Stuttering

[lopolopo]

Hi everyone, about 6 months ago I asked for a build on this forum.
After assembling the PC, I downloaded Apex and the game ran very smoothly, but after 5-10 seconds it started stuttering, then it would run smoothly again, then stutter again, and so on.

 

I did an undervolt and the problem was solved, but at the cost of losing some performance (quite significant for a competitive game), which shouldn't happen on a $1,600 PC.
I put up with it for a while.

 

Then I downloaded Arc Raiders, and there the performance reduction was much more noticeable than in Apex: sometimes there was micro stuttering even with the undervolt.

 

So I removed the undervolt to see if the game would run more smoothly (knowing that in the past, without undervolt, I had stuttering), and instead, magically, both Arc Raiders and Apex ran much better.

 

Everything was fine until one day I woke the PC from sleep mode:
the lock screen appeared, then the screen went black for 10-15 seconds and then returned to normal.
After this episode, game performance decreased without me touching anything (no stuttering, but lower performance).
This black screen after sleep mode happened several other times.

 

So I reinstalled the drivers cleanly with DDU, thinking that would solve the problem, but the stuttering I had when I first assembled the PC returned.

 

From then on, I tried everything on the software side:
BIOS, Windows settings, Windows reinstallation, old and new drivers, chipset, BIOS update, etc., but nothing worked.

 

I realized that there is definitely an underlying problem, but I can't figure out what it is.

 

I read that it could be due to a faulty CPU, SSD, or PSU (although I would rule out the latter).

 

At this point, I'm thinking of changing the GPU, CPU, and SSD, perhaps switching to Nvidia or even changing platforms to Intel, because I've been struggling with this PC for too long.

 

Before changing components, however, I wanted to know if there is anything else I can do.

 

Other important things:
• Stuttering only occurs in online games.
• I shouldn't be getting this kind of performance from my PC.
• I've seen that the PC can run very smoothly (albeit only for short periods).

 

The build: https://it.pcpartpicker.com/list/wXC8cx

[xAcid9]

31 minutes ago, lopolopo said:

After assembling the PC, I downloaded Apex and the game ran very smoothly, but after 5-10 seconds it started stuttering, then it would run smoothly again, then stutter again, and so on.

This seems like thermal throttling, check your CPU/GPU temperature and clock speed. Use HWiNFO64 or MSI Afterburner OSD.

 

32 minutes ago, lopolopo said:

Everything was fine until one day I woke the PC from sleep mode:
the lock screen appeared, then the screen went black for 10-15 seconds and then returned to normal.
After this episode, game performance decreased without me touching anything (no stuttering, but lower performance).
This black screen after sleep mode happened several other times.

This probably TDR related where windows reset the GPU driver. You can check windows Event Viewer for logs. 

You need to reboot your PC if this happened or you'll get shit performance. 

 

 

Also check if your CPU and GPU clock speed is boosting properly without hard throttle. 

[lopolopo]

22 hours ago, xAcid9 said:

This seems like thermal throttling, check your CPU/GPU temperature and clock speed. Use HWiNFO64 or MSI Afterburner OSD.

 

This probably TDR related where windows reset the GPU driver. You can check windows Event Viewer for logs. 

You need to reboot your PC if this happened or you'll get shit performance. 

 

 

Also check if your CPU and GPU clock speed is boosting properly without hard throttle. 

Hi  @xAcid9 , i did what you said. I checked the clock speed of the CPU and GPU, and this is what I noticed:

 

Arc riders: 
low graphics with some high things:
CPU temp: does not exceed 61°C, 82% average usage, 5450MHz stable
GPU temp: around 47°C, 75% average usage. 

 

GPU MHz
Things I noticed: 
The GPU MHz is not stable; it jumps around a bit:
From 3329 to 3041 MHz
From 2802 to 3130 MHz (during combat)
2816 to 2634 MHz (during combat)
2531 to 3155 MHz
3130 to 2816 MHz

 

As soon as I open the game, it's super smooth with the GPU at around 3320 MHz. When the game seems to slow down (it's not smooth), the GPU MHz drops.
There are times when it stays "stable" at around 2444 MHz and the game isn't smooth.
Other times, it jumps from 3320 to 3041 MHz or 2145 to 1930 MHz: this is when micro-stuttering or lag occurs.

 

Also, during combat, the frequencies start to drop progressively, for example:
2816 → 2634 → 2531 MHz.

 

I think if it stayed at 3320 MHz or higher, the game would run smoothly, idk.

 

Apex:
Here, the GPU frequency is lower than in Arc Riders (perhaps this is why the game is less smooth than Arc).

 

CPU:
47°
30–40% usage
5450 MHz stable

 

GPU:
55°
61% usage
Approximately 2800 MHz average with continuous variations

 

During a fight, it dropped from 2785 to 1833 MHz. 

 

When stuttering occurred, the frequency dropped from 1825 to 1465 MHz, and the FPS went from 165 to 158.

 

Summary:
In summary, I noticed that when there is stuttering and poor performance, the frequencies drop.

 

After noticing this, I think that every game needs a sufficient and stable frequency to ensure that poor performance or micro stuttering does not occur.

 

How can I solve this problem?
What do you think? Thanks in advance.