Stuttering Fix for Modern Games on all GPUs

[danealue]

Troubleshooting GPU Stuttering and Fixing Game Performance

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Hey everyone!

Lately, I've seen a lot of posts about stuttering issues with modern games, especially AC Rally. Since I've managed to get it running smoothly on hardware as old as an RTX 2060, I wanted to share a quick guide on some common fixes that have worked for me. It's important to keep in mind that early access games are often unoptimized, so even with high-end hardware (like an RTX 5090), you might not be able to run everything at Ultra settings in 4K. Don’t hesitate to adjust your settings to improve frame rates and overall smoothness—it can make a big difference!

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What is GPU Stuttering?

Stuttering occurs when your game doesn’t render frames consistently, causing a choppy or jerky experience. Unlike a frame rate drop, stuttering happens even when FPS is stable, but the time between frames isn't. This makes movement and animations feel "off."

One specific type of stuttering you might run into is traversal stuttering. This happens when your game is struggling to load and render assets in real-time as you move through large environments, leading to sudden frame delivery hiccups.

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How Stuttering Affects Your Game

Stuttering can affect:
Frame Generation: When frames aren't generated smoothly, it impacts game responsiveness.
Latency: If the GPU is overloaded, the delay between your input and what you see on-screen (latency) increases, making gameplay less responsive.

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Troubleshooting Stuttering: Fixes to Try

Lower Your Graphics Settings - Ultra/High settings can be a huge burden on your GPU. Try lowering settings like textures, shadows, and anti-aliasing to reduce the load and improve performance.

Check GPU Utilization - Use tools like, Task Manager, MSI Afterburner or GPU-Z to check how hard your GPU is working. If it’s consistently running at 100% utilization, it’s time to reduce settings to give your GPU more headroom. This allows it to handle demand spikes better and reduces stutter.

Enable Adaptive Sync (G-Sync/FreeSync) - If your monitor supports G-Sync or FreeSync, make sure it's enabled. These technologies synchronize your frame rate with your monitor’s refresh rate, preventing stutter and tearing.

Close Background Programs - Programs running in the background can steal GPU resources. Make sure to close unnecessary apps before starting a game.

Update Your GPU Drivers - Always keep your drivers up to date! Outdated drivers can cause all kinds of performance issues, including stuttering. Check for updates using GeForce Experience (NVIDIA) or Radeon Software (AMD).

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Why You Need GPU Headroom

Running your GPU at 100% utilization all the time might sound good, but it can lead to stuttering. By keeping your GPU usage at around 80-90%, you give it room to handle sudden spikes in demand, like rendering detailed areas or heavy effects, which results in smoother gameplay.

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Conclusion

If you're dealing with stuttering in games, try lowering settings, monitoring GPU usage, and enabling Adaptive Sync. These fixes should help reduce stutter and provide a smoother, more responsive gaming experience.

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Feel free to ask if you have any questions or need further help!

[Oboma Sin Laden]

Im sure this'll help many but I think the issue many (or just some) of us are facing is a single quick but heavy hitch/stutter in the same spot of the stage every time. I may be speaking for myself though.. There's at least one in every stage, typically more. In this instance it doesn't correlate to anything like gpu headroom, conflicting programs, settings, drivers etc. It just seems like a good ole' ue5 feature at this point, maybe only on amd? (9070xt here).

It annoyed me a lot at first but after running a stage a few times i'm prepared for it. Kudos to you for helping the community!

[danealue]

Originally posted by Oboma Sin Laden:

Im sure this'll help many but I think the issue many (or just some) of us are facing is a single quick but heavy hitch/stutter in the same spot of the stage every time. I may be speaking for myself though.. There's at least one in every stage, typically more. In this instance it doesn't correlate to anything like gpu headroom, conflicting programs, settings, drivers etc. It just seems like a good ole' ue5 feature at this point, maybe only on amd? (9070xt here).

It annoyed me a lot at first but after running a stage a few times i'm prepared for it. Kudos to you for helping the community!

