[SOLVED] Frametime spikes/Stutters/FPS drops in all games.

[stutterlord]

same problem here. been dealing with it for almost 2 years. ive actually tried two computers and its about the same ???

ive played dozens of games, they all have frametime stuttering and hitching. most recent is sniper ghost warrior 3. i use rivatuner to look at the frame graph, and it will randomly have a huge spike and freeze for a minute. is this a household power related issue? do we all just need a UPS or whatever? ive swapped out basically every part of my PC, and have tried 2 different computers. all games stutter. I too just want to sell my PC and go buy a console, its ruining all enjoyment. i have a generic 60hz 1080p monitor. using a GTX 1080 and ryzen 2600.

both comptuers i have tried have had Ryzen 2600's and nvidia GTX 1060/1080 cards. maybe AMD is just shit? Does anyone have these sort of issue with Intel?

checkout my thread here, detailing all of the stuff ive done thus faR:

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/every-single-game-stutters-please-help.3680805/?view=date



heres a livestream i just did, check the frametime graph on top left. checkout all the spikes and stutters. is that normal? I Dont think so.

 

[Domski]

LatencyMon test with 3000us delay today!
It seems like ndis.sys is causing a lot of delay and this might honestly be a problem that could cause stutters but I have no idea at all how to go about fixing this. Like I said my system ist actually pretty modern so there really shouldn't be any issues with audio latency!

Also, I've installed the Windows Performance Recorder/Analyzer and recorded a reading where I got a decent amount of lag. But when I open it in the analyzer I have NO idea what I'm looking at or how to find what is causing the spikes so ..

Old System:
CPU: Ryzen 5 1600 @ 3.7
GPUs: RX580 then a GTX 1080 TI
Mobo: ASUS ROG Strix B350f
RAM: 2x16 G.Skill Ripjaws 3200 but only working at 1200 (Tested for RAM issues with Windows built-in tool but it found no problems)
Windows 10 on an SSD, games on HDD
New System:
CPU: Ryzen 5600X
GPU: Watercooled GTX 1080 TI
Mobo: Gigabyte B550 AORUS Elite
RAM: 2x16 G.Skill Ripjaws 3200
Windows 10 on an SSD, games on M.2 SSD

 

[Imran Hakimi]

I’m having the same issues.. almost every game stutters a lot..

 

[LapizTheRelic]

This problem is driving me nuts I have just replaced all the parts in my pc and I still have the same issue I just want to be able to game in peace

 

[Imran Hakimi]

This problem is driving me nuts I have just replaced all the parts in my pc and I still have the same issue I just want to be able to game in peace

that sucks! you’ve replaced every single parts?

 

[HungryTunney]

I had a very similar issue as those described here that I've been trying to troubleshoot for months. At first it seemed like my CPU and some other components needed an upgrade due to seeing CPU usage max out in the task manager. I do think it was time for an upgrade either way, and ended up upgrading everything in the computer, keeping only the case, GPU, CD drive and the old HDD and SDD as spare storage drives, using a new SDD as the primary drive.

The stuttering was lessened and almost negligible for most games but for some games it was really obvious still with FPS drops from 160 to as low as 130 with a quarter second stutter. Almost game breaking for some games in that instant!

Went through all the troubleshooting in this thread, focusing on things like power, GPU, and even case cables as potential sources of my frustration but nothing I was trying was solving the issue. Eventually, my friend and I had the realization that the GPU and the case were not the only old components in the computer, and decided to try testing without the old drives plugged in. We were able to identify that the culprit likely all this time was the old HDD. With it unplugged from the motherboard, the stuttering is completely gone. With it plugged back in, the stuttering is back within seconds or minutes. Even out of games I can perceive the stuttering at times!

So, for those still stuck, consider testing without some of your drives and see if something is going on there, the culprit could be an old, dying hard drive!

