Why can't I get this game to have smooth performance?

[MoosePotato666]

I don't get it. I have a 4070ti, 7800x3D, 32GB DDR5, it's on a Samsung SSD. I'm getting high fps but it's so choppy, like the frame pacing is off or something. I've Googled several suggestions to make it smoother but absolutely nothing works.

Is there ANY reliable fix for this? It's incredibly annoying and ruins the experience. What's the point of getting 120+ fps on average if it has severe, very visible micro stutters ever few seconds?

[T O S H I I E]

It's the game, I also have stutters and loss of fps when running on a street or when climbing buildings.

[commondivisor]

Try limiting the framerate in Nvidia settings for this game profile. For example, if your monitor is syncing to 60 hz, limit the fps to 62.

[Star]

Originally posted by commondivisor:

Try limiting the framerate in Nvidia settings for this game profile. For example, if your monitor is syncing to 60 hz, limit the fps to 62.

Dumbest ♥♥♥♥ I've heard. If your monitor is 60hz, you have to cap it to 60, otherwise there's gonna be screentearing without gsync.

Either way. It's an open world unreal engine game mate, stutters galore. Nothing you can do about it.

[scrollo]

Setting Low Latency mode to Ultra fixed this for me on similar hardware.

You can also try disabling Control Flow Guard for the game executable (don't disable system wide, only for the program) if on Windows 11 (under Exploit Protection), if the above doesn't work on its own. This is a general fix for any UE4 game as this setting can conflict.

[drperry]

Try turning off SMT in the BIOS, if you're already using an NVME drive.

Doing so smoothed out a LOT of games, on my 5950x.

Unless you're doing a lot of productivity tasks, you don't need all the hyperthreading, anyway, since very few games leverage that many threads.

You'll also get a drop in CPU temps, and a slight clock speed increase.

I get between 75 and 90 FPS at 1440P with everything cranked to max, with no stutters, on a 5950x and 3090 running at 8x instead of 16x

[commondivisor]

I should have also mentioned turning on vsync. The stutters on a powerful system are frames being dropped because there is no time to display them. Limiting to 62 fps instead of 60 with vsync on the driver default value on my system. The extra 2 fps is just to correct for fluctuations or errors in the fps calculation.

I have tested fps limiting on this game and on Starfield. For this game, the stuttering is there without the fps limiting, and gone with it on. Without the limiting, Starfield for me is virtually unplayable due to the choppiness.

My specs are very close to the OP.

[󠀡󠀡]

It's a console port I think, the controls feel awful.

[drperry]

Originally posted by commondivisor:

I should have also mentioned turning on vsync. The stutters on a powerful system are frames being dropped because there is no time to display them. Limiting to 62 fps instead of 60 with vsync on the driver default value on my system. The extra 2 fps is just to correct for fluctuations or errors in the fps calculation.

I have tested fps limiting on this game and on Starfield. For this game, the stuttering is there without the fps limiting, and gone with it on. Without the limiting, Starfield for me is virtually unplayable due to the choppiness.

My specs are very close to the OP.

Having higher FPS than your refresh rate does not directly cause stuttering. You may get tearing, but not stuttering. The frame drops happen because either your RAM, storage, or your CPU isn't keeping up to the demand of the GPU.

I have a slower CPU and equivalent or slower GPU than OP, and I get NO stuttering. I do not have frame limiting on. I even lowered my refresh rate to 60hz to see if I could reproduce it. No stuttering.

Starfield has also never stuttered for me. Lower FPS than other games due to poor coding, yes, but no stuttering.

Install the game on a good NVME drive, make sure your memory speed and timings are set properly, and if those don't help, disable SMT on AMD processors.

[Star]

Originally posted by drperry:

Originally posted by commondivisor:

I should have also mentioned turning on vsync. The stutters on a powerful system are frames being dropped because there is no time to display them. Limiting to 62 fps instead of 60 with vsync on the driver default value on my system. The extra 2 fps is just to correct for fluctuations or errors in the fps calculation.

I have tested fps limiting on this game and on Starfield. For this game, the stuttering is there without the fps limiting, and gone with it on. Without the limiting, Starfield for me is virtually unplayable due to the choppiness.

My specs are very close to the OP.

Having higher FPS than your refresh rate does not directly cause stuttering. You may get tearing, but not stuttering. The frame drops happen because either your RAM, storage, or your CPU isn't keeping up to the demand of the GPU.

I have a slower CPU and equivalent or slower GPU than OP, and I get NO stuttering. I do not have frame limiting on. I even lowered my refresh rate to 60hz to see if I could reproduce it. No stuttering.

Starfield has also never stuttered for me. Lower FPS than other games due to poor coding, yes, but no stuttering.

Install the game on a good NVME drive, make sure your memory speed and timings are set properly, and if those don't help, disable SMT on AMD processors.

