Mid-range system unplayable stutters on GTA V

[Arinijus]

Hey people! After Trying to troubleshoot myself for quite a few hours, I've resorted to my last hope - a forum post.

I've got a Ryzen 7 2700X, 16GB of RAM, and a 1660Ti on an MSI Bazooka B450M V2 motherboard with the latest BIOS, all under windows 11. I've re-installed GTA V last weekend, and got unplayable levels of stuttering and a low framerate (can't hit 60!) in both online and story mode. This wasn't an issue the last time I've played it on the same system roughly half a year ago. I've checked the temps (both CPU and GPU at roughly 60 degrees Celsius, which is completely acceptable). I've tried running it all on minimum settings, no improvement (as a test I also maxed each setting and occasionally got a better framerate?). I've looked online and tried limiting the framerate to below 170 fps, no improvement. I tried running compatibility mode on the .exe as that helped someone, not me though. I'm completely stumped, what do I do?

As a sidenote, another game I have the same issue on is Euro Truck Simulator 2. Max or minimum settings it still runs below 60fps. All other games like Apex legends etc. etc. run completely fine and are playable.

 

I have uploaded a video to MEGA for showcasing my issue (no download needed, has a built in video player.)

https://mega.nz/file/HjITTBpI#nFoaDt2AcDOw6GcS2e8cmUW3KqhBMihI0TdA31-O_QA

 

Any and all help is appreciated! Would be amazing if I could enjoy these 2 great games again. Cheers!

[YoungBlade]

Have you tried doing a clean reinstall of the Nvidia driver? I had an issue like this (many moons ago on an old and weak GT 635) and doing a clean install of the driver fixed it. In retrospect, I'm guessing it was an issue where a driver update borked some setting in the Nvidia control panel.

[Arinijus]

1 minute ago, YoungBlade said:

Have you tried doing a clean reinstall of the Nvidia driver? I had an issue like this (many moons ago on an old and weak GT 635) and doing a clean install of the driver fixed it. In retrospect, I'm guessing it was an issue where a driver update borked some setting in the Nvidia control panel.

I've updated my graphics drivers yesterday via GeForce experience. Let me try wiping it in safe mode with DDU and I'll report back.

[xAcid9]

Try DXVK. https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/releases/tag/v2.1 

 

Download dxvk-2.1.tar.gz

Extract dxgi.dll and d3d9.dll from 32bit folder into ../steamapps/common/Grand Theft Auto IV/GTAIV 

[jaslion]

25 minutes ago, xAcid9 said:

Try DXVK. https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/releases/tag/v2.1 

 

Download dxvk-2.1.tar.gz

Extract dxgi.dll and d3d9.dll from 32bit folder into ../steamapps/common/Grand Theft Auto IV/GTAIV 

Thats gta 4 their issue is with 5

[jaslion]

Op i'd say try with DDU and then reinstall the latest stable driver

[191x7]

Latest chipset drivers downloaded from AMD?

[Arinijus]

40 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

Have you tried doing a clean reinstall of the Nvidia driver? I had an issue like this (many moons ago on an old and weak GT 635) and doing a clean install of the driver fixed it. In retrospect, I'm guessing it was an issue where a driver update borked some setting in the Nvidia control panel.

Alright, after removing them with DDU and installing the latest ones I don't see any improvement unfortunately

 

4 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Op i'd say try with DDU and then reinstall the latest stable driver

Yup, gave this a shot, no luck.

 

3 minutes ago, 191x7 said:

Latest chipset drivers downloaded from AMD?

Let me try this, I think I've only updated these through MSI's site way back.

[Blqckqut]

54 minutes ago, Arinijus said:

I've updated my graphics drivers yesterday via GeForce experience. Let me try wiping it in safe mode with DDU and I'll report back.

geforce experience is hot garb, just install it from the website

 

[Arinijus]

1 minute ago, Blqckout said:

geforce experience is hot garb, just install it from the website

 

Just did, no difference.

[Blqckqut]

2 minutes ago, Arinijus said:

Just did, no difference.

odd, wich platform is gta on

[Blqckqut]

another thing i found out, i got insane stutters till i turned off TAA/SMAA, try that

[Arinijus]

Seems like the chipset drivers did something, or it's just placebo. My framerate does spike momentarily to around 70-80ish fps, but it's still usually quite low (40-50, inconsistent overall). The 1% lows are less than 20 fps. 

[Blqckqut]

1 minute ago, Arinijus said:

Seems like the chipset drivers did something, or it's just placebo. My framerate does spike momentarily to around 70-80ish fps, but it's still usually quite low (40-50, inconsistent overall). The 1% lows are less than 20 fps. 

what quality are you on?

[Arinijus]

3 minutes ago, Blqckout said:

odd, wich platform is gta on

On epic, I'd usually stick to steam but I've only got the game here.

