(Update)Dual Sense controller may cause stutter

[Blim94]

Playing with 4090 game is a stutter fest
Fixed it by re-connecting my dual sense controller

[tuvok]

plug in, then unplug and it will still work: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Rw9oTQcaw7Y

[Twerky]

So are there no issues if I plug my dualsense and play(Haptic feedback and all)? I was thinking about getting the game until I saw this post.

[ALOWLYKERR]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Silly Apple:

yep dont use a dualsense controller. once i turned off my dualsense and used my xbox controller it runs great. the second i turn on my dualsense it goes to like 20fps. doesnt make any sense but dont use a dualsense. lmk if that works for you

If you pluf the dual sense in the problem seems to be resolved. I did it and even unplugged and played witeless after, zero issues.

[Neo Vg]

Confirmed. Seems to be a bug.

I did some testing with a DualSense controller connected via Bluetooth (Windows 11). I have a 120 Hz G-Sync screen with v-sync enabled. All measurements were done with CapFrameX, using RTSS to show its overlay.

• When using DS4Windows to emulate an Xbox controller _and_ use HidHide to hide the DualSense controller from the game, I get 116 fps in the menu.
  
• When using DS4Windows to emulate a PS4 controller _and_ use HidHide to hide the DualSense controller from the game, I get 75 - 80 fps.
  
• As soon as the DualSense is visible to the game (by disabling HidHide), I only get 20 - 30 fps.

The fps I get with each controller are very stable, but the exact number depends on which controllers the game sees in which order.

• When I start the game with DualSense, I get exactly 30 fps.
  
• When I start the game with Xbox controller and then switch to DualSense, I only get 23 fps.
  
• When I start with Xbox, switch to PS4, and go back to Xbox, the frame rate goes up to 116 fps again.
  [*}When I start with Xbox, switch to DualSense (by disabling HidHide), and go back to Xbox (by re-enabling HidHide), the frame rate stays at 23 fps.
  

GPU load scales precisely with FPS (RTX 4090):

• ~13% @ 116 fps (Xbox)
  
• ~9% @ 80 fps (PS4)
  
• ~3% @ 23 fps (DualSense)

CPU utilization however is a bit weird (Ryzen 9 5900X):

• With Xbox controller, total CPU usage is about 9% with some dips down to 3%, whereas the busiest core hovers relatively stable around 40%.
  
• With PS4 controller, total CPU usage is fairly stable at 9% - 10%, while the busiest core fluctuates between 40% and 70%.
  
• With DualSense, total CPU usage is mostly around 8% with some dips down to 2%, while the busiest core fluctuates between 40% and 60%.
  
• Right after starting the game, total CPU usage is about 22%, which goes down to the numbers from above after a while; I guess that's the shader pre-compilation running in the background.

While GPU load behaves just as expected, the CPU utilization seems to be completely independent from the frame rate, so I did some more testing with Xbox controller:

• When setting the game to fullscreen mode @ 30 Hz, CPU utilization stayed exactly the same as @ 116 fps.
  
• When running the game @ 120 Hz, but using RTSS' frame limiter set to 30 fps, CPU utilization dropped noticeably.

This made me wonder whether the game behaves differently with v-sync disabled. And yes, it does, in very interesting ways:

• After starting the game with Xbox controller, I get 310 fps. GPU load goes up to 34% (as expected), but total CPU utilization is the same 9% with occasional dips down to 3% as with v-sync enabled and 116 fps. The busiest core however is less utilized at 20% to 30% (instead of ~40% with v-sync).
  
• After switching to PS4 controller, the game drops down to 83 fps (slightly higher than with v-sync) and the CPU utilization goes up to the same values as with v-sync.
  
• After disabling HidHide to make the DualSense visible again, I get the same 23 fps as with v-sync, with exactly the same CPU utilization.
  
• After re-enabling HidHide however, the game does not stay at 23 fps (as with v-sync), but goes up to 29 fps (PS4), respectively 42 fps (Xbox).

All of those numbers are perfectly reproducible, no matter how often I restart the game.

Conclusio:

• There is definitely something wrong with controller support, and it does not only affect DualSense, but also the older PS4 controller.
  
• It has nothing to do with the actual controller hardware, but only the driver / the type of (possibly emulated) controller visible to the game.
  
• The game seems to handle v-sync somewhat weirdly. Limiting the frame rate using the controller bug or screen refresh rate does not lower CPU utilization, but disabling v-sync weirdly takes away load from the busiest core, even though the frame rate it much higher. Using an external frame limiter like RTSS however lowers the CPU utilization as expected.

Edit:

Using a wired connection does fix the issue with the DualSense! However: Not when DS4Windows emulates a PS4 controller, in which case the game still drops down to 80 fps. Not an issue, but an interesting observation.

