Constant 60 FPS, but stuttering - help pls!

[LeR00kie]

Today I got my Steam Deck and I love it!
But I have every 10-20 seconds stuttering although the fps display shows stable and constant 60 fps. It feels like framedrops but it shows 60 fps all the time.
Can someone help me? Is there a fix?
Thank you so much ♥

[Anathemas]

What game(s) are having this issue? If I had to blind guess, I would suspect the game you are trying to play is trying to load in textures from a slow drive, like a memory card instead of the onboard storage. Sounds like the game(s) you are playing require more throughput of data than the storage card can provide. This is just a blind guess though. You gotta let us know more about the games and what is happening...

Which model of Steam Deck do you own?
If you are using a memory card to store games, which memory card is it?
Have you tried lowering the graphics requirements on the game(s) you are playing?
Have you tried lowering the resolution you are playing at in the game settings?
Have you tried playing other games with less system requirements to compare the experience?

[LeR00kie]

Im playing Metal Gear Solid 5 on the NVME SSD from the 512GB Steam Deck version.
I tried lowering graphics, resolution, nothing helped
This was my first game on the steam deck and I will try another game
It shows constant 60 fps but it feels like its dropping to 40/45 fps or something

[@R+5]

why dont you try playing with 40 fps fixed? that seems to help prevent stutering in many games, and also reduces the energy consumption. a faster disk only helps to reduce loading speeds, but "playback" is limited by gpu and a bit by ram + cpu.

[LeR00kie]

Because 60 fps is smoother and Iam really sure, that the Steam Deck can handle this game with constant 60 frames.... And aslong as I can charge the battery the energy consumption is not really important to me. Iam very sure its a bug or something...

[@R+5]

maybe this can help
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpit6ddQZC8

[LeR00kie]

Originally posted by @R+5:

maybe this can help
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpit6ddQZC8

ill give it a try, thank you :)

[SmokeyB]

This is a known problem with game mode on Steam Deck. People here commenting don't know what they're talking about. Try it with desktop mode. I notice these stutters/frame pacing issues as well, it's something called wayland/gamescope forcing system wide vsync. In desktop mode it should run stutter free because there's no wayland protocol.

[LeR00kie]

Originally posted by SmokeyB:

This is a known problem with game mode on Steam Deck. People here commenting don't know what they're talking about. Try it with desktop mode. I notice these stutters/frame pacing issues as well, it's something called wayland/gamescope forcing system wide vsync. In desktop mode it should run stutter free because there's no wayland protocol.

Okay, I know how to get into Desktop Mode, but how can I start games from this mode?

[Bee🐝]

Originally posted by LeR00kie:

Originally posted by SmokeyB:

This is a known problem with game mode on Steam Deck. People here commenting don't know what they're talking about. Try it with desktop mode. I notice these stutters/frame pacing issues as well, it's something called wayland/gamescope forcing system wide vsync. In desktop mode it should run stutter free because there's no wayland protocol.

Okay, I know how to get into Desktop Mode, but how can I start games from this mode?

The same way you do it on any PC - start the Steam Client and press play, The client will still handle the Proton side of things.

Edit: The Deck is a PC before everything else; basic desktop mode literally works like every other OS.

[LeR00kie]

Originally posted by Bee:

Originally posted by LeR00kie:

Okay, I know how to get into Desktop Mode, but how can I start games from this mode?

The same way you do it on any PC - start the Steam Client and press play, The client will still handle the Proton side of things.

Edit: The Deck is a PC before everything else; basic desktop mode literally works like every other OS.

Thank you, I will try it!

[LeR00kie]

Originally posted by SmokeyB:

This is a known problem with game mode on Steam Deck. People here commenting don't know what they're talking about. Try it with desktop mode. I notice these stutters/frame pacing issues as well, it's something called wayland/gamescope forcing system wide vsync. In desktop mode it should run stutter free because there's no wayland protocol.

Thank you so much! The stuttering is complety gone!

[Calamity]

Glad to see this post, I have that weird stutter at 60 fps too and found that just settling mg fps to locked 59 would improve it. But switching to desktop mode and using big screen is preferable. Thanks

[lyndonguitar]

was this ever fixed? any workarounds?

[lyndonguitar]

Originally posted by SmokeyB:

This is a known problem with game mode on Steam Deck. People here commenting don't know what they're talking about. Try it with desktop mode. I notice these stutters/frame pacing issues as well, it's something called wayland/gamescope forcing system wide vsync. In desktop mode it should run stutter free because there's no wayland protocol.

was this ever fixed? any workarounds?