10 years of stutter

[Johnthebaptist]

specs are Rx 5700/r5 3600/ddr4 3200 16gb/3 250gb ssds/850 watt evga gold psu/MSI b450m pro m2 max motherboard and an aftermarket cooler is installed on the cpu and all temps are fine. My last two computers also suffered from a random subtle micro stutter that varied in frequency across all of my games. What i have tried over the years i will list below...If anyone can help i would greatly appreciate this as it is very annoying to me, although this would probably be imperceptible issue to some.

Reinstalled windows and reinstalled all drivers multiple times and all windows updates. I am on version 1809

Reseated every component in the pc multiple times

Tried different power profiles most recently ryzen high performance but i put it on Ultimate performance recently and gained 5-6 fps average for some reason, could be within error but also i may not be certain but it seemed as though the stutter was worse on ryzen profiles, not 100% sure.

Upgraded to a 144 hz monitor and enabled freesync in radeon and in the monitor settings

tried disabling full screen optimizations and game mode in windows 10(game mode off or on doesnt seem to matter but i will leave it off i guess)

and the biggest of them all is the fact that over the years i would upgrade parts thinking something was faulty.

It's not that my games are completely unplayable because of this problem, its just noticeable to me and i dont think i should have this. I took a screenshot of a performance graph for my last game of Apex Legends in radeon settings. https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/786380326250194798/9927AF0B65454C983615F920C229AECB3B1BA05A/ seems like frametime spike?

I have tried emptystandbylist cleaner, but for some reason it stopped automatically clearing the cache but idk if it even did anything at all or was placebo

this problem has more or less been around on 3 different pcs of mine
the micro stutter even happens on halo 1 ce randomly lol


Any help would be GREATLY appreciated

[emoticorpse]

1809 is old version of Windows. Probably not what's causing whatever issue, but might as well jump on most recent one.

[Johnthebaptist]

emoticorpse původně napsal:

1809 is old version of Windows. Probably not what's causing whatever issue, but might as well jump on most recent one.

cant go higher ltse version or whatnot

[emoticorpse]

When is the last time you tried a regular version of Windows 10?

[AbedsBrother]

One thing you might think about using is Radeon Chill (in combination with Freesync). Set a minimum of maybe ~130fps and a maximum of 144 (your native refresh rate). That way your gpu won't be hitting its absolute limit all the time, possibly smoothing out your gameplay.

[Johnthebaptist]

emoticorpse původně napsal:

When is the last time you tried a regular version of Windows 10?

a month ago but i could try to reformat again and go back to regular windows

[Johnthebaptist]

AbedsBrother původně napsal:

One thing you might think about using is Radeon Chill (in combination with Freesync). Set a minimum of maybe ~130fps and a maximum of 144 (your native refresh rate). That way your gpu won't be hitting its absolute limit all the time, possibly smoothing out your gameplay.

Going to try radeon chill right now! thanks for advice

[emoticorpse]

Johnthebaptist původně napsal:

emoticorpse původně napsal:

When is the last time you tried a regular version of Windows 10?

a month ago but i could try to reformat again and go back to regular windows

Well, if you tried regular version a month ago and still had these issues, nevermind. I figured maybe there was a good shot it would make things work right.

If you c hanged out all sorts of hardware and the issue is still there, very weird. Is there any chance of some kind of personal favorite software you always install that may be causing this?

[Johnthebaptist]

emoticorpse původně napsal:

Johnthebaptist původně napsal:

a month ago but i could try to reformat again and go back to regular windows

Well, if you tried regular version a month ago and still had these issues, nevermind. I figured maybe there was a good shot it would make things work right.

If you c hanged out all sorts of hardware and the issue is still there, very weird. Is there any chance of some kind of personal favorite software you always install that may be causing this?

honestly the reason i use that version of windows is because its barebones with no cortana etc, only software i use is the most needed kind, ccleaner/discord/steam/origin

[Johnthebaptist]

AbedsBrother původně napsal:

One thing you might think about using is Radeon Chill (in combination with Freesync). Set a minimum of maybe ~130fps and a maximum of 144 (your native refresh rate). That way your gpu won't be hitting its absolute limit all the time, possibly smoothing out your gameplay.

radeon chill seemed to actually make a difference in overall smoothness after i played a game of apex, I am going to test it more but my min fps i put to 80 i think, u think i should go 130 min 140 max? just confused what values to use

[AbedsBrother]

Johnthebaptist původně napsal:

AbedsBrother původně napsal:

