Camera stutters when panning

[JeloSWE]

What is this bad performance. I have a RTX 4090 + 13900K, I've tried everything. Vsync on and off. Full screen or Borderless. Frame rate limiting in and or Vsync in Nivida Panel. Nothing I do will get a smooth stable fps without stuttering when rotating the camera. 120 or 100 fps doesn't matter, even the lowest resolution and all effects set to low, it still stutters. The game can seem fine for a few moment, then suddenly the gets locked into a stuttery mess for a while. If I disable Vsync the game stutters markedly less, but still stutters occasionally, but now I have to deal with screen tearing.

Can the game only be played at a stable 60fps??? I need my 120hz so I can use Black Frame Insertion on my TV. Also VRR stutters equally bad, LOL.

I should at that in Nvidias Performance overlay the usage is only CPU 7% and GPU 30-40%

[Team17_Assist]

Hey JeloSWE,

We're sorry to hear you're having this issue, we've moved your thread across to the report a problem thread so that we can help further.

So that we can better understand the problem and recommend a solution, we would like to request that you please send us your DxDiag information via the steps below: 

1. Hold down the Windows Key and press R 
   
2. The Run dialog should appear. Type dxdiag in the available text field. 
   
3. Click OK 
   
4. Click Save All Information 
   
5. Set the Save as type to Text File (*.txt) 
   
6. Save the file DxDiag.txt to your Desktop so it is easy to find. 
   
7. Open the .txt file, copy all the contents > Paste all the contents to a free text hosting service such as https://justpaste.it/ or http://pastebin.com/
   
8. Copy the link to your post and paste in your reply

Once we have this information, we will do our best to further assist you in resolving this matter.

Regards,
Team17 Support

[JeloSWE]

https://justpaste.it/829ws

[Team17_Service]

Hey JeloSWE,

Thanks for getting back to us.

I've had a look through and it looks like your graphics drivers may be out of date, could you please download and install the latest drivers for your NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 card?

To do this please go to the NVIDIA web page here[www.nvidia.com] and follow the instructions.

I can also see that you have Corsair iCue installed on your system - iCue has been known to cause some performance issues with certain titles. Could you please uninstall iCue and see if the issue persists following this?

Get back to us when you can and let us know how you get on.

Regards,
Team17 Support

[JeloSWE]

I installed the latest Nvidia driver, I set iCUE to not start with widows and I've also disable the all the Integration and SDK toggles in the app. I run the game again after a complete restart of the system, set Vsync On, and then i pan the camera with my controller and I still get micro stutters, and uneven frame pacing. I'm thinking Shade Compilation but it doesn't resolve, the stutters are gone for a few moment, then they come back again.
I would argue a regular player, with a mouse would not notice this easily, but I work as an FX artist with games and have a keen eye for animation smoothens and this panning the camera is not rock solid smooth.
I could in a last ditch effort uninstall iCUE completely, but the fact remains that many other games run stably on my system without frame pacing and sutter issues.

I should add that when running the game with Nvidia Performance Overlay with ingame Vsync set to On, the fps won't reach 120fps, it's more like 104-116, even though no single core on the CPU is fully saturated, neither is the GPU with a load of around 20-40%. Disabling Vsync gets the FPS up to 300-500fps again and the sutters are much much fewer but still there when panning the camera. including tearing of course.

Edit: upon further testing. Killing the remaining Corsair Update Process in Task Manager, it seems the frame rate is finally stable in Vsync+120fps+camera panning in the current game area. Will test further.

Edit2: Nope, even after uninstalling iCUE and rebooting, I still get some stutters.

[Team17_Assist]

Hey JeloSWE,

Thanks for getting back to us.

Could you please if possible, share a short video of the issue with us so we can see exactly what is happening and what the issue looks like?

You can upload this as a link such as a YouTube link or you can email us the file here.[team17.helpshift.com]

Should you decide to email us, please include a link to this thread in your email!

Get back to us when you can.

Regards,
Team17 Support

[JeloSWE]

It's very tricky to convey the stuttering at 120fps as it's quite hard to both capture and replay videos at 120fps. I did an iPhone slo-mo capture at 120fps, the resulting video is 30fps played back at a quarter speed of the game. You can see the non smooth, jerky/stuttery camera movement in the first part of the video, once disabling Vsync the camera panning becomes very smooth.

That said, I can also have the game play smoothly with Vsync on when I turn it on again. It can depend on region and if there is fog or during the night. It runs better today over all than yesterday. Could this be Shader Compilation?

