Game Constantly Stutters, Frametimes are VERY Inconsistent

[Premium Ghoul]

Regardless of settings this game just simply isn't smooth. If the frame rate is uncapped then it routinely jumps all over the place even when standing still (10-15 fps jumps) and if you cap it to 60 the frametimes are awful. Here are the graphs from MSI Afterburner demonstrating two different FPS caps:

Imgur Link[i.imgur.com]

As you can see the frametimes are all over the place despite the frame rate being locked to 60 with either cap. The MSI Afterburner cap is supposedly better, but the game stutters horribly no matter what method I use.

I've played for about two hours and the instant I landed on the planet I noticed how uneven the performance was and it hasn't gotten any better. I want to enjoy the game more but the bad performance is making it difficult.

My PC specs are:
i5-4690K 3.50GHz
GTX 1080 8GB
16GB RAM
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
144Hz 2560x1440 G-sync monitor

Here's a Pastebin link to the game's log file as well.[pastebin.com]

[Byron]

Same issue for me with my GT73VR 7RF laptop - 120hz G-Sync Monitor, GTX 1080, 16GB Ram, I7 7700

[Martian]

Me too, gonna try with the culling off if it changes anything.

4670K 4.0GHz, 970 4GB, 16GB DDR3, WIN 10, 2560x1080

[Loaded Glove]

The Unity engine this game is built on is a pretty mixed bag in terms of performance. I have a similar rig to OP and have everything maxed at 1080 reso with vsync on and for me it's quite playable with only very minor stutters occasionally. That being said, I play another Unity based game and the performance is worse even though the graphics are weaker and the framerates are higher.

The bottom line is that there is no magic fix imho and it boils down to how your particular mix of hardware and software behaves running this game. All you can really do is tweak every combination of settings you can think of until you find whatever is the smoothest and you can also try previous driver versions since Nvidia drivers have been kinda crappy almost this whole year. I am using driver 378.92 and have tried all the newer ones as well and for me, 378.92 is the best atm.

[6_Demon_bag]

I gotta say even though I've put in over 6 hours into this game and I'm enjoying it, I too am getting frequent stutters. I'm running an i7 1080 16gb rig but the fps ranges from 50 to 120, I've noticed that some zones run better than others or perhaps as the Ai battles and Ai in general become larger the fps seems to be jumping all over the place.

I've tried vsync, limited framerate and many other options but nothing helps. I'm playing the game @ 1080p and did try 4k but strangely when looking straight down at the floor the fps would dip down to the 20's @ 4k???

It's very annoying when a stutter hits as my view can rotate wildly and leave me momentarily disorientated.

[Eldahon]

We have exactly the same issue with "The Long Dark" and "Sir You Have Being Hunted 1.4" (not 1.3). Frametime is horrible, every 5-10 seconds we notice a stutter, it ruin the experience of all games.

It's a unity engine problem but all developers ignore this issue, and it's really unrespectful for us (buyers).

They need to take seriously their duties to explain and to communicate.

[DedZedNub]

The following is just a wild thing to check, and I only know what they are called in the Nvidia Control panel, but one or more of them tend to be in most driver controls:

Triple Buffering -- Off
Maximum pre-rendered frames -- 1
Virtual Reality pre-rendered frames -- 1

All of these make your GPU do more work by basically filling the frame buffer with additional screenfuls that aren't needed if you have a fast video card that can keep up with the 60 fps or better -- which it seems most of you should have already by what you listed.

The idea is that your super fast video card has idle time so it starts filling in extra frame buffers, but while it is doing so it will jerk or hash around as it doesn't get back in time to working on the next frame buffer and release its work on the extra frames -- and sometimes these are in game settings which also sucks like in the Elder Scrolls games.

It's sort of creates an interference harmonic every few multiple of frames or so, not unlike what Vertical Synch or Frame limit capping are supposed to avoid.

Triple Buffering won't be needed if your video card is ahead of the pace anyway, so why waste power and keep the card busy overheating. As to Frame Ahead buffers of new frames, you have to wonder how it benefits you much. You'd have to be able to do double fps, like 120 fps to complete the frame ahead smoothly. Then it also means that it isn't up to date with any mouse movements or other quick changes of direction you made anyway, by a minor amount. So any benefit comes from 120 fps firepower but may seem like a slight smoothing and lagging of reality and input. So I don't really see how this helps unless maybe if framerate is all over the map.

Bad news is that I think most of the time most of these settings at default are about where they should be anyway. Although often you'll see them at 2 or 3.

Anyway, just curious, you might want to look and see if any such settings make any difference.

I mean look, I've played Sir, You are Being Hunted on an Intel HD 2500 gpu, and I didn't get any of this stuttering. So it can't be because your video cards are too weak, they all sound better than that.

Anyway, thought I'd mention it. I don't have this game, just reading around the forums as I am interested in it for future purchase.

[gkflyboy]

Originally posted by Martan:

Me too, gonna try with the culling off if it changes anything.

4670K 4.0GHz, 970 4GB, 16GB DDR3, WIN 10, 2560x1080

AMD A10-7860K 4.2GHz, RX 470 4GB, 16GB DDR3, Win 10, 1080p

No problems, though...

[Pudenfuhrer]

turning off SSAO fixed the problem of frame rate tanking when looking more downwards for me i7 gtx1080 -

[DogonCrook]

I posted about this a month or two ago and a dev came in and mentioned they are working on it but they need more log reports. theres a sticky at the top of the forums how to copy it. they also mentioned it in the last patch notes i think.

[LordCrc]

When I started playing I had very poor framerates and stuttering as well, even at low settings.

I then tried changing the process affinity mask[1] to effectively disable hyper-threading for the game (ie disable every odd core).

This instantly nearly doubled my FPS, and I now get a smooth 50-60 FPS at highest settings.

Win10, 32GB RAM, TR 1920, GTX 980Ti

[1]: https://www.windowscentral.com/assign-specific-processor-cores-apps-windows-10