Thanks! What you're referring to sounds like Traversal Stuttering as describe in the article, and decreasing GPU usage is a known solution. When you have more GPU headroom, these spikes in GPU usage will have a smaller impact on gaming. If your GPU is at 100% and you hit a load point, then there's nowhere for the load to go, and you get stuttering. The fact that this only happens on some systems, generally running 90-100% utilization, is only more evidence that these tried and true solutions should be able to clear up your stuttering. Try it out, and let us know if you're still getting stuttering in the game once your GPU usage is below 90%?

[Danテディ]

Everyone know how it works, it's still no excuse for developers to be incompetent and lazy.
(ACR is running quite well, but the most developers these days especially AAA companies are so bad and useless there are no words for it.

Also it isn't a problem if a GPU is at 100%, it's even quite normal.
A CPU at 100% is far worse than a GPU.

Especially in UE5 games it's based on memory issues due to bad limited areas with lumen and nanite. These features can be kinda useful if you know what you're doing as developer.

That simply happens if you don't set the limits and intervals properly.

After a update by a game, or driver update its always recommended to clear the shader cache. Also never update the driver simply by using a new file.

DDU first if you want to keep your system clean.


But anyway its partially a fault by the developer and the engine itself if a game is running terrible (DD2 and MHW are good examples)

(alternate solution: UV your GPU/CPU, but don't do it if you don't have any experience, it can cause some big problems if you don't know what you're doing)

[danealue]

Originally posted by Danテディ:

Everyone know how it works, it's still no excuse for developers to be incompetent and lazy....
Also it isn't a problem if a GPU is at 100%, it's even quite normal.
A CPU at 100% is far worse than a GPU....

The hostile attitude toward the developers is unnecessary and unproductive. Early access titles are, by definition, unfinished and often bug-prone, much like alpha builds. Criticizing feedback is fair, but attacking the developers outright ignores the context of what early access is meant to be and undermines your own credibility and intentions.

A GPU running at 100% usage is normal when a game is GPU-bound, but that alone does not guarantee good performance. If the GPU is fully utilized while frame times are unstable, clocks are throttling, or power limits are being hit, the experience can still suffer. High GPU usage simply indicates a bottleneck, not that the game is running optimally. That is, if you're running at 100% and the GPU needs to increase load, there's nowhere for that increased load to go (overhead) which induces bottlenecking and stuttering, a known and common occurrence in systems running at 100% usage.

Clearing shader caches, using DDU, or undervolting hardware should not be treated as routine fixes. These are advanced troubleshooting steps that can introduce new issues if misused. For most users, a stock system with standard driver updates is sufficient, and the steps outlined in the OP should be enough to address stuttering without resorting to unnecessary or risky measures.

[Danテディ]

Originally posted by danealue:

Originally posted by Danテディ:

Everyone know how it works, it's still no excuse for developers to be incompetent and lazy....
Also it isn't a problem if a GPU is at 100%, it's even quite normal.
A CPU at 100% is far worse than a GPU....

The hostile attitude toward the developers is unnecessary and unproductive. Early access titles are, by definition, unfinished and often bug-prone, much like alpha builds. Criticizing feedback is fair, but attacking the developers outright ignores the context of what early access is meant to be and undermines your own credibility and intentions.

A GPU running at 100% usage is normal when a game is GPU-bound, but that alone does not guarantee good performance. If the GPU is fully utilized while frame times are unstable, clocks are throttling, or power limits are being hit, the experience can still suffer. High GPU usage simply indicates a bottleneck, not that the game is running optimally. That is, if you're running at 100% and the GPU needs to increase load, there's nowhere for that increased load to go (overhead) which induces bottlenecking and stuttering, a known and common occurrence in systems running at 100% usage.

Clearing shader caches, using DDU, or undervolting hardware should not be treated as routine fixes. These are advanced troubleshooting steps that can introduce new issues if misused. For most users, a stock system with standard driver updates is sufficient, and the steps outlined in the OP should be enough to address stuttering without resorting to unnecessary or risky measures.

I wasn't talking about this developer.
I mean the big developers like Ubisoft and Activision for example, these are absolute terrible companies.

Like I said: ACR is running quite well, the only thing they have to improve properly is the additional wheel and controller support for now.

Fine tuning can be done later pre-full launch.

To be fair, a bottleneck always happens, even a range of 10-15% between GPU and CPU are a sort of bottleneck already.

