Games not smooth, despite having 240hz screen/240 fps, good temps etc.

[Cyanide3408]

Hello guys, I wanna make this long story short but don't wanna also miss any details.

So, as the title says, my games are not smooth, especially online ones (CSGO, Siege, Battlefield series, Warzone, Dota 2 etc.).
No fps drops, no stuttering, no overheating or anything, just gameplay feels choppy like someone is downgrading my screen to 30-60 hz lol, especially during gunfights, flicking, fast wasd/mouse movement.
Offline, singleplayer games are "tolerable" I'd say, issue is barely present there or these games are just too "slow", like I'm not aiming like crazy in Hogwards/Skyrim/Grim Dawn/Civ VI and so on lol.

My specs are 5600x/b550 tomahawk/3070 OC/Kingston nvme 500gb + nvme 2tb/Crucial ballistix 32gb ddr4 3200cl16/Corsair RM750x PSU/Acer 240hz 24.5 monitor/Razer Viper 8k/HyperX Alloy Fps Pro

I've tried almost everything, including:
- various Windows/BIOS tweaks, ofc ensured everything is in "high performance" mode (power plan/nvidia/BIOS cpu)
- Windows reinstalls, 10/11/revios/ggos, on old hhd/spare sata 128gb drive/500gb nvme, dozen times
- old, new drivers, BIOS from vendors' websites or from AMD/Nvidia/MSI etc.
- repasting, reseating, blowing with air the whole PC, rebuilding PC on mobo cardboard+antistatic bag
- Blurbusters 101 GSync guide, aka capping fps (225-233 in my case), gsync on, vsync on, everything off in game, makes things a tiny bit better
- taking away/swapping parts, like borrowing monitor, RAM sticks, GPU, taking away 1 stick of RAM, unplugging fans, discs etc.
- different mouse pads, mouses, keyboards, installing drivers/software, updated Viper 8k software to 1.03, played with 500...8000 hz, win accel on/off, raw input on/off in-game
Maybe some other things but they're too minor or insignificant to remember.

A few things I've been noticing lately is some buzzing high-pitched noise in headphones, higher FPS is higher is the pitch, also when moving mouse, clicking some stuff in games this pitch also changes.
And one more strange thing is - I bought recently Kingston NV2 2tb drive, purely for gaming, and when I installed a few games there & hoped into online matches, I had a blast, everything was so smooth it was unbelievable, I forgot the last time I could track a guy propertly during gunfight, or had silky smooth gaming at all. 240 hz felt like true 240 hz. But after seven days it all went to garbage again, and is very choppy now. I changed nothing, just installed new nvme + copied games there.

What should be my next actions? I'm grateful for any help

edit: also my Windows, no matter the installation, is sluggish, windows & apps and data are loading like.. with small delay, if that makes sense. Even typing now is "delayed", like I'm not typing directly but via some remote control, similar delay.

 

[Cyanide3408]

I've noticed something also:
1) It's good or completely fine in old games e.g. in SkyrimSE with fps unlocked it's butter smooth on 200 fps, 1% lows are also around 150-200, in old games like Dying Light or Dead Island or Metro 2033 it's the same, all FPS measurements are great & it's smooth no drops below 200 basically.
On the other hand, in heavy games like BFV online matches, fps is okay (around 150-200) but 1% 0.1% are dropping horribly (below 100 or even 60), rendering game unplayable.
In dota 2 it's 200+ fps or even 300-400 fps (depends if fps is locked or not) but in teamfights its dropping horribly to 100-140 or 200 fps, causing heavy lags despite showing high FPS, I haven't measured 1-0.1% lows but it was unplayable by eye.
2) It's really sluggish on Windows desktop, even typing is "slow" and delayed, all windows apps etc are opening with slight delay.
3) Latencymon is showing some weird stuff like this:

http://imgur.com/a/8xfVFb2

It's basically few hours of gameplay and browsing stuff.
4) Weirdest part: I bought recently new nvme drive (Kingston NV2 2Tb) as a game storage, and gaming was perfect for a first week, no fps drops everything was butter smooth in ANY game, but it all went back after seven days.
What on earth can even cause all of that?

 

[electronicworld]

Check my thread here, https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...d-cores-in-bios-settings.307686/#post-5000232

 

[Vayra86]

I think its dead simple.

Your online games are not smooth at 240hz/FPS.
Your offline games are smooth.

You're bound to server tickrates, latency and network quality. The higher your FPS target the more likely you will notice anything NOT running at 240. Any time your CPU needs more time to work through all the hoops on top of that, you'll also have less responsive gaming.

