cpu Stuttering Randomly In Games (Rarely On Desktop)

[TTG24]

Hi (new to these forums!),

 

So, I have already posted a thread like this on Tom's Hardware, but not much help is being received over there. In fact, (3) other people are having the exact same issue I am having, (1) of which is an fTPM issue.

 

To start, I have tried many different kinds of hardware already to see what the cause could be and have monitored them using RTSS with usage, power, temps, etc. The only thing I have noticed is the frametime. It's super bad.

 

One thing I did notice is when trying a new motherboard, I believe it performed much more smoothly with boot time, loading explorer/browsers, etc. I can't remember gaming exactly, but that mobo has since been returned since it was only for testing and could not be afforded.

 

When contacting ASUS though and elaborating that it went more smoothly with the new motherboard, they seemed to almost immediately say to do an RMA. I do not want to do that unless I am certain from other perspectives to see if it actually is an issue or not. Having a $300+ mobo being faulty is a tough bullet to take, but it sure sucks.

 

My specs:

          Components-

MOBO: ROG Strix X570-E Gaming

RAM: G.Skill TridentZ 2x16GB 3600MHZ  CL18

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900x 12c/24t

GPU: Gigabyte 3X Windforce RTX 2070 Super 8GB

PSU: Corsair HX850 80+ Platinum Certified, Fully Modular

AIO: DEEPCOOL Castle 360EX

          Storage-

SSD 1: Samsung 870 QVO 4TB

M.2/NVMe: addlink PCIe G4x4 1TB

          Peripherals-

Mouse: Logitech G Pro X Superlight

Keyboard: Glorious GMMK Compact w/ Gateron Clear Switches

Microphone: Audio Technica AT2020

Headset: JBL Quantum One

Monitor: ASUS TUF Gaming VG279QM 27", 1ms 1080p 240Hz

 

Click this to see a video of the kind of stuttering I get (you will see it terribly at 1:50)

[Bombastinator]

Which games?  I remember recently hearing that fortnight microstutters occasionally on basically everything so if “games” just means fortnight there is little to be done.

[merco]

Isn't that just your client catching up to the servers or something like that, sorry I don't know much about it, but it looks like normal online game behavior.

[TTG24]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

Which games?  I remember recently hearing that fortnight microstutters occasionally on basically everything so if “games” just means fortnight there is little to be done.

Fortnite, Minecraft, Gears 5, sometimes Call of Duty Vanguard and Modern Warfare.

[TTG24]

1 hour ago, merco said:

Isn't that just your client catching up to the servers or something like that, sorry I don't know much about it, but it looks like normal online game behavior.

Thing is is that it isn't just Fortnite, it's on other games.

[Bombastinator]

Are you running at 240hz?  Or something lower?  Fortnight is just out of the equation if it’s going to microstutter no matter what but the others consitiute “more than one game” 1080p@240hz is a lot like 4k@60hz.  You may be topping out your card.  

[TTG24]

8 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Are you running at 240hz?  Or something lower?  Fortnight is just out of the equation if it’s going to microstutter no matter what but the others consitiute “more than one game” 1080p@240hz is a lot like 4k@60hz.  You may be topping out your card.  

I am displaying at 240Hz, but capping frames at 120 with RTSS (since it caps it correctly and makes frametimes 99.99% consistent. I play every single game at the lowest settings, so the GPU would not be at the limit nor the CPU.

[TTG24]

More noticeable when capping at 60 frames, which is odd.

[TTG24]

11 hours ago, merco said:

Isn't that just your client catching up to the servers or something like that, sorry I don't know much about it, but it looks like normal online game behavior.

I don't know how it could be catching up with 1Gbps Internet and settings are all on low. I'm sure it would be already caught up at that point.

[Bombastinator]

Sounds like it’s time to check task manager and event logs and see if anything is horking up or interfering.

[TTG24]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

Sounds like it’s time to check task manager and event logs and see if anything is horking up or interfering.

I've reinstalled Windows about 10+ times this week, would not say it would be Windows. However, upon checking this new fresh install of Windows 10 right now, it's just the same usual "DistributedCOM" error, which I believe Anthony from LMG said to ignore in a video awhile back.

[Bombastinator]

2 minutes ago, Zurovax said:

I've reinstalled Windows about 10+ times this week, would not say it would be Windows. However, upon checking this new fresh install of Windows 10 right now, it's just the same usual "DistributedCOM" error, which I believe Anthony from LMG said to ignore in a video awhile back.