Video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XT98nKHE36oUS_JLvnKAf108MYxCfK7d/view?usp=drive_link

Edit: I noticed something weird, can be repeated on my side that once I get the game stuttering with Vsync On. Eg after a nights sleep, then if I disable it, and rotate the camera a little while, the stuttering settles. Then if I turn Vsync on again, the frame rate is mostly stable again.

[Team17_Assist]

Hey JeloSWE,

Thanks for your reply.

We're unable to access the file, can you please open the access so that we're able to check the video?

We do also see you're using a TV as your monitor, are you able to use another screen at all or a PC monitor to test if the issue continues?
It does also look like the TV is a 60hz screen which could also cause the issue in anything higher than that.

Monitor Model: SONY TV *30
Monitor Id: SNYC105
Native Mode: 3840 x 2160(p) (60.000Hz)

Can you please also confirm what resolution you are also using?

Get back to us when you can.

Regards,
Team17 Support

[JeloSWE]

This one should work https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XT98nKHE36oUS_JLvnKAf108MYxCfK7d/view?usp=sharing

The TV 85" X95K can do many refresh rates, 23, 24, 30, 50, 60, 100 and 120hz including VRR. I've tried the game with the TV set to native resolution 3840 x 2160 with refresh rates at 60, 100 and 120hz and the stuttering with Vsync is most noticeable at 100 and 120hz, there is the least amount of stutter at 60hz from my testing. Note that I'm using the TV in Game mode without any frame/motion interpolation.

Again, the stutters are not constant, they seem to worsen after a night sleep in the game at the some of the dock locations. If I disable Vsync and panned the camera and then reenabled the vsync it became pretty stable after that. It's like the game when loading new assets loses the sync and doesn't recover until I've toggled it.

[Team17_Assist]

Hey JeloSWE,

Thank you, we were able to view the video.

We do see what you're referring to, almost as though it's stepping as turning.

Are you using the 85" X95K or the SONY TV *30 as we see the Sony as the screen your GPU is connected to, we do not see another screen.

Have you tried lower resolutions such as 1920x1080p at all? or 1440p?

We can also see the different DPI being used:

User DPI Setting: 120 DPI (125 percent)
System DPI Setting: 288 DPI (300 percent)

Can you please make these both the same number and see whether anything changes afterwards?
Can you please also attempt putting the scale and layout to 100% or 125% and see whether the same issue continues?

You can right-click the desktop - display settings - scroll to 'scale' and change this to 100% or 125% and see if there is any change.

Get back to us when you can!

Regards,
Team17 Support

[JeloSWE]

SONY TV *30 is just the hardware ID of the TV. The actual human readable name of the TV model is 85" X95K that is used in stores.

When you ask me to lower resolution, are you asking me to lower it ingame (running in borderless mode) or change the Windows desktop to 1920x180? Also the TV does not support 1440p resolutions.

User DPI Setting: 120 DPI (125 percent) -> I changed this as a user in Display settings to 100%.

System DPI Setting: 288 DPI (300 percent) -> This one I don't know how to change.

Over all, the game runs more stable the more I've played it. But a nights sleep or arrival of night or other fog seems to trigger it. Once it's settled down the fps is mostly stable with vsync on. But one place it triggers fairly easily is when we see most of Twisted Strand in with fog and trees from a bit outside (12:H on the map). I guess it could have to do with overdraw or some fillrate thing going on here. But once the stutter starts it's like the rendering is out of step with the displays vsync until you turn vsync off and then on again after panning the camera a bit.

Edit: I played the game at 120hz in Borderless but now changed Desktop resolution to 1920x1080p and there is very little to no stuttering with vsync on, only some occasional one every now and then when traversing. This then makes me wonder if there is some overdraw/fillrate issue, despite 4090 being a beast of a card and not loaded more than 40%. Perhaps there is some limitations that doesn't show in the GPU utilization, the same way a game can be CPU limited despite only showing 10% usage if an important process is run on one core and saturating that core to 100%.

[Team17_Assist]

Hey JeloSWE,

Thanks for getting back to us and for sharing that information.

Apologies, we shared the system DPI to show the difference between the two, you would not be able to change this.

We're glad to hear that you were able to resolve the issue somewhat with a lower resolution.

In the meantime we have passed this on to the team to take a look into our side.

If we need any further information we will get back in touch with you.

Thank you!

Regards,
Team17 Support