Lower the target, problems likely fixed. Chasing this kind of FPS for online gaming is utter BS.

 

[electronicworld]

It has nothing to do with network, those online games use anticheat systems that goes deep into windows kernel. And the windows security settings are overloading them, causing massive latencies in OS.

 

[Vayra86]

It has nothing to do with network, those online games use anticheat systems that goes deep into windows kernel. And the windows security settings are overloading them, causing massive latencies in OS.

Its all added latency that is rooted in online play. Today its anti cheat, tomorrow its something else. The point is online you cannot count on the low latency you get local/offline.

 

[Cyanide3408]

I think its dead simple.

Your online games are not smooth at 240hz/FPS.
Your offline games are smooth.

You're bound to server tickrates, latency and network quality. The higher your FPS target the more likely you will notice anything NOT running at 240. Any time your CPU needs more time to work through all the hoops on top of that, you'll also have less responsive gaming.

Lower the target, problems likely fixed. Chasing this kind of FPS for online gaming is utter BS.

What do you mean by "lowering the target"? English is not my first language sorry, maybe I'm missing something.
It also depends on which online game do I play, in cs 1.6 (played it for tests only) it was butter smooth, in R6 Siege or Battlefield 4 it was acceptable, but still "laggy" in gunfights, in Battlefield V especially on Metro map (the most demanding one) let's say it's just comes to the point where it plays like 60 hz & is choppy unplayable mess.
Tested it on brother's PC who has similar specs, same games same scenarios, his PC is weaker but even with lower FPS (150) it was butter smooth, while on my PC (200+) it's choppy and I'm having some FPS drops/latency issues, even on dekstop.

 

[electronicworld]

What do you mean by "lowering the target"? English is not my first language sorry, maybe I'm missing something.
It also depends on which online game do I play, in cs 1.6 (played it for tests only) it was butter smooth, in R6 Siege or Battlefield 4 it was acceptable, but still "laggy" in gunfights, in Battlefield V especially on Metro map (the most demanding one) let's say it's just comes to the point where it plays like 60 hz & is choppy unplayable mess.
Tested it on brother's PC who has similar specs, same games same scenarios, his PC is weaker but even with lower FPS (150) it was butter smooth, while on my PC (200+) it's choppy and I'm having some FPS drops/latency issues, even on dekstop.

What OS is your brother on ?

 

[Cyanide3408]

What OS is your brother on ?

W10 pro, I think his installation is two years old & he has crap ton of junk on startup and other stuff, still smooth gaming for him, let it be R6 Siege, Warzone or WoW.
Meanwhile I tried W10, W11, revios/ggos, even Ubuntu at some point and it's all the same with from little to none improvements. That's why I started thinking it's hardware issue.

 

[Vayra86]

What do you mean by "lowering the target"? English is not my first language sorry, maybe I'm missing something.
It also depends on which online game do I play, in cs 1.6 (played it for tests only) it was butter smooth, in R6 Siege or Battlefield 4 it was acceptable, but still "laggy" in gunfights, in Battlefield V especially on Metro map (the most demanding one) let's say it's just comes to the point where it plays like 60 hz & is choppy unplayable mess.
Tested it on brother's PC who has similar specs, same games same scenarios, his PC is weaker but even with lower FPS (150) it was butter smooth, while on my PC (200+) it's choppy and I'm having some FPS drops/latency issues, even on dekstop.

You have just answered the question for yourself.

Lowering the target = lower the FPS cap you play at. Try 120. Its half your refresh rate, should be buttery smooth. Even better is using a lower native refresh rate on your monitor, most high refresh ones can lower their Hz to 100~120~144.

You will gain a lot: lower power draw of the PC, no more frame time variance, FPS will be locked to 120 all the time so your latency will also be the exact same between all frames. Its the best way to play competitively.

 

[electronicworld]

You have just answered the question for yourself.

Lowering the target = lower the FPS cap you play at. Try 120. Its half your refresh rate, should be buttery smooth. Even better is using a lower native refresh rate on your monitor, most high refresh ones can lower their Hz to 100~120~144.

Why would lowering the target framerate increase smoothness. You dont make any sense at all man. All he has to do is use msi afterburner with rivatuner, and set the frametime graph up. And check the fluctuations. Literally all esports players play on 240 fps on 240 hz.

W10 pro, I think his installation is two years old & he has crap ton of junk on startup and other stuff, still smooth gaming for him, let it be R6 Siege, Warzone or WoW.
Meanwhile I tried W10, W11, revios/ggos, even Ubuntu at some point and it's all the same with from little to none improvements. That's why I started thinking it's hardware issue.