I wouldn’t know.  I was also thinking of other background apps though

[TTG24]

1 minute ago, Bombastinator said:

I wouldn’t know.  I was also thinking of other background apps though

No worries. It's just such an odd anomaly. I would really hate it if the problem were to persist at the hardware level pertaining to the CPU or the GPU. I can't afford any of those parts.

[Bombastinator]

2 hours ago, Zurovax said:

No worries. It's just such an odd anomaly. I would really hate it if the problem were to persist at the hardware level pertaining to the CPU or the GPU. I can't afford any of those parts.

If it’s a hardware thing by far the most likely culprit is cooling issues.  Since that’s the bit you’re worried about let’s go there now.  Even subtle heat issues can cause this.  There was an instance I saw in a video of one bvideo card fa of three being only partially occluded. But moving that card one slot away from the fan was enough to solve it.   The problem did not so as a high temp.  Apparently the issue was it caused by uneven cooling, and the part getting too hot didn’t have a probe on it. 
 

So are there any other cards in your case next to the graphics card? And if so can they be moved farther away easily?

[Farm-Boy_7130]

2 hours ago, Zurovax said:

I would really hate it if the problem were to persist at the hardware level pertaining to the CPU or the GPU. I can't afford any of those parts.

Firstly I just want to say, Don't let this stress you out. I've already gone through this with my system replacing my CPU, Motherboard, RAM, Case, and GPU. Regardless of what happens, It's going to end okay. 

 

25 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

If it’s a hardware thing by far the most likely culprit is cooling issues.

I do believe this is a true statement, Now you said it happens in Minecraft, which is a very CPU intensive game if it's java. It uses the CPU to load/unload the game chunks. I'm not sure about fortnite for CPU, but I still definitely don't think this is normal. Can you run some benchmarks for us in Fortnite, Minecraft, and another game of your choice then reporting the results back here to us? That can help us narrow down the problem. Best of luck, Farmboy.

[Bombastinator]

39 minutes ago, Farm-Boy_7130 said:

Firstly I just want to say, Don't let this stress you out. I've already gone through this with my system replacing my CPU, Motherboard, RAM, Case, and GPU. Regardless of what happens, It's going to end okay. 

 

I do believe this is a true statement, Now you said it happens in Minecraft, which is a very CPU intensive game if it's java. It uses the CPU to load/unload the game chunks. I'm not sure about fortnite for CPU, but I still definitely don't think this is normal. Can you run some benchmarks for us in Fortnite, Minecraft, and another game of your choice then reporting the results back here to us? That can help us narrow down the problem. Best of luck, Farmboy.

Checking the temps might be useful during those as well.  There are apps that will graph the various temp probes.  Windows might do it as well.

[TTG24]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

If it’s a hardware thing by far the most likely culprit is cooling issues.  Since that’s the bit you’re worried about let’s go there now.  Even subtle heat issues can cause this.  There was an instance I saw in a video of one bvideo card fa of three being only partially occluded. But moving that card one slot away from the fan was enough to solve it.   The problem did not so as a high temp.  Apparently the issue was it caused by uneven cooling, and the part getting too hot didn’t have a probe on it. 
 

So are there any other cards in your case next to the graphics card? And if so can they be moved farther away easily?

I don't believe it is a temp issue. I don't run games on high settings, and I don't run any background apps. I run everything on the lowest possible setting because I want to get the most FPS possible while also capping the FPS to where it is reasonable, like 120 FPS. My case is open-air, so it gets all the cooling it needs. Room temp is around 70F. Temps never go above 65C on GPU, my 3900x will reach mid 70C when running Cinebench R23. Temps are well within, even below, safety.

 

48 minutes ago, Farm-Boy_7130 said:

I do believe this is a true statement, Now you said it happens in Minecraft, which is a very CPU intensive game if it's java. It uses the CPU to load/unload the game chunks. I'm not sure about fortnite for CPU, but I still definitely don't think this is normal. Can you run some benchmarks for us in Fortnite, Minecraft, and another game of your choice then reporting the results back here to us? That can help us narrow down the problem. Best of luck, Farmboy.

I would agree that temps would be an issue, but I would know it not to be since I don't run excruciating tasks or run high settings in the games I play.

I can for sure get some recordings of a few games to give a better idea.

[TTG24]

Here is some more footage

[Farm-Boy_7130]

55 minutes ago, Zurovax said:

Here is some more footage

Thanks! So I watched the video, and honestly it looks mostly normal. If you're talking about a 10 fps drop while loading, that's from my experience, pretty normal. Now the 10 fps drop in GAME, That can get slightly more annoying so what I'd do is compensate for it. If you'd be comfortable doing 130 fps limit, you would still feel the frame drop but it would only drop to 117-122. That's at least, my estimate. I could be wrong and I apologize if I am. Honestly I don't know that I see a big problem here.

