Could a rapid change of 1 FPS be causing my game to stutter?

[Sweet C]

I found out that Left 4 Dead 2 doesn't stay on 60 as Fraps displayed. It switches from 59-60FPS constantly and rapidly. Hardly goes above or below that range. Could this be the reason why I get stuttering in the game? And if so, how do I go around to fix it?

Well, now to be more specific, in Left 4 Dead 2, I get rapid changes of 59.5-60.2 and everything in between. I tried Deus Ex HR (where I don't have any issues), and I get 59.9-60.0 and nothing else. Also, Deus Ex seems to be using around twice the amout of my GPU than L4D2. Is this something I need to take note of?

[Joker]

Do you have vsync on? I get the feeling your gpu isn't strong enough to stay above/at 60 & if vsync is on then it's skipping frames to stay at 60. Framerate fluctuations and/or using vsync to maintain a fps your gpu can't do can cause stuttering. If you have vsync on then try turning it off or get a better gpu. I don't know what your specs are.

[Sweet C]

GPU is a geforce gtx 660. I'm sure that isnt the problem, since I'm not trying to run Crysis.

[Joker]

That's a good card so the gpu isn't the problem. Framerate fluctuations can cause stutterting tho. I don't think a change of a few fps would stutter. I have a 660 Ti and COD Black Ops 2 stutters real bad if the fps is set to unlimited. My fps would go from 185 to 90. I capped it to a steady 90 and the stuttering went away. I don't use vsync. That's the only game that had this problem. My other games run great. I'm surprised L4D2 is stuttering for you. Did you try turning vsync off or put it to adaptive? Are you using antialiasing or anisotropic filtering? Try turning those off too. I have nvidia control panel set to "let the 3d application decide". When I had 16x anisotropic filtering, Negative LOD Bias set to "Clamp" & antialiasing on then other games stuttered. The 660 cards aren't the best for these settings. This is why the 670 and higher exists.

[[UFO] rad87gn]

Your video card will never be an exact anything fps ever. It's always doing work in progress and depending on what the game is doing to the CPU and GPU it changes.. For vsync yours is extremely solid where it should be. Now if your fps drops from 60 to 20 you'll feel something but your fps changing that little isn't doing anything. If a GPU isn't able to produce 60fps turning vsync on won't make it skip stuff to produce 60fps. It will just stay where it can running wide open below 60fps. Your video card should be able to run Left 4 Dead 2 just fine.

You get the problem playing single player or multi-player or both?

[Sweet C]

I get the problem all around in the game (solo, multi, etc). I don't know what is causing the stuttering. Some months ago, I have stuttering on almost all games, but then I found out that my mouse was what was causing it (it was a regular wireless one). So I replaced it with a logitech G400, and it went away.

But not on Source games (I also get stuttering in HL2, but it goes away pretty quickly).

[Sweet C]

Or maybe I'm just being too sensitive about the issue. It's just that when I plugged in a controller that one time, the stutter went away. Maybe that's just the way it is with a mouse and keyboard.

[LoTekRabbit]

I know what you are talking about, when the game stutters when you move around with a mouse but it's completely fine with a controller.

Some games have an issue where if a game isn't exactly at your monitors refresh rate it will have a terrible, terrible micro stutter that becomes severe when you are strafing and using the mouse. Source games are notorious for it as are some other games. Far Cry 3 being the most recent one. If your framerate doesn't match the refresh rate it's unplayable due to the stutter. Some people claim to not notice this and blame it on our computers but that's complete BS. They have the same issue but it just doesn't bother them for whatever reason. This has been documented on many tech sites and forums.

One way to fix it and make sure your frames do not fluctuate from 59-60 is to download MSI Afterburner, Evga Precision, or just Riva tuner and cap your framerate to 60.