I highly doubt its an hardware issue, i have sent you a private message if you want a piece of advice, it helped me a lot and my problems are gone.

 

[Vayra86]

Why would lowering the target framerate increase smoothness. You dont make any sense at all man. All he has to do is use msi afterburner with rivatuner, and set the frametime graph up. And check the fluctuations.

Try before you judge

Its very simple. If you can't get system latency low enough to consistently deliver 240 frames per second, you will have frametime variance which will impact overall sense of smoothness, additionally you have four frames of potential latency on any input you do because server tickrates are lower than 240hz. But not every time, you can also have your input processed by the server in one frame. Either way you're not getting a real advantage out of very high FPS because you're limited by other factors, it only introduces problems.

This is the umpteenth thread I see on the subject in 1,5 decade, things haven't changed over all this time. Online gamers chase performance metrics that supposedly improve their play, but it never really does, it only introduces more problems. Diminishing returns AND frametime stability issues are all directly attributable to playing above 120 FPS, give or take.

 

[electronicworld]

Try before you judge

Its very simple. If you can't get system latency low enough to consistently deliver 240 frames per second, you will have frametime variance which will impact overall sense of smoothness, additionally you have four frames of potential latency on any input you do because server tickrates are lower than 240hz. But not every time, you can also have your input processed by the server in one frame. Either way you're not getting a real advantage out of very high FPS because you're limited by other factors, it only introduces problems.

This is the umpteenth thread I see on the subject in 1,5 decade, things haven't changed over all this time. Online gamers chase performance metrics that supposedly improve their play, but it never really does, it only introduces more problems. Diminishing returns AND frametime stability issues are all directly attributable to playing above 120 FPS, give or take.

My brother in christ, trust me, this happens in offline games aswell. This is issue is directly caused by drivers being overloaded by the OS. Many drivers in fact, including GPU,Chipset,Audio,Storage etc etc.

 

[Vayra86]

My brother in christ, trust me, this happens in offline games aswell. This is issue is directly caused by drivers being overloaded by the OS. Many drivers in fact, including GPU,Chipset,Audio,Storage etc etc.

Please do post your solution in this topic then. I am interested in this.
The two aren't mutually exclusive either! Never intended to say you were wrong, you simply haven't posted your solution.

 

[electronicworld]

Please do post your solution in this topic then. I am interested in this.
The two aren't mutually exclusive either! Never intended to say you were wrong, you simply haven't posted your solution.

Why would somebody buy a high end pc with 240 hz monitor to play on 120 fps. I think you have the wrong mindset here.

 

[3x0]

Why would lowering the target framerate increase smoothness. You dont make any sense at all man.

Decreasing the GPU load and avoiding GPU utilization hitting 100% provides less input lag as the render queue never gets filled up. See this video as reference

 

[Vayra86]

Why would somebody buy a high end pc with 240 hz monitor to play on 120 fps. I think you have the wrong mindset here.

My mindset is fixing problems and offering possible solutions.

Again, do present yours instead of discussing what you think is wrong. That way we can all see what works for us and what does not.

 

[electronicworld]

My mindset is fixing problems and offering possible solutions.

Again, do present yours instead of discussing what you think is wrong. That way we can all see what works for us and what does not.

I got my amd system purchased back in 2021, i had this issue since i moved to windows 11. Getting worse with every build update, I am saying it has worked for me and might help other people. Why dont you try it for yourself ? I have nothing against you man, in fact i respect you for thinking differently, but i have tried what you have offered long before. You can go on AMD and Intel forums and see it for yourself many people having exact issue. And nobody is providing a real solution. People think AMD is a bad brand, its not. Its the Windows OS turning into bloatware every single generation, and it has started happening for INTEL users aswell.

 

[Vayra86]

I got my amd system purchased back in 2021, i had this issue since i moved to windows 11. Getting worse with every build update, I am saying it has worked for me and might help other people. Why dont you try it for yourself ? I have nothing against you man, in fact i respect you for thinking differently, but i have tried what you have offered long before. You can go on AMD and Intel forums and see it for yourself many people having exact issue. And nobody is providing a real solution.

Ah I see where you have posted the solution, its in that thread you linked above. Sorry, missed that.

I'm on W10 though and not intending to move up anytime soon.
Though that does get me thinking... why not roll back to 10 to fix this definitively? You also point out new build updates make it worse.

As for buying the 240hz... yeah. I would never advise anyone to go there in the first place for reasons mentioned earlier

 

[electronicworld]

Ah I see where you have posted the solution, its in that thread you linked above. Sorry, missed that.