 

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

Checking the temps might be useful during those as well.  There are apps that will graph the various temp probes.  Windows might do it as well.

Yes! I completely forgot this, but regardless, the results are already in. 

[TTG24]

38 minutes ago, Farm-Boy_7130 said:

Thanks! So I watched the video, and honestly it looks mostly normal. If you're talking about a 10 fps drop while loading, that's from my experience, pretty normal. Now the 10 fps drop in GAME, That can get slightly more annoying so what I'd do is compensate for it. If you'd be comfortable doing 130 fps limit, you would still feel the frame drop but it would only drop to 117-122. That's at least, my estimate. I could be wrong and I apologize if I am. Honestly I don't know that I see a big problem here.

Well I wouldn't call it normal if it never happened years ago when I was still on an AMD A-Series APU with a GTX 970 *with* an HDD. Looking at 4:30 in the video would, and should, tell you it isn't normal. Minecraft spikes sporadically every time I look around with the lowest settings. I could up the FPS, but that would not eliminate the stutteringly increase in frametimes. The drop in FPS isn't my concern either.

 

I don't mind loading since that's normal, but playing competitive games like Fortnite, sometimes Minecraft with Skywars or Bedwars, it will 100% screw you up (especially if you need to build a bridge or connect a difficult jump).

 

FPS isn't really the issue, it's the frametime jumping for a nanosecond almost and causing that stutter, a hitch. Why is it happening? I'm trying to solve that oddity with the help of others.

[Bombastinator]

7 hours ago, Farm-Boy_7130 said:

Thanks! So I watched the video, and honestly it looks mostly normal. If you're talking about a 10 fps drop while loading, that's from my experience, pretty normal. Now the 10 fps drop in GAME, That can get slightly more annoying so what I'd do is compensate for it. If you'd be comfortable doing 130 fps limit, you would still feel the frame drop but it would only drop to 117-122. That's at least, my estimate. I could be wrong and I apologize if I am. Honestly I don't know that I see a big problem here.

 

Yes! I completely forgot this, but regardless, the results are already in. 

So it’s stuff that is not visible in game but only on a graph?  Is a bench type case, but is there anything occluding the gpu fans? 

[Farm-Boy_7130]

3 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Is a bench type case, but is there anything occluding the gpu fans? 

I'll also add, Fortnite and Minecraft are both CPU bound games.

[TTG24]

6 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

So it’s stuff that is not visible in game but only on a graph?  Is a bench type case, but is there anything occluding the gpu fans? 

It's visible in the game, on the graph, on the recording, and in person. That spike in frametime is the stutter. Think of it as something shutting off for such a tiny moment, then coming back on. Think of it as my screen turning off that short moment, then coming back on. That is what I am feeling.

 

2 hours ago, Farm-Boy_7130 said:

I'll also add, Fortnite and Minecraft are both CPU bound games.

That is true. Do you have another game to suggest I could try? List some free ones as well.

[Farm-Boy_7130]

31 minutes ago, Zurovax said:

Do you have another game to suggest I could try?

Forza Horizon 5 is a pretty demanding game on both GPU and CPU side but leans more on GPU from my experiences. Farming Simulator 2019, or 2022. BeamNG.Drive is CPU intensive on lower settings, and Eco is a GPU Intensive game. You can try any of these, but they are all more expensive games. I'm not aware of any free games that really load pc components like these. If anyone else has any, definitely feel free to share.

[Bombastinator]

3 hours ago, Zurovax said:

It's visible in the game, on the graph, on the recording, and in person. That spike in frametime is the stutter. Think of it as something shutting off for such a tiny moment, then coming back on. Think of it as my screen turning off that short moment, then coming back on. That is what I am feeling.

 

That is true. Do you have another game to suggest I could try? List some free ones as well.

I didn’t see it in the recording.  I’m old though.

 

3 hours ago, Zurovax said:

It's visible in the game, on the graph, on the recording, and in person. That spike in frametime is the stutter. Think of it as something shutting off for such a tiny moment, then coming back on. Think of it as my screen turning off that short moment, then coming back on. That is what I am feeling.

 

That is true. Do you have another game to suggest I could try? List some free ones as well.

I would say try a power virus if you haven’t already.  They’re even more stressful than games. Also the produce a lot of heat. Prime95 for cpu and furmark for GPU.  one is a primitive version of folding@home type thing that was optimized (too well) for maximum output, and the other is a primitive gpu benchmark that also hits the chip as hard as it can.  Both are quite old and free.