Stuttering is just ruining my attempts at enjoying this game

[nimeoa]

I'm desperately trying to play this game again and enjoy it for what it is before the DLC. The traversal stuttering on every planet, whether empty or not, no matter what settings I use, is so bad every time new assets are loaded in. Even simple rocks in the distance. The rover only makes the issue even worse. I have an i9 13900k, RTX 4090, 32GB of RAM, and the game is installed on a Samsung NVMe SSD.

Every time I look up this issue, all I see are people saying how smooth their game is and that they have no issues. Can someone please post a video of them traversing a planet, fast, and show no stuttering? I feel like I'm insane, as if I'm the only one who has this problem. I'm having a hard time believing my hardware can't handle this game.

[minisith]

Update/reinstall CPU and GPU drivers. That is the first step. See if it helps.

There are more things you can try if it does not help.

[pike]

i know there's important bios update for intel cpu's ,
if you have frame gen on , turn it off , you dont need it and that can cause a stutter
and then there's mods ,
if you have any look for conflicts , updates and check your load order

[nimeoa]

Originally posted by pike:

i know there's important bios update for intel cpu's ,
if you have frame gen on , turn it off , you dont need it and that can cause a stutter
and then there's mods ,
if you have any look for conflicts , updates and check your load order

Oh yeah, I've got that bios update. I've tried just about every graphics setting and combo I can think of.

[pike]

i'm not on nvidia or intel so i cant really be much help beyond that ,
something has to be misconfigged , you should run the game no problem

[wyodinosaur]

Do you have any background processes running? And you might want to monitor your CPU usage while running the game and see if it is maxing out at times. If it is, there is a programme that limits CPU usage that might help: Battle Encoder Shirase https://mion.yosei.fi/BES/. Set it at around -8.

[nimeoa]

Yep, I've tried BES to limit my CPU usage, too. No luck. Even when I play, CPU usage never seems to go above 50%. I'm genuinely at a loss. Every other game I play runs flawlessly.

[tkwoods]

OP might want to check bios and research the current issues with Intel I7 and I9 in the higher tier. Seem the cpu's have problem that can lead to complete burnout.

[nimeoa]

Originally posted by Xenophobe:

What's your monitor refresh rate? Using vsync, gsync, freesync, wtfsync? Could be a simple setting hidden where you least expect it ... I use a 60Hz refresh rate 4K tv for a monitor and found setting my display settings in the OS from 60 to 59.94 eliminated the stuttering when turning/panning the camera for me (with vsync enabled) ... I was kinda shocked at what a difference the 0.06 Hz made.

It's a 144Hz refresh rate monitor with Gsync. I've even tried limiting it to 60, limiting my FPS. I don't know, nothing seems to work. And I literally only have issues with this game.

[FernEater28]

Same problem on a 5800x3D/4070 ti. I think the problem is related to how the engine is handling asset data streaming. The game seems to load in multiple assets at once (Or a grid), instead of streaming in assets slowly and gradually. The CPU/thread usage spike of trying to load so many assets in a second or so seems to cause the stutters. My best solution to mitigate this is to limit the frame rate to keep the CPU usage /whatever threads it is hammering low so the CPU has more headroom to deal with these spikes when they occur.

[Low Standards]

An RTX 4090 should be able to play 10 instances of Starfield at once without a single missed step. I had no stuttering on my laptop's 2060 and my new 3060 can run the game at ultra. I have 32 gigs of slow ram from the 1970s.

[trokholm]

I'm in the same boat as you, though my rig is slightly less than yours. I've tried everything, all other games are flawless, and still the freezing/stutters every few seconds.

It's weird though. I played through the "Escape" mod and it actually played very well. Once that was finished, and I was back in the game proper, back to freezing.

[nimeoa]

Originally posted by FernEater28:

Same problem on a 5800x3D/4070 ti. I think the problem is related to how the engine is handling asset data streaming. The game seems to load in multiple assets at once (Or a grid), instead of streaming in assets slowly and gradually. The CPU/thread usage spike of trying to load so many assets in a second or so seems to cause the stutters. My best solution to mitigate this is to limit the frame rate to keep the CPU usage /whatever threads it is hammering low so the CPU has more headroom to deal with these spikes when they occur.

This definitely seems to be the issue. The stutters always occur when I can see objects in the distance loading/rendering into the game. This has always been an issue with Bethesda games, but man it's bad with Starfield.

[Neo]

Not sure what's causing your stuttering. I'm running SF on a much less powerful machine than yours and it's smooth sailing.

I5 4600kf, rtx 4070.

Are other games shuttering too?

[major tom]

it sounds like a drawcall bottleneck, 4k combined with a high fov setting can lead to this effect.
maybe you can check your ini settings to find any faulty ini-settings ?
an extreme shadow setting or a very high fov combined with 4k for example can result in a drawcall stall. cpu and gpu run always in state of a stall situation - so not fully utilized. where a muliticore cpu can not deliver fast enough drawcall results to the gpu since the cpu rendering threads run only on one or two cores. this was always a problem with the gamebryo engine till fo4 and a limitation of dx11.

fallout 4 used previs/precombines to minimize this bottleneck in dense open world areas. starfield has no such drawcall reducing feature but it probably use dx12 with optimzed multicore cpu rendering - if well optimized.

this effect also hurts flight simulation games fps with high res settings even with high end hardware. only one or a few cpu cores can be used to feed the gpu with graphics related data. check how the cpu cores are utilized during stutter!

close any not necessary background processes using cpu like any av processes! lower fov to 90 or below and reduce shadow related settings for testing!

[Ladioz]

It's the game. Those who say there is no stutters is lying. Sure 95% of the time in game is smooth and you're fine. Occasionally you run around New Atlantis and you get stutters, or entering Akila City... stutters..
Some people are super sensitive to frame drops while others don't even care or notice it