there is a split-second stutter or hiccup of some sort. My games stutter for a split-second, almost like something is getting rendered/loaded in. This is very noticeable in games like League of Legends and VALORANT. I'm also using optimal G-sync settings (141 FPS cap, G-Sync ON, V-Sync ON via Nvidia Control Panel).

 

I tried to record a video of it but for some reason the recording always comes out incredibly stuttery and is not the same smoothness as what I see in real life.

 

[BlackManINC]

6 hours ago, Omie said:

Build: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/VJPPHN

 

Hey everyone, I'm having this weird issue where whenever the camera moves, there is a split-second stutter or hiccup of some sort. My games stutter for a split-second, almost like something is getting rendered/loaded in. This is very noticeable in games like League of Legends and VALORANT. I'm also using optimal G-sync settings (141 FPS cap, G-Sync ON, V-Sync ON via Nvidia Control Panel).

 

I tried to record a video of it but for some reason the recording always comes out incredibly stuttery and is not the same smoothness as what I see in real life.

 

What is the CPU usage while gaming? Also, how long have you had the PC on right now? 

[Omie]

1 hour ago, BlackManINC said:

What is the CPU usage while gaming? Also, how long have you had the PC on right now? 

So in League of Legends I get about ~26% CPU usage and 16% GPU usage according to Task Manager, which seems extremely low.. I've had this build for about 4 years now and I don't leave it on for longer than 6 hours. I always shut down when I'm done gaming for the day.

[MadGoatHaz]

Games you mentioned are very single core dependant. I would suggest a decent OC and look forward to a decent upgrade in the future to keep up. 

 

Also, are you gaming off of the spinny disc? And if you're not, simply having that disk seek on the same sata controller as your SSD can cause hiccups. Try unplugging that spinny and game, see if it makes a difference. 

 

Best of luck to ya. 

[BlackManINC]

8 minutes ago, Omie said:

So in League of Legends I get about ~26% CPU usage and 16% GPU usage according to Task Manager, which seems extremely low.. I've had this build for about 4 years now and I don't leave it on for longer than 6 hours. I always shut down when I'm done gaming for the day.

Well, when you turn G-Sync on, I don't think you need to have V-Sync on as well. G-sync is basically Nvidia's version of AMD's Free sync. They always say to disable V-sync when using it, which makes sense knowing how it works. Type in "graphics settings" in the windows search bar. Do you have a "high performance" profile for the games exe file? I would browse for the exe file, select it, and set it to high performance. Make sure "variable refresh rate" is enabled as well.  

[BlackManINC]

@MadGoatHaz

 

And, yeah, what he said too concerning the HDD. I would install both your O.S and games on the SSD to be sure. HDD's are out of style for gaming. That's why Microsoft and Sony finally abandoned them with the new consoles. They don't use HDD's anymore. 

[Omie]

38 minutes ago, BlackManINC said:

Well, when you turn G-Sync on, I don't think you need to have V-Sync on as well. G-sync is basically Nvidia's version of AMD's Free sync. They always say to disable V-sync when using it, which makes sense knowing how it works. Type in "graphics settings" in the windows search bar. Do you have a "high performance" profile for the games exe file? I would browse for the exe file, select it, and set it to high performance. Make sure "variable refresh rate" is enabled as well.  

You actually should have vsync on. I did some research on this: https://blurbusters.com/gsync/gsync101-input-lag-tests-and-settings/14/

 

And I did try running a high performance profile but no luck. And I think the "variable refresh rate" option in Windows is only used for games that don't natively support VRR, which I think League of Legends does anyways. The game is installed on my SSD btw as well as my OS.

[Omie]

41 minutes ago, MadGoatHaz said:

Games you mentioned are very single core dependant. I would suggest a decent OC and look forward to a decent upgrade in the future to keep up. 

 

Also, are you gaming off of the spinny disc? And if you're not, simply having that disk seek on the same sata controller as your SSD can cause hiccups. Try unplugging that spinny and game, see if it makes a difference. 

 

Best of luck to ya. 

I actually had a 5.0GHz OC but honestly it didn't seem to make a difference. Both my OS and game are installed on the SSD.

[BlackManINC]

18 minutes ago, Omie said:

You actually should have vsync on. I did some research on this: https://blurbusters.com/gsync/gsync101-input-lag-tests-and-settings/14/

 

And I did try running a high performance profile but no luck. And I think the "variable refresh rate" option in Windows is only used for games that don't natively support VRR, which I think League of Legends does anyways. The game is installed on my SSD btw as well as my OS.