 

[Molbu]

I’ve had the same problem since November last year. I replaced the gpu for a 3070 and stutters began, so obviously would think it was the new gpu causing them, I then replaced it with a RX 6800 and issue continued so was left confused... I then progressed to replace EVERY single part one by one doing process of elimination however I literally replaced everything and it still continued. So after this I decided to build another brand new pc with a 5600x 3060ti and the exact same issues of frame time spikes and stutters continued. So I thought maybe I was being an idiot and was doing something wrong so I bought a pre built pc of high spec yet again... same issue again! Doesn’t matter what game, online or offline they’d all have frame time spikes of different severities but it would always be there.

Seeing as I’ve gone through 4 pcs and 100+hrs troubleshooting over the months it’s safe to say it’s not hardware related, it’s not peripheral related because I done clean installs of windows using all different peripherals so it just leaves the electricity as the common denominator. I did test 1 of the pcs having issues in a different house and the issues were still there so my current thought process is that my electricity is corrupting a part or parts to the point where they wouldn’t work on a different supply of electricity anyways.

I’m carrying out the next step this week which is another new pc, a new monitor, new cables, new keyboard and mouse and taking it to a different house straight away paired with a power conditioning surge protector to test and not even attempting at mine. If it works fine I’ll then be taking it home to use and however like I said it’ll be also paired with the power conditioner etc in the hopes this cleans up the electricity before it hits my pc not even giving it the chance to ruin it. If it does continue to run smooth at mine I’ll reconnect my original peripherals one by one just to be sure for the 0.01% chance they somehow contributed to the issue.

This issue just doesn’t make sense and anyone I speak to is baffled. The same week before any of these issues when I initially upgraded and had stutters I also had a power outage... so issues have been happening since that week and now hopefully close to getting to the bottom of it, however after everything I have done... it has to be electrical transients or voltage spikes ruining the sensitive components. The electrical suppliers have also fitted a voltage regulator in my house and I’ll get results next week.

 

[wolfuztein]

So glad to hear that man! Crazy how something so unusual like a USB cable can cause stuttering. Enjoy your pc!


After further testing, yes it was the usb cable all this time! I have no clue how or why this would affect my pc performance but unplugging the cable removed all stutters.


Just wanted to say thank you so much for replying to this thread! Unplugging the usb cable fixed my stutters as well! I can finally enjoy my PC now cause of you

Whattttttttt bro whattttttttt, It has been for 2 years, I have had the same issue that simple thing has solved it. But the only thing that I do not understand how can a cable effect a system that much, do u know the reason?

 

[EarthTree]

I’ve had this issue with my laptop. Used to happen watching video(Netflix), then it stopped. Since playing valheim I get it in game and now in dota 2.

ive had success removing it from Netflix I think after an sac scan. but it’s still happening in valheim.

Anyone had success with a laptop? I was excited about the usb issue but I’m guessing a laptop won’t have this anyway.

anyone still up for diagnosing?

 

[Naviwinsgg]

Read the post from "nuggify" on the last page.(bottom)

100+ ms frametime spike on 2 different pc builds. - Page 2 - Blur Busters Forums

 

[HungryTunney]

Hey everyone, an update on my side. The post I made a few weeks ago identifying old HDD/SSD as the issue turned out to NOT be the issue. There is nothing wrong with those drives.

The issue ended up being stupider.

After a variety of testing, I eliminated any hardware related items. Hardware was not the issue. Using a clean install and local account, I was able to eliminate the stutters. However, once I logged back into my Microsoft Account, the stutters returned.

After a bit of Googling, I stumbled upon a thread identifying background settings as the source. When I logged into my Microsoft account, my background settings synced up, so this checked out. It turns out that turning OFF the Colors > Automatically pick an accent color from my background was the solution. That setting was the culprit. Using shuffled backgrounds and that option causes the stutters. Every time the background changed, there was stutter. I was able to confirm this with that option selected and using Right Click > Next desktop background on multiple machines to reproduce the stutters I was experiencing. With the option off, the stutters were gone in all cases.

If you're having unexplainable stuttering, check if you use similar background settings and see if that can help you!

 

[robotbunny]

Hi everyone,

Been lurking this thread for a while and I'm a little embarrassed to say that just knowing some other people were also having almost inexplicable universal stutters that seemed to defy logic made me feel a bit less like I was going crazy while troubleshooting my problem over the past couple of weeks. Created an account just to post my story and what my solution (knock on wood) turned out to be, just in case it might help some other poor soul out there who feels like they've tried everything to no avail.