I'm on W10 though and not intending to move up anytime soon.
Though that does get me thinking... why not roll back to 10 to fix this definitively? You also point out new build updates make it worse.

They have forced the same bloatware on W10 aswell. The other reason being is, windows 11 is snappy and fast. I believe the best way is to download the debloated windows versions online. Hell, they even require you to sign in to microsoft account nowadays, to set up the OS.

 

[Cyanide3408]

You have just answered the question for yourself.

Lowering the target = lower the FPS cap you play at. Try 120. Its half your refresh rate, should be buttery smooth. Even better is using a lower native refresh rate on your monitor, most high refresh ones can lower their Hz to 100~120~144.

You will gain a lot: lower power draw of the PC, no more frame time variance, FPS will be locked to 120 all the time so your latency will also be the exact same between all frames. Its the best way to play competitively.

But less fps means more frametime, more input lag (compared to 240fps/uncapped) and less smoothness on screen compared to 240, what's the point? I'm capping at 233 fps rn and it's still better due to vsync/gsync intrusion, but far from perfect.

Why would lowering the target framerate increase smoothness. You dont make any sense at all man. All he has to do is use msi afterburner with rivatuner, and set the frametime graph up. And check the fluctuations. Literally all esports players play on 240 fps on 240 hz.

I will post some screenshots videos later with MSI on, can't atm sry
Edit: found some, I'm down to do any more measurements & tests
1) Skyrim, starting location, butter smooth. Even outdoors it was ~200 fps with ~150 lows, perfectly playable

http://imgur.com/jaWjQnZ

2) R6 Siege, Terrorist Hunt mode (aka offline pve mode), despite having decent FPS gameplay is terrible, literally feels like 60 fps idk why

http://imgur.com/Zne5plQ

3) Battlefield V, Underground map (heaviest one so far), 1% 0.1% lows are crappy & gameplay is choppy, at least that's logical

http://imgur.com/2eqcRfP

So if it's in online games only, which I starting to think is the case actually, since even Hogwards/Cyberpunk are totally playable for me on 60-100 fps, what can be causing that? Bad LAN adapter, cables, ISP?

 

[Vayra86]

But less fps means more frametime, more input lag (compared to 240fps/uncapped) and less smoothness on screen compared to 240, what's the point? I'm capping at 233 fps rn and it's still better due to vsync/gsync intrusion, but far from perfect.


I will post some screenshots videos later with MSI on, can't atm sry

The point is removing your perceived issue with a sluggish feeling while having high FPS.

What's TRULY the point here, you might ask yourself - do you want to mimic what the professional E-sports players do (often in a LAN-environment, not shitty server #16912 of whatever game), or do you want the best gaming experience for yourself?

You have the experience now on 240hz. Is it better? Are you more competitive? Score better?
I think its a very interesting test for yourself to cap to 120hz now and see if it makes an actual difference. That way you can form your own opinion based on your own observations instead of feeding your experience on bullshit you see online, because the vast majority really is bullshit, and placebo - and this applies specifically to our 'perception' of games, you see it in audio too. Yes, a whole lot of the 'go bigger and higher' in numbers idea in PC gaming is pure and utter marketing-fed bullshit. Its the whole reason manufacturers can STILL get away with selling crappy TN panels in 2023 at a massive premium.

I love to separate what truly helps my gaming from what is effectively 99% placebo. Might be a hard reality check for people, but it is what it is, and fact is, diminishing returns are real.

 

[electronicworld]

I have played on both 60, 75 144 and 240 hz systems. Once you go 240 you cant go back. In lower fps, frametime is more consistent because of the low gap, hence it creates an illusion of smoothness. But it actually is not.

 

[3x0]

But less fps means more frametime, more input lag (compared to 240fps/uncapped) and less smoothness on screen compared to 240, what's the point? I'm capping at 233 fps rn and it's still better due to vsync/gsync intrusion, but far from perfect.

Have you watched the video I posted? Watch his other videos too, plenty of info on his channel as to why it's beneficial to (slightly) limit your FPS and avoid the render queue getting filled
Here's another one about input lag instead of frame pacing

 

[electronicworld]

Have you watched the video I posted? Watch his other videos too, plenty of info on his channel as to why it's beneficial to (slightly) limit your FPS and avoid the render queue getting filled
Here's another one about input lag instead of frame pacing

That video has been debunked a long time ago.

That video has been debunked a long time ago.

I'll post here the video proving it false. In a bit.

It depends on how to game engine fps limiter is implemented, has nothing to do with gpu usage hitting %100.