Massive stuttering after several minutes of smooth gameplay

[Rudolfia]

This stutter can get annoying sometimes especially when in the middle of a mission. My FPS is between 50 to 60 FPS during normal gameplay. But after around 20 to 30 minutes, the stuttering comes. It drops to 20 FPS for a few milliseconds then back to 60. Sometimes it gets longer and distorting the voice. It comes faster when I am in the camp, visiting cities, or in the night time.

Here is the things I've done so far to try to get rid of the stuttering.

1. Updating graphic card driver
2. Changing Vulkan to DX12 back and forth
3. Try changing graphic settings to lowest
4. Changing power plan. Both in windows and NVIDIA control panel
5. Installing SillyTube's tweak
6. Turning on and off VSync and Triple Buffering
7. Moving game installation files to SSD with 200 GB still available after moving
8. Set asyncComputeEnabled to true
9. Tweaking Reflection Quality, Water Quality, Volumetrics Quality and Near Volumetric Resolution to Low. Turning off MSAA

But none of the above works. The stuttering keeps coming. Curiously if I pause, alt-tab the game for a while, then come back, the stutter gone temporarily. Then it returns again.

I've checked the Task Manager to check what's dropping during the stuttering. During the normal game session, CPU usage is normal, not even reaching 50 % usage. GPU memory too, barely used half of the memory. But during the stuttering, both of them dropped for a moment then back to normal again.

Here is my current PC specs:

- AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 6 Core Processors (12 CPUs) 3,7GHz
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB
- 16 GB RAM
- Galax B550M (Motherboard)
- Windows 10 64 bit Home Edition

So far this only happens to this particular game. Others have no problems like this

[in]

Monitor temperatures. Along CPU/GPU/RAM usage.

[Rudolfia]

Originally posted by in:

Monitor temperatures. Along CPU/GPU/RAM usage.

Temperature seems normal. Around 65 to 75 degrees celcius. Sometimes the stuttering happens when the temperature is in 50 degree celcius.

CPU/GPU/RAM all normal as I said in my first post. There is a drop when stuttering happens in CPU and GPU graph. No drop in RAM. During normal gameplay, it doesn't reach 100% usage, barely half even

[in]

And you're not looking at them at the same task manager right?

[Rudolfia]

Originally posted by in:

And you're not looking at them at the same task manager right?

I don't understand what you mean. What I currently do is playing the game in borderless window with smaller resolution, opened a task manager and resource monitor on the side of the game window, then checked which part (CPU/GPU/RAM/Disk) got affected when the stutter happens. It's only one task manager window opened, "performance" tab

[Rudolfia]

This is the screenshot of Task Manager and Resource Monitor when stuttering happens. I've marked it with red lines below the graph

https://imgur.com/a/rxUUSou

[in]

Well there are no CPU temps. Download something like MSI afterburner and check all the info while ingame, max window, without alt tabbing.

[Man o' War]

Have you tried optimising the game using the NVIDIA Geforce experience app?

[Rudolfia]

Originally posted by in:

Well there are no CPU temps. Download something like MSI afterburner and check all the info while ingame, max window, without alt tabbing.

I'll try this one, after that I'll post here again

Originally posted by Man o' War:

Have you tried optimising the game using the NVIDIA Geforce experience app?

Yes, but it only makes it worse. FPS drops massively

[Groogo]

My PC heats up like a space heater when running this game, it raises the temperature of the entire room.

[Rudolfia]

After checking through MSI afterburner, looks like there is a temperature issue. During normal gameplay, the CPU temperature starts reaching 80 degress and steadily increasing. After it reaches 90 degrees, stutter starts to happen and the temperature drops a bit to 85 degrees and floating. In the meantime I'll try checking if the fan is blocked and do some clean up.

Quite strange since the PC is still new.

Anyway, thank you very much for the help. I will update here after I clean up the PC and try playing again

[Rudolfia]

Update: The stutter also happens when the CPU temperature is lower. Around 75 to 80 degrees

[in]

Well that lag at 90C was clearly thermal throttle. Idk why it starts at lower, did you check GPU temperatures too?
But in any case, you need to sort your CPU cooling. It should not be reaching that high even on full load. If it's new then it should not have much dust, but who knows. Maybe you bought it with a stock fan/paste was applied bad etc..

[JuiceWSA]

Originally posted by Rudolfia:

After checking through MSI afterburner, looks like there is a temperature issue. During normal gameplay, the CPU temperature starts reaching 80 degress and steadily increasing. After it reaches 90 degrees, stutter starts to happen and the temperature drops a bit to 85 degrees and floating. In the meantime I'll try checking if the fan is blocked and do some clean up.

Quite strange since the PC is still new.

Anyway, thank you very much for the help. I will update here after I clean up the PC and try playing again

Unless you live in a NASA Clean Room about 20 hours of this game does this to your rig:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2315491237

Just after the splash screen this place sounds like the deck of an aircraft carrier. A whole LOT of air is going through this thing and it ain't really Clean Room Clean in here.

I adjusted my fans to kick in sooner and and louder. I don't want to see 60C, much less 80.

Get some Air.
Kill The Ring Dang Doo.
(Note: that's not actually my fan, but I can imagine a lot of RDR2 equipment looks like that - this game will test your airflow)

[Man o' War]

That fan looks more like a cat hair problem rather than a dust problem.

[K9zz]

sounds like an issue i was having long time ago turned out my power supply was going bad and the fan on the power supply was clogged with dust