So after trying almost every solution I'd found around the web, by chance I happened to leave one my worst offending games (Wreckfest in this case, though the stutters affected everything) open in the background while I was doing some other basic maintenance stuff on my PC. I had the Windows device manager open and noticed that it was randomly refreshing every 20-90 seconds and that whenever it did, the game in the background would stutter/spike hard for a quarter-to-half a second just as it does during play. I expanded all the sections of the device manager but nothing actually appeared to changing when it was polling the hardware like this. Since I'd pulled all my USB cables and devices, case front-side connecters and internal components piece by piece over the course of troubleshooting this I was reasonably sure it wasn't any of the hardware directly attached to my PC.

That left network devices. So I pulled my network cable and... Lo and Behold! The device manager stopped refreshing and the stuttering seemed to stop. Tested the game for while and it was smoooooth like I hadn't seen it in ages. Tried some other games, same result. Problem gone. I plug my cable back in and instantly the problem returned. Device manager is freaking out and stuttering is back with a vengeance. So I set about unplugging all the devices in my network - media server, printer, other PCs, shutting down wifi etc. Nothing changed until I finally got to... my god damn Sony Smart TV! Now I don't know for sure what it's been doing (I suspect probably announcing itself over and over as a media playback device or something), but it was sitting there on the network forcing a hardware poll on my gaming PC every time it did it, which caused my entire PC to hang for a fraction of a second and random but frequent intervals. I yanked it's cable, left everything else alone... and sweet, sweet smoothness.

TL;DR: Check your network for rogue devices that might be announcing themselves on your LAN and causing your PC to do a hardware poll.

(Also check and see if any of your neighbours have random devices like pay TV set top boxes that drop off their wifi and starting hunting around for other networks as it seems this can also cause a similar effect even if they can never actually log on).

 

[blopez89]

Following this thread as this has been happening to me randomly throughout the time I have built my PC. Originally this was only happening to me intermittingly so I really felt like it was a network thing of some sort. It was almost like it was on a timer, every 20-50 secs usually. Sometimes it got REALLY bad and happened more and more often like every 10 secs. The above comment about checking the TV got me thinking could it be my low battery wireless mouse doing some weird kind of check? I went back to wired mouse and it instantly got better... I know right? DUH. But the thing is this was happening to me before I got this mouse. Coincidence? Maybe. But maybe not. It might be that I have multiple devices that affect my PC this way. Going to work on isolating the issue but to me it really seems like its other devices affecting the computer in my case.

 

[Dionymous]

Hello. In case it could help someone suffering from (unexplicable) framedrops, stuttering or freezing, i share my own experience from my son's Ryzen7, win10 pro desktop, after having tried for months to find out what caused the above symptoms while playing online or even using webex. I could never have imagined that our problems could be caused by a Windows functionality, the slideshow that many of us have as wallpaper. We had it set to change background picture every minute, so everytime it did, we experienced sudden framedrops or freezes. Imagine our frustration, having this happening every one minute! Turned it off by chance and, miraculously, all framedrops/stutters/freezes disappeared! So, my advice is: go to Start> Settings> Personalization> Background and check if you have the Slideshow option enabled and turn it to Picture or Solid color. Avoid installing any theme from Microsoft Store or elsewhere as it might possibly turn on slideshow again, without asking you, or if you do, remember to check the setting i mentioned above. Hope i helped someone a little bit.

 

[flurpster]

Hi everyone,

Been lurking this thread for a while and I'm a little embarrassed to say that just knowing some other people were also having almost inexplicable universal stutters that seemed to defy logic made me feel a bit less like I was going crazy while troubleshooting my problem over the past couple of weeks. Created an account just to post my story and what my solution (knock on wood) turned out to be, just in case it might help some other poor soul out there who feels like they've tried everything to no avail.