One thing you might think about using is Radeon Chill (in combination with Freesync). Set a minimum of maybe ~130fps and a maximum of 144 (your native refresh rate). That way your gpu won't be hitting its absolute limit all the time, possibly smoothing out your gameplay.

radeon chill seemed to actually make a difference in overall smoothness after i played a game of apex, I am going to test it more but my min fps i put to 80 i think, u think i should go 130 min 140 max? just confused what values to use

Radeon Chill's lower value is what the fps will drop to in calmer / quieter moments of the game (to keep your gpu cool). The upper value is supposedly what frame-rate you will achieve during faster more intense periods of in-game activity. Basically, your gpu works hard when it needs to, and doesn't push as hard when a scene doesn't demand it.

But Radeon Chill is really just a frame-rate limiter. If you're hitting 140fps one minute, then 90fps the next, the drop from 140 to 90 - a temporary drop of 50fps - can manifest as chop or stutter.
So ideally you want to set the "min fps" to the low end of your average framerates, and the "max fps" 10-15fps higher than your minimum. There's room for frame-rate variance, but not enough to cause stutter.

I don't know what fps you're getting in Apex, but if you set your minimum to 80 as you said, 90 or 95fps would be the maximum I would set, but there are no hard rules. If your fps looks & feels good, then it's fine. If I set a minimum of 110fps, I'd set a max of 125 fps. I've just found that 15fps is the ideal distance between min and max for me, but like I said, there aren't any rules about this. Just whatever works for you.

Just FYI if you want a single locked frame-rate, set the Min FPS and MaxFPS settings to the same value.

[Johnthebaptist]

AbedsBrother původně napsal:

Johnthebaptist původně napsal:

radeon chill seemed to actually make a difference in overall smoothness after i played a game of apex, I am going to test it more but my min fps i put to 80 i think, u think i should go 130 min 140 max? just confused what values to use

Radeon Chill's lower value is what the fps will drop to in calmer / quieter moments of the game (to keep your gpu cool). The upper value is supposedly what frame-rate you will achieve during faster more intense periods of in-game activity. Basically, your gpu works hard when it needs to, and doesn't push as hard when a scene doesn't demand it.

But Radeon Chill is really just a frame-rate limiter. If you're hitting 140fps one minute, then 90fps the next, the drop from 140 to 90 - a temporary drop of 50fps - can manifest as chop or stutter.
So ideally you want to set the "min fps" to the low end of your average framerates, and the "max fps" 10-15fps higher than your minimum. There's room for frame-rate variance, but not enough to cause stutter.

I don't know what fps you're getting in Apex, but if you set your minimum to 80 as you said, 90 or 95fps would be the maximum I would set, but there are no hard rules. If your fps looks & feels good, then it's fine. If I set a minimum of 110fps, I'd set a max of 125 fps. I've just found that 15fps is the ideal distance between min and max for me, but like I said, there aren't any rules about this. Just whatever works for you.

Just FYI if you want a single locked frame-rate, set the Min FPS and MaxFPS settings to the same value.

Ill do a match 130 min 144 max and report back, does this add any input lag that you know of? but also i see i can't have radeon anti lag on with this setting

[AbedsBrother]

You might notice a VERY slight increase since you will have moments where your fps will be 130 (your minimum fps). That's less than your max of 144, obviously. It's up to you to decide if the smoother gameplay is worth the trade-off of an additional micro-second of input delay.

Frames higher than your monitor's native refresh rate are counted by fps counters, but don't actually show on your screen. So you were only ever seeing a max of 144fps anyway, even if your gpu (from the photo you linked) was rendering 173.7 fps.

[Snow]

Johnthebaptist původně napsal:

Ill do a match 130 min 144 max and report back, does this add any input lag that you know of? but also i see i can't have radeon anti lag on with this setting

Because there's no need in it. Anti-lag reduces the amount of frames CPU can draw before sending to GPU, and by doing that it eliminates input latency issues caused by GPU running close to 100% usage. Meanwhile Radeon Chill limits the amount of frames CPU can draw, but alto makes CPU spend exactly the same amount between drawing frames. While those are two different things, they pretty much achieve the same goal.
Never ever run your hardware close to 100% in a gaming PC. It might cause stutters and input latency jumps. Radeon Chill is a fine way of limiting framerate, RTSS is what most of us use for that purpose.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsXFUVYPIx4
Here's a simple explanation to all that. This affects each and every computer so far, including game consoles and smartphones. Games running unlimited framerates are actually quite rare outside the PC.