What stuttering are even talking about then? Camera panning stutter?
I'm on a 165hz gsync screen, I usually cap my fps via rivatuner to a sensible number and have CP vsync forced on in every title. However, there is no way to avoid asset load stutter and/or shader cache stutter issues in many games. They are present due to sloppy programming. And no fiddling with low latency mode will eliminate those.

Looking at Ghostwire - it has BOTH. Both asset load stutter and shader cache issues are present. If you don't see any, that just means that you are incapable of noticing it, like many ignorant people are, who claim that [insert-game-title] is bUtTeRsMoOtH

Starfield is on a completely different engine. This runs on unreal engine 4, and unless specifically addressed by the devs during development, it's bound to stutter

[Star]

Originally posted by commondivisor:

I should have also mentioned turning on vsync. The stutters on a powerful system are frames being dropped because there is no time to display them. Limiting to 62 fps instead of 60 with vsync on the driver default value on my system. The extra 2 fps is just to correct for fluctuations or errors in the fps calculation.

I have tested fps limiting on this game and on Starfield. For this game, the stuttering is there without the fps limiting, and gone with it on. Without the limiting, Starfield for me is virtually unplayable due to the choppiness.

My specs are very close to the OP.

Vsync locks your fps to 60 if you're on a 60hz monitor. If, for any performance reason, you drop lower than 60, vsync will half your refresh rate and display 30 fps during those drops.

Whether you limit the framerate to 62 or 162 is irrelevant and has no effect if it's above your refresh rate. Locking it to 60/59.99/59.95 etc.(depending on your monitor) through rivatuner, will minimize input lag and might produce a smoother picture in motion.

Google blurbusters low lag vsync on and g-sync 101 if you want a proper explanation, guide and examples

[drperry]

Originally posted by Star:

Originally posted by drperry:

Having higher FPS than your refresh rate does not directly cause stuttering. You may get tearing, but not stuttering. The frame drops happen because either your RAM, storage, or your CPU isn't keeping up to the demand of the GPU.

I have a slower CPU and equivalent or slower GPU than OP, and I get NO stuttering. I do not have frame limiting on. I even lowered my refresh rate to 60hz to see if I could reproduce it. No stuttering.

Starfield has also never stuttered for me. Lower FPS than other games due to poor coding, yes, but no stuttering.

Install the game on a good NVME drive, make sure your memory speed and timings are set properly, and if those don't help, disable SMT on AMD processors.

What stuttering are even talking about then? Camera panning stutter?
I'm on a 165hz gsync screen, I usually cap my fps via rivatuner to a sensible number and have CP vsync forced on in every title. However, there is no way to avoid asset load stutter and/or shader cache stutter issues in many games. They are present due to sloppy programming. And no fiddling with low latency mode will eliminate those.

Looking at Ghostwire - it has BOTH. Both asset load stutter and shader cache issues are present. If you don't see any, that just means that you are incapable of noticing it, like many ignorant people are, who claim that [insert-game-title] is bUtTeRsMoOtH

Starfield is on a completely different engine. This runs on unreal engine 4, and unless specifically addressed by the devs during development, it's bound to stutter

I'm very capable of seeing it, so if it's happening, it's so minuscule that it's irrelevant, on my system.

Running old crossfire setups make noticing issues like that second nature.

Not everyone suffers problems to the same extent as others. I know you can't fathom people playing games without issues, but it is fairly common 😂

Seriously though, on AMD systems, disabling SMT fixed a LOT of micro stuttering and frame pacing issues on my rig.

Either AMD or Microsoft has issues with core scheduling/parking. Weird as fack.

Games that have internal benchmarks used to have massive lows dropping to below 45FPS and was VERY noticeable from the average frame rate. That does not happen anymore, in any game.

So either SMT was my specific problem (even though multiple other people show performance improvements without SMT), or having more RAM/VRAM, and/or a more stable or faster NVME drive is mitigating the problem so much that it's not noticeable anymore.


And so I'm not quoting a second post:

V-sync does not change your refresh rate like G-Sync and FreeSync do. Those two technologies drop the refresh rate to keep the game appearing smooth.

V-Sync limits you when you exceed your refresh rate to prevent screen tearing, and often causes input lag due to the frame buffering. If your FPS is lower than your refresh rate, V-sync does nothing.

If V-sync adjusted refresh rates, then neither AMD or Nvidia would have spent the money on marketing G-sync or FreeSync, lol.

[turn heel]

this is pretty disappointing. i turned everything off as well as used the minimum resolution - max my fps peaked is 12. does it run better on nvidia? my pc is brand new, may not be high range but this is just ridiculous.

Processor AMD Ryzen 7 7700 8-Core Processor 3.80 GHz
Installed RAM 32.0 GB (31.1 GB usable)
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
running an RX 7600, what am i doing wrong?

[Bankai9212]

Set level of detail streaming to auto that option has been bugged since launch.