So after trying almost every solution I'd found around the web, by chance I happened to leave one my worst offending games (Wreckfest in this case, though the stutters affected everything) open in the background while I was doing some other basic maintenance stuff on my PC. I had the Windows device manager open and noticed that it was randomly refreshing every 20-90 seconds and that whenever it did, the game in the background would stutter/spike hard for a quarter-to-half a second just as it does during play. I expanded all the sections of the device manager but nothing actually appeared to changing when it was polling the hardware like this. Since I'd pulled all my USB cables and devices, case front-side connecters and internal components piece by piece over the course of troubleshooting this I was reasonably sure it wasn't any of the hardware directly attached to my PC.

That left network devices. So I pulled my network cable and... Lo and Behold! The device manager stopped refreshing and the stuttering seemed to stop. Tested the game for while and it was smoooooth like I hadn't seen it in ages. Tried some other games, same result. Problem gone. I plug my cable back in and instantly the problem returned. Device manager is freaking out and stuttering is back with a vengeance. So I set about unplugging all the devices in my network - media server, printer, other PCs, shutting down wifi etc. Nothing changed until I finally got to... my god damn Sony Smart TV! Now I don't know for sure what it's been doing (I suspect probably announcing itself over and over as a media playback device or something), but it was sitting there on the network forcing a hardware poll on my gaming PC every time it did it, which caused my entire PC to hang for a fraction of a second and random but frequent intervals. I yanked it's cable, left everything else alone... and sweet, sweet smoothness.

TL;DR: Check your network for rogue devices that might be announcing themselves on your LAN and causing your PC to do a hardware poll.

(Also check and see if any of your neighbours have random devices like pay TV set top boxes that drop off their wifi and starting hunting around for other networks as it seems this can also cause a similar effect even if they can never actually log on).

You sir are a genius!

While my problem wasn't a smart TV I never would've thought to look for network devices to fix this. I had exactly the same issue with device manager. One quick Wireshark packet capture led me to an HP Driver making repeated attempts to talk to a printer that wasn't there. After removing said printer/driver from Settings, Wreckfest now runs buttery smooth like it always should have.

This was giving me so many headaches because it was also happening on my previous computer and I couldn't figure it out. Thank You!

 

[Reget]

Salut à tous,

J'ai caché ce fil pendant un moment et je suis un peu gêné de dire que le simple fait de savoir que d'autres personnes avaient également des bégaiements universels presque inexplicables qui semblaient défier la logique m'a fait sentir un peu moins comme si je devenais fou en résolvant mon problème. ces dernières semaines. J'ai créé un compte juste pour publier mon histoire et ce que ma solution (frapper du bois) s'est avérée être, juste au cas où cela pourrait aider une autre pauvre âme qui a l'impression d'avoir tout essayé en vain.

Donc, après avoir essayé presque toutes les solutions que j'avais trouvées sur le Web, par hasard, j'ai laissé l'un de mes pires jeux offensants (Wreckfest dans ce cas, bien que les bégaiements affectent tout) ouvert en arrière-plan pendant que je faisais d'autres tâches de maintenance de base sur mon PC. J'ai fait ouvrir le gestionnaire de périphériques Windows et j'ai remarqué qu'il se rafraîchissait au hasard toutes les 20 à 90 secondes et que chaque fois que c'était le cas, le jeu en arrière-plan bégayait / picait fort pendant un quart à une demi-seconde, comme il le fait pendant le jeu. . J'ai développé toutes les sections du gestionnaire de périphériques, mais rien ne semblait réellement changer lorsqu'il interrogeait le matériel comme celui-ci. Depuis que j'avais retiré tous mes câbles et appareils USB, les connecteurs avant du boîtier et les composants internes pièce par pièce au cours du dépannage, j'étais raisonnablement sûr que ce n'était pas le cas.