It was always like that and there is no way to get rid of it entirely since hardware is built in complete different ways.

Power limits usually just cause stuttering for 3 different reasons:
1> on overclocked hardware, which can be unstable for different reasons, sometimes it's just the voltage, sometimes even more reasons.
2> The game itself has some serious core problems (lack of debugging can cause it as well)
3> a engine related problem (UE5.4/5/6 had some really ugly problems, I haven't tested 5.7 to its full extend yet)

4> (optional) a bloated system by the user, most likely caused by tons of background processes, sometimes win related and edited sys.file registries.


I already said undervolting shouldn't be done by someone without experience.
Just do it if you know how.

DDU and Shader cache clearing isn't risky at all.
It's a complete normal process for decades already.

A default driver update works 9 of 10 times (even though it isn't recommended)
But if you face any driver related issues you're literally forced to use DDU (which isn't that difficult)

Shader cache is basically just 1-3 clicks.
1 on AMD and Intel
3 on Nvidia.

Some games begin to stutter in a horrible way with intense frame drops and visual artifacts if the game had an update without clearing the cache before.

The thing is: The game won't use the same shaders after the update again, it will allocate the shaders again which can cause conflicts with the old data (which leads to stuttering)

It shouldn't be like that, but unfortunately that's a common problem for many years already, the bigger the games and assets become the more you'll face such scenarios.

You can't compare it with a 20 year old game that pre-allocated the shaders long in advance already without needing your hardware such as vram or ram.

I hope it will be different at some point but for now we still have to deal with it.


I appreciate your efforts but those are required steps if none of these previously noted ones help.

But also, new driver doesn't mean it's better for 100%.
Many drivers especially from 2025 are a bit messed up.

Don't update your driver if you don't face any problems.
You can try it and check if it had any improvements in 1 and a few other games, but if it doesn't help and even causes some problems on other games, simply roll back to the previous driver.

(The only exception would be: If one of the 3 companies are releasing a new feature that you really want to use or test) But that's more a personal preference for some.

[Lavos]

I'm getting traversal stuttering at the same spots on one machine, while the other is completely stable and has no problems whatever.
I suspect that it's ram related.

ddr5 32gb, rx 9070, 9800x3d, game is flawless.
ddr4 64gb, 3080ti, 5800x, good framerates even on high settings, massive stuttering at a few select spots on track, those spots changed location in 0.2

ps. if I go back to 0.1, stuttering locations are exactly the same as they were before, so I'm pretty sure that there's nothing that can be done on my side to fix them, except changing hardware.

[danealue]

Originally posted by Lavos:

I'm getting traversal stuttering at the same spots on one machine, while the other is completely stable and has no problems whatever.
I suspect that it's ram related.

ddr5 32gb, rx 9070, 9800x3d, game is flawless.
ddr4 64gb, 3080ti, 5800x, good framerates even on high settings, massive stuttering at a few select spots on track, those spots changed location in 0.2

ps. if I go back to 0.1, stuttering locations are exactly the same as they were before, so I'm pretty sure that there's nothing that can be done on my side to fix them, except changing hardware.

Yep, definitely sounds hardware related there. So what you'll want to do is drop the settings down on your older device. Once you get GPU usage down on your older hardware, you should see this stuttering alleviate. Older systems, especially on higher settings, are pushing their GPUs to 100% trying to generate more than they can handle. If you limit this to something more reasonable for your hardware, then stuttering goes away. Not every machine will be able to run this game on the highest settings, especially if they run it uncapped.

[stburr91]

Originally posted by Lavos:

I'm getting traversal stuttering at the same spots on one machine, while the other is completely stable and has no problems whatever.
I suspect that it's ram related.

ddr5 32gb, rx 9070, 9800x3d, game is flawless.
ddr4 64gb, 3080ti, 5800x, good framerates even on high settings, massive stuttering at a few select spots on track, those spots changed location in 0.2

ps. if I go back to 0.1, stuttering locations are exactly the same as they were before, so I'm pretty sure that there's nothing that can be done on my side to fix them, except changing hardware.

Yes, I'm not having issues with stutters either. I'm using amd, and ddr5 ram.

