My "fix" for the stuttering problem

[Ottfried Otterbass]

I've had a lot of trouble with constant stuttering since I started playing Elden Ring again, although it can't be the fault of my Hardware in the slightest as it was able to play the game cleanly when it was released. After some back and forth, evenings on Reddit and my own "research", I wanted to share with you the solution that worked for me.

It's widely known that Elden Ring isn't particularly good with USB drivers. I noticed that the device manager refreshes itself every time there is a stutter. After the typical "make sure the USB parts don't turn off through energy saving measures" I wanted to test whether things might actually work better if certain USB devices are no longer connected, and lo and behold, as soon as the cheap USB camera was gone there was no more stuttering!

A list of what definitely helped me:
1. Turn Vsync on permanently and global driver-specifically in the GPU driver.
2. Set PC power settings globally to maximum.
3. Look for possible “USB perpetrators” and gradually unplug each device that is not in use.
4. Switch off the “Microsoft Device Association Root Enumerator” in Device Manager.

I'll spare you the blah blah about keeping drivers up to date and meeting minimum requirements.

These solutions also helped ensure that the controller no longer disconnects from Bluetooth and even switches it off completely until the hard reset.

Maybe my amateur PC shamanship will help one or the other.

[purpl3 h4z3]

Borderless Windowed helps too

[ℝℯ⊻ℯℵℊ∄❤]

Originally posted by purpl3 h4z3:

Borderless Windowed helps too

what this guy said, lol

[vsrs]

For me, it was something completely different: I had to disable e-cores in my BIOS, and the stuttering (which was so bad I couldn't play the game) just vanished.

[purpl3 h4z3]

Originally posted by vsrs:

For me, it was something completely different: I had to disable e-cores in my BIOS, and the stuttering (which was so bad I couldn't play the game) just vanished.

Which cpu do you have?

[causality]

Originally posted by purpl3 h4z3:

Borderless Windowed helps too

Not sure why this works but it does which is weird because back in ye olde days we all thought playing games in full screen gave better performance.

[Despiser]

Originally posted by causality:

Originally posted by purpl3 h4z3:

Borderless Windowed helps too

Not sure why this works but it does which is weird because back in ye olde days we all thought playing games in full screen gave better performance.

That was true before screens were capable of higher than 60 hz refresh rates. From what I understand it’s capped at 60 hz for full screen.

[Despiser]

Originally posted by Ottfried von Otterbass:

I've had a lot of trouble with constant stuttering since I started playing Elden Ring again, although it can't be the fault of my Hardware in the slightest as it was able to play the game cleanly when it was released. After some back and forth, evenings on Reddit and my own "research", I wanted to share with you the solution that worked for me.

It's widely known that Elden Ring isn't particularly good with USB drivers. I noticed that the device manager refreshes itself every time there is a stutter. After the typical "make sure the USB parts don't turn off through energy saving measures" I wanted to test whether things might actually work better if certain USB devices are no longer connected, and lo and behold, as soon as the cheap USB camera was gone there was no more stuttering!

A list of what definitely helped me:
1. Turn Vsync on permanently and global driver-specifically in the GPU driver.
2. Set PC power settings globally to maximum.
3. Look for possible “USB perpetrators” and gradually unplug each device that is not in use.
4. Switch off the “Microsoft Device Association Root Enumerator” in Device Manager.

I'll spare you the blah blah about keeping drivers up to date and meeting minimum requirements.

These solutions also helped ensure that the controller no longer disconnects from Bluetooth and even switches it off completely until the hard reset.

Maybe my amateur PC shamanship will help one or the other.

Yeah playing with unnecessary USB devices connected should be automatic. The problem with playing on high power is noise. I’m still mystified why this problem seems to plague some systems, especially powerful rigs, which mine is not.

[ℝℯ⊻ℯℵℊ∄❤]

I can say the FPS Unlocker MOD for this game is amazing. Since the game by default is locked to 60, whenever you get stutter it's going to constantly be knocking your fps below 60.
I lock it to 120fps 144hz, smooth as butter. If you get drops the fps is always going to be greater then 60 so you don't feel it.

[Cody]

If you have a 13th generation processor limit the game to only use your p-cores, all problems will be solved. The game doesn't know how to distinguish e-cores from p-cores and destroys performance if you don't.

[RUACHIAH]

Just turn off SMT for AMD CPUs or Hyperthreading for Intel CPUs. That is the solution.

[Despiser]

Originally posted by Cody:

If you have a 13th generation processor limit the game to only use your p-cores, all problems will be solved. The game doesn't know how to distinguish e-cores from p-cores and destroys performance if you don't.

My modest rig of 13700h and rtx 4060 experiences no stutter at all in default configuration. I would only disable e-cores as a last resort since it does adversely affect other apps, especially productivity apps, that make use of them. If you only play games you can probably disable them, but the question remains, why only some 12 and 13 generation cpus are affected? I wonder if others with my setup are experiencing stutter? It's a mystery why a dev as big as FS cannot pin it down.

[Killer Beast 77]

Originally posted by Ottfried von Otterbass:

I've had a lot of trouble with constant stuttering since I started playing Elden Ring again, although it can't be the fault of my Hardware in the slightest as it was able to play the game cleanly when it was released. After some back and forth, evenings on Reddit and my own "research", I wanted to share with you the solution that worked for me.

It's widely known that Elden Ring isn't particularly good with USB drivers. I noticed that the device manager refreshes itself every time there is a stutter. After the typical "make sure the USB parts don't turn off through energy saving measures" I wanted to test whether things might actually work better if certain USB devices are no longer connected, and lo and behold, as soon as the cheap USB camera was gone there was no more stuttering!

A list of what definitely helped me:
1. Turn Vsync on permanently and global driver-specifically in the GPU driver.
2. Set PC power settings globally to maximum.
3. Look for possible “USB perpetrators” and gradually unplug each device that is not in use.
4. Switch off the “Microsoft Device Association Root Enumerator” in Device Manager.

I'll spare you the blah blah about keeping drivers up to date and meeting minimum requirements.

These solutions also helped ensure that the controller no longer disconnects from Bluetooth and even switches it off completely until the hard reset.

Maybe my amateur PC shamanship will help one or the other.

do you run windows 11 or windows 10 ?

[BaumJOHN]

Ran into my very own version of this problem. After a lot of trial and error I finally worked it out.
For me the culprit was a device which was randomly connecting to my PC every 20 or so minutes. This caused my Game to hard freeze for about 5 seconds.
Just as if I had just removed a USB drive or similar.

But here's the thing it wasn't a usb device, it was a Network device.
A friggin Fire TV Stick was "pinging" my PC every 20 Minutes to tell it, that it was available as a Media Server... This triggered a registration in the device manager and caused the stutter.
I found the culprit by checking the Windows event viewer.

Application and services -> Windows -> DeviceSetupManager - > Admin: The event showed up with event ID 112.

My solution was just to ditch the fire TV stick. And voila no more stuttering.
Disabling network discovery on the PC should also work as an easy work around.

Hope this helps anyone with a similar issue.

Cheers!

[GL1TcH]

Originally posted by Αρχάγγελος Μιχαή:

Just turn off SMT for AMD CPUs or Hyperthreading for Intel CPUs. That is the solution.

Will it affect the normal functioning of my Laptop?

[RUACHIAH]

Originally posted by Sensei:

Originally posted by Αρχάγγελος Μιχαή:

Just turn off SMT for AMD CPUs or Hyperthreading for Intel CPUs. That is the solution.

Will it affect the normal functioning of my Laptop?

If you do not do parallel-processing intensive tasks such as rendering a video or a 3d scene, then, no.