Cela a laissé les périphériques réseau. Alors j'ai tiré mon câble réseau et ... Lo and Behold! Le gestionnaire de l'appareil a cessé de se rafraîchir et le bégaiement a semblé s'arrêter. J'ai testé le jeu pendant un moment et c'était super comme si je ne l'avais pas vu depuis des lustres. J'ai essayé d'autres jeux, même résultat. Problème disparu. Je rebranche mon câble et instantanément le problème est revenu. Le gestionnaire de périphériques panique et le bégaiement est de retour avec une vengeance. Je me suis donc mis à débrancher tous les appareils de mon réseau - serveur multimédia, imprimante, autres PC, éteindre le wifi, etc. Rien n'a changé jusqu'à ce que j'arrive enfin à ... mon putain de Sony Smart TV! Maintenant, je ne sais pas avec certitude ce qu'il fait (je soupçonne probablement qu'il s'annonce sans cesse comme un appareil de lecture multimédia ou quelque chose du genre), mais il était assis là sur le réseau, forçant un sondage matériel sur mon PC de jeu à chaque fois qu'il le faisait il, ce qui a provoqué le blocage de tout mon PC pendant une fraction de seconde et des intervalles aléatoires mais fréquents. J'ai tiré sur son câble, laissé tout le reste seul ... et une douceur douce et douce.

TL; DR: Vérifiez votre réseau pour les périphériques non fiables qui pourraient s'annoncer sur votre réseau local et amener votre PC à effectuer une interrogation matérielle.

(Vérifiez également si l'un de vos voisins a des appareils aléatoires comme des décodeurs de télévision payante qui abandonnent leur wifi et commencent à chercher d'autres réseaux car il semble que cela puisse également provoquer un effet similaire même s'ils ne peuvent jamais se connecter) .

Bonjour à tous.
Tout d'abord, je voulais vous remercier. J'ai eu exactement le même problème, j'avais des soucis sur tous mes jeux (édition définitive mafia, RE remake 2 & 3, Wreckfest etc.). J'avais remarqué qu'il y avait un lien entre le réseau Ethernet (pic d'activité et baisse de la charge du GPU). En désactivant la carte réseau, tout allait bien. J'avais mis à jour le pilote mais toujours le même. Je pensais donc à une erreur de carte réseau et je suis tombé sur votre message en sachant que j'ai aussi un téléviseur intelligent Sony (kd-49xf9005). J'ai donc essayé de le débrancher et cela fonctionne très bien. Cependant, comment avez-vous résolu votre problème sans débrancher la télévision? J'ai désactivé le réveil sur LAN ainsi que la télécommande. Je vais voir si cela résout le problème. Comme vous, je me suis inscrit exprès pour apporter ma réponse et vous remercier encore une fois!

 

[Voodoochild1974]

i need to tell you something important.

i had the EXACT SAME SITUATION as you since over a YEAR.

i swapped everything (built new PCs from scratch) and the stutter never disappeared.

then i found the solution.

the Front Panel USB 3.0 connection to my motherboard.
i bought another case (H710 was on sale and looks awesome + it fits a NH D15 even on tall RAM)
and woosh.. every stuttering went away.

i quickly plugged my front panel USB from my Phanteks P400a in my motherboard an all the stuttering was back (there was NOTHING plugged in to the front panel at all! just the cable)

I have a Corsair 5000X and I just tried unplugging the USB 3...and it works.

In Doom Eternal (game I use for testing) I would get one off spikes opening doors, gore kills, chainsaw kills and a few others. Just one sudden spike and then back to normal. But now when I remove the USB 3, I get one rare one in a cut scene or none at all.

Why on earth would it do this? And how do we buy a case that will not do it as it seems to affect a few brands?

 

[ozzyozzy]

I had i7 4770k 760gtx 2x8Ram 750 bronze 80+ , dual boot, both win7 and win10 had no stuttering or frametime spikes. 760gtx died, 1060 6gb replacement and stuttering/frametime spikes is there no matter what i tried. I will go crazy soon. I had to lower msi afterburner monitoring > polling period to 100ms to see what is happening. It is mostly when i move around it is happening, when i stop moving 60 secs not a single spike, if i move instant frame drops and spikes again. When polling was 1000-2000ms i was not seeing huge fps drops, i was thinking only 3-5fps drops from 60. But with polling 100ms i can see my fps goes down near 35 40 area instantly and goes back to 60 at those crazy spikes. On win7 if i change windows aero theme to windows 7 basic or windows classic, spikes are way way MORE often. LatencyMon is not showing crazy driver latency (50-130) but highest measured interrupt to process latency goes to 1k to 20k !!! .
It only gives "Your system appears to be having trouble handling real-time audio and other tasks. You are likely to experience buffer underruns appearing as drop outs, clicks or pops. One problem may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS setup. Check for BIOS updates....." warnings. I want to buy a new pc (i5-11400 asus rog b560-f 2x8 3200 750watt80+Bronze corsair but i began to afraid it will do the same thing. 1060 6gb was not 2nd hand, it was brand new, max 1 year used, undervolted, barely used each week 1-2 games, 3-4hours. Tested all bios settings, usb trick, removed old HDDs, removed usb devices 1 by 1, still the same. I am just so lost.

