Tried everything but cannot fix my stuttering!

[Deleted member 241745]

Please read the whole post before suggesting something already done

Hi all, I'm making this post as I am simply out of ideas now trying to solve a stutter issue that I have been suffering from for multiple years in Destiny 2. The stutter occurs infrequently and randomly, and at this point, you might be inclined to blame the game as I do not experience this anywhere else, but I have asked multiple friends and they do not experience this stutter - so there must be something on my end that is causing this. This was not always an issue I've had with the game, but recall it occurring at least since the Beyond Light expansion (2020). Potentially there is some unknown conflict since then that is causing this?

The stutter looks like this (only the game freezes, not the audio):

• Example 1
• Example 2
• Example 3
• Example 4
• Example 5
• Example 6
• Example 7
• Example 8

This has happened across two completely different PCs, where every single piece of hardware has changed (including peripherals and monitors). Full specs of both setups are here:

Current PC:

• CPU: Intel Core i7-13700K
• CPU Cooler: Arctic Liquid Freezer II 240
• Motherboard: MSI MAG Z690 Tomahawk WIFI
• RAM: Kingston FURY Beast DDR5 32GB 6000MT/s CL36
• Storage 1: Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB
• Storage 2: Samsung 980 Pro 2TB
• Storage 3: Samsung 980 Pro 1TB
• Storage 4: Intel 760p 512GB
• GPU: MSI GeForce RTX 4080 Ventus 3X OC
• Case: Fractal Design Meshify 2 Compact
• Power Supply: EVGA SuperNova 850 P6

Current Peripherals:

• Monitor 1: LG 27GP95RP
• Monitor 2: Dell P2314H
• Mouse: Logitech G PRO X Superlight 2
• Keyboard: Ducky One 3 RGB TKL
• Headphones: Drop + EPOS PC38X
• Speakers: Creative Stage SE Mini

Old PC:

• CPU: Intel Core i9-9900K
• CPU Cooler: Be Quiet Dark Rock 4
• Motherboard: Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Ultra
• RAM: Crucial Ballistix Sport LT DDR4 32GB 3200MT/s CL16
• Storage 1: Samsung 970 Evo 2TB
• Storage 2: Western Digital Blue SN550 2TB
• GPU: EVGA GeForce RTX 3080
• Case: Fractal Design Meshify C
• Power Supply: Seasonic Focus Plus Platinum 750 W

Old Peripherals:

• Monitor: LG 27GP850
• Mouse: Logitech G403
• Keyboard: Corsair K65 RGB TKL
• Headphones: Sennheiser Game One
• Speakers: Dell AC511

My currently installed programs are here:

• 7-Zip
• Battle.net
• Bitwarden
• Brave
• Calculator
• Discord
• EA Desktop
• Epic Games
• Firefox
• HWiNFO
• KeePass
• Microsoft Office
• MSI Afterburner
• Notepad
• Notepad++
• NVIDIA app
• Paint
• Paint.net
• Photos
• Rockstar Games
• Snipping Tool
• Steam
• Terminal
• Ubisoft Connect
• VLC Media Player

I've tried the following with no difference:

• Changed ISPs
• Changed PCIe slot gen to match GPU
• Clean installed Windows (10 and 11 both have the issue)
• Completely updated PC and all internal and external components
• Deleted game config file (cvars.xml) and reset all settings to default
• Disabled / enabled CPU core parking
• Disabled / enabled CPU undervolt
• Disabled / enabled Discord overlay
• Disabled / enabled fps limit (driver / in-game)
• Disabled / enabled fullscreen optimisations
• Disabled / enabled GPU undervolt
• Disabled / enabled G-sync (including monitor VRR)
• Disabled / enabled HAGS
• Disabled / enabled NVIDIA overlay (tried GFE and app)
• Disabled / enabled NVIDIA Reflex (tried on and on + boost)
• Disabled / enabled ReBAR
• Disabled / enabled Steam overlay
• Disabled / enabled V-sync (driver / in-game)
• Disabled / enabled Windows default graphics settings (variable refresh rate / optimisation for windowed games)
• Disabled / enabled Windows DoH and tried different DNS providers (Cloudflare / Google)
• Disabled / enabled Windows game mode
• Disabled / enabled XMP
• Disabled Windows memory integrity
• Installed the game to a drive that is not C
• Moved to different properties (same country)
• Removing / installing Game Bar
• Set game to high priority in task manager
• Set game to prefer maximum performance in NVIDIA driver
• Set Steam friends to offline
• Set Windows performance plan to high performance
• Tried many different NVIDIA driver versions over several years
• Tried wired vs wireless peripherals
• Updated misc drivers (chipset, audio, ethernet, WiFi, BT)
• Used SRE and CRU to delete extra display resolutions

Additional info:

• I am playing via ethernet exclusively (WiFi and Bluetooth are disabled)
• I am playing with max in-game graphics settings (excluding DoF disabled) - my plan is to go one by one to see if changing any of the settings makes a difference
• I have not run any random PC cleaning software or scripts on my PC ever (only CMD-based change is disabling hibernation)
• LatencyMon does not have any standout latency spikes
• No components in the PC are overheating in any way (verified through HWiNFO64)
• PC performance is as expected in all titles including Destiny 2 - average fps and 1% lows are fine
• Switching between windowed fullscreen and exclusive fullscreen in-game does not fix, and Destiny 2 natively supports DXGI flip model
• This is not an Intel hybrid core issue with e-cores, as the issue was present on my old PC with an i9-9900K
• Under "turn Windows features on or off" (legacy control panel menu) there is nothing enabled - the only optional features installed are Notepad and Wordpad
• Whilst I have not noted explicitly here, in all cases software / drivers / BIOS were on the latest available versions at the time across both PC setups

Here is a HWiNFO64 log at 500ms intervals. The yellow highlighted line is when a stutter occurs (from example 7): Google Drive link here

I truly cannot think of anything else to try. Is there anyone who has also experienced an issue like this and managed to resolve it (either in Destiny 2 or another game), or are there any random potential fixes that are out there which could fix a stutter like this? I feel like I've tried everything both obvious and obscure, but feel free to suggest ideas regardless.

Thanks in advance!

 

[kilo]

Somethings to check out would be

1. Mouse polling rates in Logitech software
2. If your Logitech software is spamming a large amount of udp packets over your network to look for apps. (You can use tcpview from Microsoft or something like peerblock to see traffic spam and find lcore.exe dependent files. I think its in a subfolder called apps.)
3. Change your mousepad
4. Disable prefetch and superfetch
5. This could be disputable: modify your page file to a second SSD and make sure it creates/allocated the same size it expands to (aka, min and max value are the same and in the range of 1:1 size with your ram. you can play with the settings quite a bit but keep the starting and max size the same)

Good luck

 

[Veseleil]

Somethings to check out would be

1. Mouse polling rates in Logitech software
2. If your Logitech software is spamming a large amount of udp packets over your network to look for apps. (You can use tcpview from Microsoft or something like peerblock to see traffic spam and find lcore.exe dependent files. I think its in a subfolder called apps.)
3. Change your mousepad
4. Disable prefetch and superfetch
5. This could be disputable: modify your page file to a second SSD and make sure it creates/allocated the same size it expands to (aka, min and max value are the same and in the range of 1:1 size with your ram. you can play with the settings quite a bit but keep the starting and max size the same)

Good luck

Agreed with all said.
I'd add my thoughts on advice:
4. Services -> SysMain -> disable.
5. I'd try completely disabling the page file. Only a few apps need it anyway, and none are related to gaming AFAIK. I'm living without it for over a decade in total.

 

[GerKNG]

you did all of this because you play a game that is notorious for constant loading spikes and stuttering since it came out?
i have the exact same stuttering in D2 since it launched on battle.net