Well, it doesn't make sense to me to have v-sync on since it works completely differently than g-sync anyway. V-sync forces the GPU to limit the amount of frames it pumps to the monitor so that it matches the monitors native refresh rate. G-sync and AMD's Free sync on the other hand dynamically changes the refresh rate of the monitor itself based on what the GPU is pushing out. Surely you can see this being a tug of war that might cause issues. You got two features that wants to go in opposite directions. It is literally the polar opposite of G-sync. G-sync and Free Sync makes V-sync obsolete. There is zero reason to have it on if you have a G-sync monitor. And nowadays, you've got Fast Sync and Enhanced Sync, so even without a Free Sync or G sync monitor, there is no reason to use V-Sync. I don't see how its helping you. In any case, clearing the shader cache is another thing you can check. And in resource monitor, I'd make sure your system memory isn't being flooded with standby memory. The longer the PC is on, the more it uses. The O.S doesn't do a great job managing standby memory. As you can see below, it can hog up the space even though I have 32gbs of ram. 

 

 

 

 

[MadGoatHaz]

https://blurbusters.com/gsync/gsync101-input-lag-tests-and-settings/9/

 

Unplug hdd, keep vsync on. 

 

[BlackManINC]

4 minutes ago, MadGoatHaz said:

https://blurbusters.com/gsync/gsync101-input-lag-tests-and-settings/9/

 

Unplug hdd, keep vsync on. 

 

 Why keep Vsync on though? It doesn't make sense. The only reason V-sync existed to start with was to prevent screen tearing. This is not something to be concerned about with apps like Riva Turner and AMD's native Frame rate target control that allows you to cap the FPS to whatever you want it to be. To have V-sync and Gync on at once is akin to someone that is double minded in their thought process. 

[BlackManINC]

Also, doing a simple google search of V-sync will give you results of it causing stuttering for some people. That should be a red flag for you. With Fast Sync, Enhanced Sync, G-sync, Free-Sync, and frame rate limiters like Riva Turner and FRTC from AMD, I don't see why anyone would want to use V-Sync at all. ...Its old technology that needs to die already. 

[MadGoatHaz]

Vsync is still very useful. Gsync can only operate below monitor refresh. Vsync caps when fps exceeds refresh. 

 

Ideally you want to frame limit to ~3 fps below your refresh rate. Gsync on and you shouldn't have a problem. Vsync on for when you speed past the refresh limit and g-sync can no longer assist. 3 below so when your fps blows past the limiter every once and awhile, vsync doesn't grab it. 

 

For instance, I use 97 Nvidia control panel fps limit as my monitor is 100hz. Gsync on in ncp and vsync on in the game. 

 

That being said, I have seen some faster displays that require a lower clamp to keep in the "gsync zone". Some 165hz displays seem to only play well when clamped to 160fps. This mostly seems to be "gsync compatible" displays for the most part however. 

 

I have had issues with having vsync and g-sync on in ncp. Use game vsync when available. For games that don't require high fps, I set a game specific fps limit via rtss. (Like 60fps for RPGs) 

 

Best of luck to you all.

[Omie]

34 minutes ago, BlackManINC said:

Also, doing a simple google search of V-sync will give you results of it causing stuttering for some people. That should be a red flag for you. With Fast Sync, Enhanced Sync, G-sync, Free-Sync, and frame rate limiters like Riva Turner and FRTC from AMD, I don't see why anyone would want to use V-Sync at all. ...Its old technology that needs to die already. 

15 minutes ago, MadGoatHaz said:

Vsync is still very useful. Gsync can only operate below monitor refresh. Vsync caps when fps exceeds refresh. 

 

Ideally you want to frame limit to ~3 fps below your refresh rate. Gsync on and you shouldn't have a problem. Vsync on for when you speed past the refresh limit and g-sync can no longer assist. 3 below so when your fps blows past the limiter every once and awhile, vsync doesn't grab it. 

 

For instance, I use 97 Nvidia control panel fps limit as my monitor is 100hz. Gsync on in ncp and vsync on in the game. 

 

That being said, I have seen some faster displays that require a lower clamp to keep in the "gsync zone". Some 165hz displays seem to only play well when clamped to 160fps. This mostly seems to be "gsync compatible" displays for the most part however. 