edit: What i will do here please? So many IRQ 16 devices on the list

 

[Cavoo]

I had same problem. I had sudden 1-2 or 3-5 or 8 FPS drop. And I read this topic and my front panel USB 3.0 was damaged already. I unplagged the USB 3.0 cable and HD Audio cable. Then my proplem is solved. I dont have any sudden FPS drops now. I am so happy.

 

[OneMoar]

SAMH or SAI

 

[Cavoo]

SAMH or SAI

???

 

[stutterlord]

Best video I have taken yet which very obviously highlights the peculair issue. I timestamped every single time it made a massive freeze

Open up the video link and click the timestamps in the description to see how obvious it is.

Timestamps are in description of video, but also will put here to illuminate how bad it is. Something is definitely not right!!

Ive gone so far to unplug every single thing from my motherboard including RGB, USB 3.0, Reset switch, HD audio..everything that is not essential. Nothing helps.
Please study the framegraph in the video, as it is a very specific type of frame skipping. Its like my computer freezes when trying to process loading new information or something like this. The frame rate and temperature DOES NOT MATTER.. Sometimes it even stutters to 65ms!!!!! IT EVEN HAPPENS If i lock to 30fps..... im stumped!!!!

TIMESTAMPS:
0:29
0:45
1:28
1:58
2:30
3:27
4:28
4:45
5:25 (HUGE ONE)
7:50 (HUGE ONE)
8:58 (HUGE ONE)
9:50
10;35
10:55
11:58
12:30
12:59 (HUGE ONE)
13:44 (WORST ONE)
15:00
15:59

 

[OneMoar]

sigh this thread is so pointless so many people thinking they have a problem when its just down to there system being just plain slow
too many Randoms in this thread posting about there 'problems' looking for a singular solution to make there slow computers faster or a solution which they can't have which is that whatever problem they think they have is just how the game runs no experience is ever flawless not even on 5000 dollar rigs thats just not how computers work

there is people in this thread with systems that are just plain old
people with systems just plain mis configured
people mistaking poor game optimization for a problem
people not understanding how the underlaying architecture of there system works (guy with the zen+ NO SHIT Sherlock everybody knows those chips have problems with certain workloads

No everybody go home this thread has devolved into a complete shitshow because of thread jacking and just plain ignorance
if you think you have genuine problem start a new thread don't crap all over this one with your random bs non problem problem

if you have a ryzen 1000/2000 chip then expect frame time consistency problems particularly in DX11 titles
the solution is overclock the snot out of your system or upgrade it to a more recent platform
its just how those cpus are for reasons I will not explain in this thread

 

[stutterlord]

"if you have a ryzen 1000/2000 chip then expect frame time consistency problems particularly in DX11 titles"

??? No! I know this isn't quite right because as you can tell in the video I just linked, its a very peculiar kind of random huge freezing not something like having bad FPS.

I know its not the Ryzen 2600 because someone with the exact same CPU as me, linked a video of himself in the exact same area of Sekiro, where his game is solid line frame time, and mine has random big spikes. It cant be that! So what do you suggest I do then??? How would I go about diagnosing what causes this and how to fix it!! IT EVEN HAPPENS IF I LIMIT MY GAMES TO 30FPS
Videos in question:

MY ryzen2600 frametimes (constant random spikes to 30-60ms)

:

His ryzen2600 frametime (Completely solid 16.6ms entire time, same scene:

 

[OneMoar]

keep running in circles then idc