[off baseline]

Weird. 4090 specific issue? On a 4080S and 5800x3d, and it runs great. 4k native max settings 60fps. Hope it gets fixed soon for those affected.

[Photonboy]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Frey:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von DeBreuer:

You dont need much cpu power for 4k. Running my 4090 with a 3700x

omg you will be surprised how much your old cpu is bottlenecking the 4090, even the 14900k is bottlenecking it at 8k.
NEVER combo the top last GPU with a bad old cpu.

BOTTLENECK varies by the game.
If you want to know by how much your CPU is the bottleneck the best way is to:
a) set "Prefer Maximum Performance" in the NVidia CP (per-game or Global) to prevent frequency drops of the GPU
b) ensure no FPS cap (including VSYNC if that's capping things) in the game
c) observe the "GPU Usage" via an OSD tool (if it's 80% for example, then the per-core CPU processing power needs to be 1.25x faster. To oversimplify.)

When I did my research to buy the RTX4070 to pair with my R9-3900x I discovered that a lot of NEWER games started to be fairly CPU bottlenecked with an RTX4080 or above.

Baldur's Gate III needs a very top-end CPU at times to even hit 60FPS. My Ryzen 3000 probably drops to 40FPS at times.

There's a bit of a MYTH that you don't need much CPU power at 4K. The load shifts TOWARDS the GPU but the CPU load is still higher as the resolution increases, so given enough difference in CPU vs GPU the bottleneck can easily be on the CPU.

Many tasks related to ray-tracing, or keeping track of characters or whatever are still limited by some combo of per-core processing and number of cores.

TLDR: RTX4090 with an R7-3700x will have a lot of games bottlenecked by the CPU. Depending on the games played, however, it doesn't necessarily mean that upgrading the entire system makes sense either. There's always a bottleneck somewhere.

(TBC, you have to look at "GPU Usage" because CPU usage on its own tells you very little as you can have 30% CPU usage and still be having a CPU bottleneck as games can effectively use only so many of the CPU's cores. The GPU can be sort of thought as a single core where 100% is full usage and 50% (at max frequency) is using half the GPU's potential.)

[mikef12306]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Frey:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von DeBreuer:

You dont need much cpu power for 4k. Running my 4090 with a 3700x

omg you will be surprised how much your old cpu is bottlenecking the 4090, even the 14900k is bottlenecking it at 8k.
NEVER combo the top last GPU with a bad old cpu.

It depends on what he's doing. At a low refresh rate, he might not notice much of a bottleneck.

[mikef12306]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Loaf Man:

Weird. 4090 specific issue? On a 4080S and 5800x3d, and it runs great. 4k native max settings 60fps. Hope it gets fixed soon for those affected.

most likely. Also on a 4080 super and it's fine

[tuvok]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von mikef12306:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Loaf Man:

Weird. 4090 specific issue? On a 4080S and 5800x3d, and it runs great. 4k native max settings 60fps. Hope it gets fixed soon for those affected.

most likely. Also on a 4080 super and it's fine

maybe you're using steam input/ds4windows or something like that?

[AmeerMij]

i have the same issue ... i tried it without a controller and its same thing .

[Vyllence]

Bro the fact that a PlayStation game works better with an Xbox controller is peak comedy

[potato]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Vyllence:

Bro the fact that a PlayStation game works better with an Xbox controller is peak comedy

not really, it makes perfect sense as xbox controller is developed for both pc and xbox while the dualsense is made only for ps5

xbox os is also windows based

[BurnR]

PS5 Controller tanking fps!?

There is a bug where if a DualSense controller is connected to the PC you will get very low fps (i got 27) image staggering and screen tearing (even with vsync on) NO MATTER the resolution or graphic quality.
I thought it was a gpu problem until I saw a mention of that bug somewhere. Since I own a PS4 controller I decided to test it, fixed everything!

EDIT: TEMPORARY FIX!! Lower Controller speaker volume to 0%

Buttery smooth 60 FPS with no screen tearing at 4k (FSR) Very high settings.

That bug needs fixing, I want those sweet adaptive triggers!

[Photonboy]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von potato:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Vyllence:

Bro the fact that a PlayStation game works better with an Xbox controller is peak comedy

not really, it makes perfect sense as xbox controller is developed for both pc and xbox while the dualsense is made only for ps5

xbox os is also windows based

AGREED.
Also, Windows had major issues with XBox Controllers on and off for the last several years, including 2024 (2023 for sure). So if Microsoft can't keep the XBox controller functioning reliably on their own OS I can imagine Sony might have even more difficulty.

[VintenDio]

Play on PS5 then lmao