Here is what you can do to fix this problem for many games

1. Download Evga Precision X: http://www.guru3d.com/files_details/evga_precision_x_download.html

2. Install both PrecisionXSetup then RTSSSetup

3. Run Precision and click on Monitoring on the left hand side.

4. In general checkmark Start With Windows and Start Minimized

5. Click on the monitoring tab. Scroll down to where you see 'Framerate' in the 'Active hardware monitoring graphs.' Put a check mark to the left of it.

6. Click ok then click on a new icon you will see in your hidden taskbar area. It looks like a computer monitor with purple numbers at the top left side.

7. You will see 'Framerate Limit'. Type in 60 and enter. Minimize both programs.

See how it works. This stops many games from fluctuating between 59-60 over and over again and causes much smoother gameplay in a lot of titles.

[Sweet C]

I couldn't get Riva Turner to work when I first heard of it. Can I do the same with MSI Afterburner? Where do I go to do that?

Wait, I do have EVGA Precision X, and I did set the framerate to 60, so I will try that out. Will having this set on different programs (such as MSI Afterburner, in-game settings, and control panel) affect performance?

What new icon? I don't see the computer monitor icon...

[LoTekRabbit]

Either use MSI Afterburner or Precision. Do not use both.

This icon: http://i41.tinypic.com/30i9gy9.jpg

That I circled on the bottom right.

Click it and set it to 60 in the framerate box.

Another thing you will want to do is go into your Nvidia control panel and set power management mode to 'Maximum performance.'

(Make sure it's the latest Precision. I forgot which version added the framerate toggle so just get the latest).

And again uninstall one of the two. Do not use both.

[Sweet C]

I see it now, but I don't see "frame rate" on there.

Nevermind, I spotted it.

I still get stuttering. Do I need to also disable vsync and triple buffering from in-game and nvidia control panel?


Well, with disabling vsync in-game and in control panel, I get massive screen tearing, which is worse for me.

[LoTekRabbit]

Hmm...try capping it to 59 frames and tell me how it is.

Also did you set it to max performance?

If both of those fail set Vertical Sync to 'Adaptive' in the control panel.

Edit:

If you have any type of overclock try setting it to stock and see if it fixes the issue.

Those are all the suggestions I have. Good luck.

[Sweet C]

Thanks for your help. I will make sure to inform you if it gets fixed.

Well, I managed to get it going at 60FPS without any hiccups, but the stuttering persists. Maybe I'm just nit-picking, or maybe it's something else. Anyways, I give up for now. Maybe I'll fix it one day. Thank you lots for your advice.

[banzaigtv]

The only sure way to remove random stutter and bad choppiness in Far Cry 3 and many other games is to cap the frame rate to something much lower than 60. I cap my frame rate to 30 and the stuttering is gone. The graphics animate at one-half of the optimal frame rate, but it's still quite playable as if it is being played on a console. Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon runs much better with minimal stuttering, though, even with the frame rate unlocked. It's because that game is better optimized.

[Joker]

Another thing you could try is changing the pre-rendered frames option. If you set it to 4 you'll get much smoother gameplay. It can cause lag if you don't have a decent CPU.

[LoTekRabbit]

Originally posted by banzaigtv:

The only sure way to remove random stutter and bad choppiness in Far Cry 3 and many other games is to cap the frame rate to something much lower than 60. I cap my frame rate to 30 and the stuttering is gone. The graphics animate at one-half of the optimal frame rate, but it's still quite playable as if it is being played on a console. Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon runs much better with minimal stuttering, though, even with the frame rate unlocked. It's because that game is better optimized.

Unfortunately playing at 30 FPS with a mouse is a terrible experience. With a game pad it's fine but an FPS at 30 FPS with a mouse? No way.

Capping it to 60 or 59 fixes it for a lot of games as well. It depends on the game and it's unfortunate that it didn't work for OP.

Hopefully with next gen consoles using x86 architecture this BS won't be a problem anymore. If you notice this only happens with multi platform games and no PC exclusive has issues like this.