Johnthebaptist původně napsal:

I have tried emptystandbylist cleaner, but for some reason it stopped automatically clearing the cache but idk if it even did anything at all or was placebo

Get rid of that ASAP. There's this Windows feature called Superfetch, which pre-loads some parts of the apps you often launch to your RAM in background mode, so your favourite apps launch faster. Once the cleaner has done its job, Superfetch notices there are lots of free RAM and loads all the stuff from drive to RAM again. Unless you turn off Superfetch, this little fight for RAM results in stutters, but then if you do turn off Superfetch - you don't have much of an extra stuff in your RAM anyway. Back in the day there was some memory leak issue related to Superfetch but there isn't any now, tho you can turn it off to see if that makes a difference. Can be found in Services under Superfetch/Prefetch/SysMain names.

[Johnthebaptist]

Snow původně napsal:

Johnthebaptist původně napsal:

Ill do a match 130 min 144 max and report back, does this add any input lag that you know of? but also i see i can't have radeon anti lag on with this setting

Because there's no need in it. Anti-lag reduces the amount of frames CPU can draw before sending to GPU, and by doing that it eliminates input latency issues caused by GPU running close to 100% usage. Meanwhile Radeon Chill limits the amount of frames CPU can draw, but alto makes CPU spend exactly the same amount between drawing frames. While those are two different things, they pretty much achieve the same goal.
Never ever run your hardware close to 100% in a gaming PC. It might cause stutters and input latency jumps. Radeon Chill is a fine way of limiting framerate, RTSS is what most of us use for that purpose.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsXFUVYPIx4
Here's a simple explanation to all that. This affects each and every computer so far, including game consoles and smartphones. Games running unlimited framerates are actually quite rare outside the PC.

Johnthebaptist původně napsal:

I have tried emptystandbylist cleaner, but for some reason it stopped automatically clearing the cache but idk if it even did anything at all or was placebo

Get rid of that ASAP. There's this Windows feature called Superfetch, which pre-loads some parts of the apps you often launch to your RAM in background mode, so your favourite apps launch faster. Once the cleaner has done its job, Superfetch notices there are lots of free RAM and loads all the stuff from drive to RAM again. Unless you turn off Superfetch, this little fight for RAM results in stutters, but then if you do turn off Superfetch - you don't have much of an extra stuff in your RAM anyway. Back in the day there was some memory leak issue related to Superfetch but there isn't any now, tho you can turn it off to see if that makes a difference. Can be found in Services under Superfetch/Prefetch/SysMain names.

hey man thank you for this great response, I am gonna reread this and try to apply this information

[Johnthebaptist]

Snow původně napsal:

Johnthebaptist původně napsal:

Ill do a match 130 min 144 max and report back, does this add any input lag that you know of? but also i see i can't have radeon anti lag on with this setting

Because there's no need in it. Anti-lag reduces the amount of frames CPU can draw before sending to GPU, and by doing that it eliminates input latency issues caused by GPU running close to 100% usage. Meanwhile Radeon Chill limits the amount of frames CPU can draw, but alto makes CPU spend exactly the same amount between drawing frames. While those are two different things, they pretty much achieve the same goal.
Never ever run your hardware close to 100% in a gaming PC. It might cause stutters and input latency jumps. Radeon Chill is a fine way of limiting framerate, RTSS is what most of us use for that purpose.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsXFUVYPIx4
Here's a simple explanation to all that. This affects each and every computer so far, including game consoles and smartphones. Games running unlimited framerates are actually quite rare outside the PC.

Johnthebaptist původně napsal:

I have tried emptystandbylist cleaner, but for some reason it stopped automatically clearing the cache but idk if it even did anything at all or was placebo

Get rid of that ASAP. There's this Windows feature called Superfetch, which pre-loads some parts of the apps you often launch to your RAM in background mode, so your favourite apps launch faster. Once the cleaner has done its job, Superfetch notices there are lots of free RAM and loads all the stuff from drive to RAM again. Unless you turn off Superfetch, this little fight for RAM results in stutters, but then if you do turn off Superfetch - you don't have much of an extra stuff in your RAM anyway. Back in the day there was some memory leak issue related to Superfetch but there isn't any now, tho you can turn it off to see if that makes a difference. Can be found in Services under Superfetch/Prefetch/SysMain names.

I just stopped the SysMain service, will it auto start back up again if i restart my pc etc? Next i am going to limit the frame again but should i use rtss or radeon chill?