 

I have had issues with having vsync and g-sync on in ncp. Use game vsync when available. For games that don't require high fps, I set a game specific fps limit via rtss. (Like 60fps for RPGs) 

 

Best of luck to you all.

Ok so good news!

 

I did the following in Nvidia control panel: set power management profile to prefer maximum performance, and then also set shader cache to unlimited.

 

Also changed my Windows 10 performance profile from balanced to high performance.

 

That seemed to eliminate the microstutters in League, but I’m not sure which specifically helped. May have to test it here and there to see for sure.

[BlackManINC]

4 minutes ago, Omie said:

Ok so good news!

 

I did the following in Nvidia control panel: set power management profile to prefer maximum performance, and then also set shader cache to unlimited.

 

Also changed my Windows 10 performance profile from balanced to high performance.

 

That seemed to eliminate the microstutters in League, but I’m not sure which specifically helped. May have to test it here and there to see for sure.

 Could have been a combination of all of it. I do the same thing for all my games. I use a program called Process Lasso. I use it to save a high performance profile for each game, along with setting the CPU "priority" for each game to "above normal", among other things. I would still pay close attention to that standby memory. The stuttering can easily rear its ugly head again for other reasons beyond what you did. Purging the standby memory every 15 minutes is another thing I have set through Process Lasso. It will cause stuttering if it takes up enough RAM space in my experience. 

[BlackManINC]

23 minutes ago, MadGoatHaz said:

Vsync is still very useful. Gsync can only operate below monitor refresh. Vsync caps when fps exceeds refresh. 

 

Ideally you want to frame limit to ~3 fps below your refresh rate. Gsync on and you shouldn't have a problem. Vsync on for when you speed past the refresh limit and g-sync can no longer assist. 3 below so when your fps blows past the limiter every once and awhile, vsync doesn't grab it. 

 

For instance, I use 97 Nvidia control panel fps limit as my monitor is 100hz. Gsync on in ncp and vsync on in the game. 

 

That being said, I have seen some faster displays that require a lower clamp to keep in the "gsync zone". Some 165hz displays seem to only play well when clamped to 160fps. This mostly seems to be "gsync compatible" displays for the most part however. 

 

I have had issues with having vsync and g-sync on in ncp. Use game vsync when available. For games that don't require high fps, I set a game specific fps limit via rtss. (Like 60fps for RPGs) 

 

Best of luck to you all.

That was the point I was making. Its only purpose is to cap the frame rate. Why do I need V-sync when I can just use THIS from AMD? I get the same function, without the stuttering that V-sync is known to cause. I can tell the GPU to cap the FPS to whatever I want it to. 

 

[Omie]

18 minutes ago, BlackManINC said:

 Could have been a combination of all of it. I do the same thing for all my games. I use a program called Process Lasso. I use it to save a high performance profile for each game, along with setting the CPU "priority" for each game to "above normal", among other things. I would still pay close attention to that standby memory. The stuttering can easily rear its ugly head again for other reasons beyond what you did. Purging the standby memory every 15 minutes is another thing I have set through Process Lasso. It will cause stuttering if it takes up enough RAM space in my experience. 

Ah gotcha. I just undid all my changes and restarted my computer and I did see some stuttering but nowhere near as much as I saw earlier. Maybe clearing up things like my shader cache, temp files helped. I also just emptied my standby memory. I guess I need to turn on some high performance options to eliminate most stutters. I will also look into process lasso. I appreciate the help

[Mark Kaine]

1 hour ago, Omie said:

You actually should have vsync on. I did some research on this: https://blurbusters.com/gsync/gsync101-input-lag-tests-and-settings/14/

That just means "blurbusters" have no idea what they're talking about lol.

Gsync was made to *replace* Vsync,  at lower latency and higher flexibility... if you turn on Vsync you lose all that.

 

 

[BlackManINC]

8 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

That just means "blurbusters" have no idea what they're talking about lol.

Gsync was made to *replace* Vsync,  at lower latency and higher flexibility... if you turn on Vsync you lose all that.

 

 

FINALLY, someone gets it!!! Fucks sake man. This is why we need to be careful listening to random self proclaimed nerd jerkoffs on the internet. Anybody can start a website and pretend to be knowledgeable on a subject. V-sync has been dead in the water ever since Fast sync, enhanced sync, free sync, and g-sync has been available.