[ndunnett]

This reads like unhelpful LLM slop if I'm being completely honest

[Petr707]

The stuttering is definitely not caused by using DDR4 RAM.
I'm playing on an AMD Ryzen 5800X3D + 32 GB DDR4 3600 CL16, RTX 5080 16GB.
I don't notice any stuttering when loading tracks while driving.
I'm playing at 1140p on Ultra and FPS are 120 -145. Vsync OFF. GPU is running at 95 - 98%.
Everything is completely smooth without stuttering or significant FPS drops.
I didn't have stuttering on an RTX 3080 10 GB either - just lower FPS.

[Caboose]

kinda doubt it's ram related unless those 64gb are a 4 stick configuration (which is less reliable than going dual stick).
been playing with 16gb since the release and the only stutter i have are usually the server unable to send my time (which cause a lag spike) or my internet being affected by weather (i'm on starlink)

[Lavos]

Originally posted by Caboose:

kinda doubt it's ram related unless those 64gb are a 4 stick configuration (which is less reliable than going dual stick).
been playing with 16gb since the release and the only stutter i have are usually the server unable to send my time (which cause a lag spike) or my internet being affected by weather (i'm on starlink)

2x 32gb @ 3200mt/s. That's pretty slow, but it's workstation pc. I'm pretty sure that I'd get better performance by going to 32gb, and overclocking that one 32gb stick, but I've no time to fool around with settings right now.

Also, changing graphical settings has no effect at all on traversal stuttering. So, I'm confident that it's engine related. Another indication for that is that nature of stutters changed with update. Devs clearly tried to fix them, but really in this case it made them worse. I'm now no longer getting longer and predictable stutters on a few track spots, but slightly smaller stutters on more track spots.

[danealue]

Originally posted by Lavos:

Also, changing graphical settings has no effect at all on traversal stuttering. So, I'm confident that it's engine related. Another indication for that is that nature of stutters changed with update. Devs clearly tried to fix them, but really in this case it made them worse. I'm now no longer getting longer and predictable stutters on a few track spots, but slightly smaller stutters on more track spots.

Not quite, but you’re close. The developers are aware of traversal stuttering—it’s a well-documented issue in game development in general. Given that ACR is still in early access, it’s reasonable to expect further optimizations that may reduce or eliminate these issues over time.

In the meantime, it may be worth testing whether the stutters persist at lower GPU utilization. For example, do you still see them when GPU usage stays below 90%? Or 80%? In my experience, keeping usage under ~95% tends to be sufficient, while pushing beyond that increases the likelihood of bottlenecks and traversal stuttering. Lowering graphics settings, resolution, or applying a frame cap can help reduce GPU load and provide enough headroom to absorb sudden traversal-related spikes.

I've tested this out on hardware far lower-spec than what you've describe and was able to completely eliminate the stuttering, so please let us know if lowering your GPU usage has any impact?

[Lavos]

I can lock framerate to 70fps and my gpu utilization stays at 50-60% during ralies. 80% resolution, most settings high. I already told you that graphical settings have no effect at all on stutters that I'm experiencing.

[danealue]

In that case, it sounds like you may be dealing with something specific to your system, especially if you have sufficient overhead but are still unable to eliminate stuttering. If you haven’t updated your drivers recently, NVIDIA released a new update on the 18th that may be worth trying. I’ve personally tested these fixes on an RTX 2060 and was able to completely eliminate stuttering—albeit while capped at 30 FPS, which is expected for an older, entry-level card. If you’re running into a memory bottleneck, closing background applications may also help free up resources and reduce stutter.

I would also recommend lowering graphics settings that have a significant impact on rendering, particularly texture-related options, since not all settings affect performance equally. In my experience, lowering some of these to medium can make a noticeable difference with minimal visual loss. If you’re dealing with traversal stuttering specifically, reducing the amount of data that needs to be processed during scene loading can help alleviate or even eliminate these issues.

That said, there are countless factors that can cause stuttering in an early access game, so it’s possible the issue won’t be resolved by these common fixes alone. Unfortunately, that’s part of the nature of early access titles. Still, these general GPU and system optimization tips may help others who are experiencing similar problems.