Weird stutter issue ONLY in Steam online mode

[KenpoJuJitsu3]

I'm having a weird issue with Steam games, and I've run out of ideas to try. I'm having an issue where several Steam games are having a microstutter in a regular cadence every ~5 seconds ONLY when Steam is in online mode. If I set Steam to offline mode the issue doesn't present, but then I can't play co-op with anyone. I've tried games from different release years, DX11, DX12, Vulkan, games on different drives, games with & without denuvo, etc., and the only common thing is that all these games only start this stutter as soon as they connect to whatever online system they use. The games start fine on splash screens, but as soon as they connect to something like online servers or accounts, the stutter begins. Games I have hundreds of hours in that weren't doing this before like MHW and NMS are doing it now.

Examples of games doing this: Monster Hunter World & Rise, No Man's Sky, Borderlands 3 Example games not doing this: Hot Wheels Unleashed, Outriders, World War Z, God of War (used as a game with no online/co-op functionality for control purposes)

Non-Steam games like The Division 2 do not do this, even when launched from Steam.

I've messed with Steam's network settings, cleared the browser and download caches, run the regular and beta clients, repaired the Steam client and Steam service, disabled and enabled Steam cloud and Steam overlay, disabled and enabled Windows Game Mode and Game Bar. The only thing that changes anything is launching Steam in offline.

Anyone have any other ideas? Basic specs are i7 8700K, 32GB RAM, RTX 3090.

[KenpoJuJitsu3]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von UberFiend:

Disabled Shader Caching?

One of the first things I tried. I was sure that was it too, but no luck.

[KenpoJuJitsu3]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von UberFiend:

Sorry if I stated the obvious, I try to avoid it. Having said that, is each game preference set to only update when launched?

(I am asking targeted q's, not just throwing random things at you)

No worries. I don't have any games set to only update when launched. That said, every day I turn on my PC I go to the downloads section of Steam and tell it to update everything. I don't leave anything in the "scheduled" queue ever.

Honestly wish there was an "update all" button instead of dragging everything into the update next queue, but that's another can of worms.

[Valle]

Hey there, i know this post is kinda old. I have this problem in F1 22. Micro-stuttering every couple seconds when i'm online. As soon as i go offline in steam game runs smooth. I have lots of friends (1000+) and 400 games or something but only a few installed.. on 3 different drives though. On a new and empty steam account (no friends or many games) it doesn't stutter. Any solution yet?

[Iceira]

If i recall correctly this was about steam and some few user have game lib over 3000+ to5000 games in them, and that somehow only effect huge steam libs. ( also depend on pc spec i bet )

you can use steam view as small view as test, ( steam did a steam client update back then as i recall it )

and its steam users own job to reduce steam UI to use fewer steam resources in steam setting library menu.

dont forget turn off icons even as test left of game name to reduce the client resources.

ps.
dont forget it was OP own detail post with multi pc that help here, to narrow down the cause.

you need way more games then 3000+ if im recall correctly other user from that time also had such issue and its seem to have vanish as a user issue, and took a while to ID it and why other steam users did not have this issue with lesser games.

[KenpoJuJitsu3]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Valle:

Hey there, i know this post is kinda old. I have this problem in F1 22. Micro-stuttering every couple seconds when i'm online. As soon as i go offline in steam game runs smooth. I have lots of friends (1000+) and 400 games or something but only a few installed.. on 3 different drives though. On a new and empty steam account (no friends or many games) it doesn't stutter. Any solution yet?

None yet. Still have to use the workaround I mention either earlier in this thread, or another thread on the same topic.

[Iceira]

turn off steam hardware accelration might be another issue and not related to OP topic.

400 games , then it cant be same as OP thats impossible.

vally fix your own pc problem, you said it yourself other dont have that issue.

[CrunchyBiscuit]

This issue seems to affect certain specific games that require both Steam (for friend lists and matchmaking), as well as their own online services (like Shift for the Borderlands series, or Bethesda.net for Wolfenstein: Youngblood). When the 3rd party's/game publisher's servers are slow or down, these specific games exhibit a repeated hitch every x couple of seconds because they're trying to "poll" the 3rd party's/game publisher's servers, but are unable to establish a proper connection. Online game features might still work, but they become slow and unreliable.

The Borderlands 2 and 3 forums are full of people suffering the same issue. It's a known issue with Wolfenstein: Youngblood as well. Several other games are affected too, yet not all of them, and not all the time (depending on server status).

Restarting Steam in offline mode is great for solo play, but the only solution for online play is to wait it out.

If you suffer these issues ALL THE TIME, there might be something wrong with internet routing.

[KenpoJuJitsu3]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von CrunchyBiscuit:

This issue seems to affect certain specific games that require both Steam (for friend lists and matchmaking), as well as their own online services (like Shift for the Borderlands series, or Bethesda.net for Wolfenstein: Youngblood). When the 3rd party's/game publisher's servers are slow or down, these specific games exhibit a repeated hitch every x couple of seconds because they're trying to "poll" the 3rd party's/game publisher's servers, but are unable to establish a proper connection. Online game features might still work, but they become slow and unreliable.

The Borderlands 2 and 3 forums are full of people suffering the same issue. It's a known issue with Wolfenstein: Youngblood as well. Several other games are affected too, yet not all of them, and not all the time (depending on server status).

Restarting Steam in offline mode is great for solo play, but the only solution for online play is to wait it out.

If you suffer these issues ALL THE TIME, there might be something wrong with internet routing.

Different issue. Not sure if I commented earlier in this thread with a full breakdown or the other thread, but it's been reported to Valve and already acknowledged. Just a very low priority of theirs to fix because there aren't going to be too many people doing what I do. Even among people who own thousands of games, very few have north of 6,000 installed at once like I do.