 

2 minutes ago, Blqckout said:

another thing i found out, i got insane stutters till i turned off TAA/SMAA, try that

I don't think it's the graphics settings at this point. I've had everything low/off and I had pretty much the same performance when I had all settings maxed out. Better safe than sorry though.

[Blqckqut]

1 minute ago, Arinijus said:

On epic, I'd usually stick to steam but I've only got the game here.

 

I don't think it's the graphics settings at this point. I've had everything low/off and I had pretty much the same performance when I had all settings maxed out. Better safe than sorry though.

thats weird, maybe try seeing your temps while doing it, maybe you need to repaste the gpu/cpu, maybe verify files on epic too

[Arinijus]

Just now, Blqckout said:

thats weird, maybe try seeing your temps while doing it, maybe you need to repaste the gpu/cpu, maybe verify files on epic too

Verified files yesterday, temps are roughly 60 degrees Celsius CPU, and 73 degrees GPU on the hotspot (checked with HWMonitor).

Attaching my graphics settings below. Pretty intense, but I want them to be stable, at least 60+ while looking nice.

[Blqckqut]

what happens if you turn everything down to lowest, and slowly test out graphics settings? or run benchmark test and see whats best

[OhYou_]

check the temperatures of both the cpu and gpu as well as the clock speed of both cpu and gpu while the issue is happening 

[Arinijus]

11 minutes ago, Blqckout said:

what happens if you turn everything down to lowest, and slowly test out graphics settings? or run benchmark test and see whats best

tried the benchmark, seems like it only dipped below 60 on the driving part, everything else ran really well!

 

3 minutes ago, OhYou_ said:

check the temperatures of both the cpu and gpu as well as the clock speed of both cpu and gpu while the issue is happening 

checked, they are all fine as I've said before, clocks also are stable. Attaching HWMonitor stats while driving around.

[Blqckqut]

6 minutes ago, Arinijus said:

tried the benchmark, seems like it only dipped below 60 on the driving part, everything else ran really well!

 

checked, they are all fine as I've said before, clocks also are stable. Attaching HWMonitor stats while driving around.

strange... maybe @191x7 could shed some light on this (yes 191x7 u are now my go to person for this)

[OhYou_]

I feel like cpu util should be more than 6% with maxes of 18% for this game. 
But I am not sure what to do about that. Maybe save anything you have open and then set cpu priority of gta5 to realtime in task manager, see if it improves. There's a small chance it will cause instability, but you can just restart if you cant close the game.

[Arinijus]

5 minutes ago, OhYou_ said:

I feel like cpu util should be more than 6% with maxes of 18% for this game. 
But I am not sure what to do about that. Maybe save anything you have open and then set cpu priority of gta5 to realtime in task manager, see if it improves. There's a small chance it will cause instability, but you can just restart if you cant close the game.

Interesting shout, don't know what to do about it either though. Went online and tried setting the priority to realtime. CPU floats at around 10% usage for the most part while driving around the city.

[191x7]

33 minutes ago, Blqckout said:

strange... maybe @191x7 could shed some light on this (yes 191x7 u are now my go to person for this)

Now I must not disappoint...

 

@Arinijusthose 16GB of RAM, is that 1x16GB, 2x8GB, 1x8GB+2x4GB or 4x4GB? Is it running an XMP profile?

 

Please post CPU-Z screenshots of all tabs (or the validation), GPU-Z and PassMark RAMMon screenshots and check your drives with Hard Disk Sentinel.

 

Also, check all your drivers with IOBit Driver Booster.

 

Also, my go-to tweaks are - disable Multiplane Overlay MPO and use InSpectre to disable Spectre and Meltdown mitigations.

 

Is the game on an SSD?

[Arinijus]

5 minutes ago, 191x7 said:

Now I must not disappoint...

 

@Arinijusthose 16GB of RAM, is that 1x16GB, 2x8GB, 1x8GB+2x4GB or 4x4GB? Is it running an XMP profile?

 

Please post CPU-Z screenshots of all tabs (or the validation), GPU-Z and PassMark RAMMon screenshots and check your drives with Hard Disk Sentinel.

 

Also, check all your drivers with IOBit Driver Booster.

 

Also, my go-to tweaks are - disable Multiplane Overlay MPO and use InSpectre to disable Spectre and Meltdown mitigations.

 

Is the game on an SSD?

RAM is 1 stick of 16GB, single channel unfortunately. Had this as a prebuilt in 2019, didn't know any better. I've enabled XMP in the bios though.

 

CPU-Z screenshots added below, and the RAMMon exported file. System is not on a big load (discord, chrome, etc.)  

Tried IObit, found some slightly old bluetooth and network drivers.

The game is on a Seagate Barracuda 1TB, same one it's been installed before and ran fine. I'll check it's health just in case.

RAMMon - SPD Info.html