The issue is directly related to number of games installed and drives connected. Making no changes to the internet whatsoever (or with Steam running in Offline vs Online) and just hiding all but one of the drives from Steam resolves the issue. And it doesn't matter which drive. This resolves the issue for the Wolfensteins, Borderlands 3, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, Monster Hunter World and Rise, the affected Yakuza games (all aren't affected), No Man's Sky, etc. in my configuration.

Running non-Steam versions of the games presents no issues of any kind. It's something to do with Steam's log files, it's polling activity, and the number of appmanifest files being checked in a configuration like mine.

[Valle]

So - i know it's probably something else but also steam-online related with my issue... just not caused by many games but too many friends (1000+). Online = Stuttering, offline = everything fine..

[CrunchyBiscuit]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von KenpoJuJitsu3:

... The issue is directly related to number of games installed and drives connected. Making no changes to the internet whatsoever (or with Steam running in Offline vs Online) and just hiding all but one of the drives from Steam resolves the issue. And it doesn't matter which drive. This resolves the issue for the Wolfensteins, Borderlands 3, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, Monster Hunter World and Rise, the affected Yakuza games (all aren't affected), No Man's Sky, etc. in my configuration.

Running non-Steam versions of the games presents no issues of any kind. It's something to do with Steam's log files, it's polling activity, and the number of appmanifest files being checked in a configuration like mine.

Ah, I see. Learned something new. Such a silly problem.

So the workaround for now is to keep disabling/enabling certain drives if you want proper online play without hitching.

Such a hassle, but at least there's a way.

Too bad disabling my drives doesn't resolve the issue when the 3rd party's/game publisher's servers are acting up.

Anyway, good luck! And let's hope for a fix.

[KenpoJuJitsu3]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von CrunchyBiscuit:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von KenpoJuJitsu3:

... The issue is directly related to number of games installed and drives connected. Making no changes to the internet whatsoever (or with Steam running in Offline vs Online) and just hiding all but one of the drives from Steam resolves the issue. And it doesn't matter which drive. This resolves the issue for the Wolfensteins, Borderlands 3, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, Monster Hunter World and Rise, the affected Yakuza games (all aren't affected), No Man's Sky, etc. in my configuration.

Running non-Steam versions of the games presents no issues of any kind. It's something to do with Steam's log files, it's polling activity, and the number of appmanifest files being checked in a configuration like mine.

Ah, I see. Learned something new. Such a silly problem.

So the workaround for now is to keep disabling/enabling certain drives if you want proper online play without hitching.

Such a hassle, but at least there's a way.

Too bad disabling my drives doesn't resolve the issue when the 3rd party's/game publisher's servers are acting up.

Anyway, good luck! And let's hope for a fix.

You summed this up as succinctly as possible. Thankfully it's not every game. One of the biggest oddities IMO is seeing it affect a game like Yakuza 5 ... but not affect all of them. Strange stuff.

[Jake The Radio]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von KenpoJuJitsu3:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von CrunchyBiscuit:

Ah, I see. Learned something new. Such a silly problem.

So the workaround for now is to keep disabling/enabling certain drives if you want proper online play without hitching.

Such a hassle, but at least there's a way.

Too bad disabling my drives doesn't resolve the issue when the 3rd party's/game publisher's servers are acting up.

Anyway, good luck! And let's hope for a fix.

You summed this up as succinctly as possible. Thankfully it's not every game. One of the biggest oddities IMO is seeing it affect a game like Yakuza 5 ... but not affect all of them. Strange stuff.

I've seen it also affect the DMC games, particularly 4 and 5. I don't know what the correlation is for what games that it affects, but it's very inconsistent...

Quite a frustrating issue. I thought about completely formatting my bulk storage drive, as that is something I haven't tested yet. Full reinstall of all steam content, including games... but that is a PITA so idk.

[Risk off]

yes off course

[KenpoJuJitsu3]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Jake The Snake:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von KenpoJuJitsu3:

You summed this up as succinctly as possible. Thankfully it's not every game. One of the biggest oddities IMO is seeing it affect a game like Yakuza 5 ... but not affect all of them. Strange stuff.

I've seen it also affect the DMC games, particularly 4 and 5. I don't know what the correlation is for what games that it affects, but it's very inconsistent...

Quite a frustrating issue. I thought about completely formatting my bulk storage drive, as that is something I haven't tested yet. Full reinstall of all steam content, including games... but that is a PITA so idk.

I did this. Completely wiped everything. I'm sure my ISP loved it as much as I did. It didn't fix anything. What I should've done in hindsight is install about 3K-4K then install 100 at a time until the problem showed up because somewhere in that range is when I first noticed it.

[Iceira]

OP you might want to contact steam moderator and close this thread, this look like a steam library size issue only, and how well it handle it, and sense we all have diffrent hardware in pc

And when its a problem with 1000+ or 2000+ or more, its impossible to even ID what the cause this, and let steam support/moderator handle it. im sure you can see login in 10year old pc or top ace pc might have same issue with total diffrent game library size install, and i dont think any here can help anyone with then it happend, and it dont make it better if a user have never update its Driver and worst possible way not maintain a pc the right way.

Point is Contact Steam support make ticket, and with steam 1 million user account, im sure you can see a problem with reply or help other here, its your choise OP and not because i said so.

gl with it.

ps.
as i recall it there was apox 2-3 other post in that time periode with exatly same issue untilll steam made a client update, and that was the clue here why so many game might had a specific issue and technical most here will never see or know about.

and I and other's here are not support here, only steam support have the fact and can test such, and OP with 5000+ games , pretty sure steam have way more then 10.000/20.000+ games , and its impossible to even test for such as user.