Question 6600xt cannot run older games

[Kondha]

Specs:
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9700K CPU @ 3.60GHz
GPU: RX 6600xt (latest drivers)
motherboard: ASrock Z390 phantom gaming ITX (not the latest BIOS, could that be it?)
RAM: 16gigs
monitor: 1440p, 144hz

Ever since I upgraded from my GTX 970 to an RTX 6600xt, I experience such bad stutters that I cannot play older games like Team Fortress 2, League of Legends, GMOD, Smite, and Fable Anniversary very well. Every 1-2 seconds or anytime I take a quick action the game will just momentarily freeze and ruin the experience. I'd say that they're mostly unplayable for this reason.

I can play newer games completely fine, however. Forza 5, Halo Infinite, Apex Legends, Monster Hunter - all games that require a decent amount of power relative to the older games run buttery smooth between 90 and 144fps with few drops.

What are some possible reasons for this and how can I fix it? I'm assuming it's the graphics card because that's the only thing that has changed recently with this build.

 

[Metal Messiah.]

I'm assuming it's the graphics card

Not necessarily. Since you can play Forza 5, Halo Infinite, Apex Legends, Monster Hunter at buttery smooth frame rates , then I doubt the GPU is the culprit here. Could also be some software and/or OS issue.

By any chance are you using Windows 11 OS ? Have you also tried running older PC games in compatibility Mode ? What happens if you play those OLD games on a lower resolution than the native 1440p, like 1080p or even 720p ?

 

[punkncat]

IME, set your older games to 1080/60, V sync or set a frame limit on them.

 

[Karadjgne]

In those older games, see if in the game settings there is a cap.

Stuttering is most common when you get right at refresh or double refresh. What happens is the screen starts a refresh cycle, the gpu throws up a new frame, but because you are still in refresh, it gets skipped, and you see the stutter as a result. It's even more noticeable when fps reaches right at double the refresh rate because 2 frames are effectively skipped.

So if you can cap the fps to @ 200 or 120, or add enough details onto the cpu, like hair-works or high lighting effects that'll lower cpu outbound fps, you can do a lot to eliminate stuttering.

Enabling Freesync software And V-sync on the monitor can help too.

 

[Kondha]

Not necessarily. Since you can play Forza 5, Halo Infinite, Apex Legends, Monster Hunter at buttery smooth frame rates , then I doubt the GPU is the culprit here. Could also be some software and/or OS issue.

By any chance are you using Windows 11 OS ? Have you also tried running older PC games in compatibility Mode ? What happens if you play those OLD games on a lower resolution than the native 1440p, like 1080p or even 720p ?

No I'm on Windows 10. It's better with compatibility mode and lower resolutions but still choppy.

 

[Kondha]

In those older games, see if in the game settings there is a cap.

Stuttering is most common when you get right at refresh or double refresh. What happens is the screen starts a refresh cycle, the gpu throws up a new frame, but because you are still in refresh, it gets skipped, and you see the stutter as a result. It's even more noticeable when fps reaches right at double the refresh rate because 2 frames are effectively skipped.

So if you can cap the fps to @ 200 or 120, or add enough details onto the cpu, like hair-works or high lighting effects that'll lower cpu outbound fps, you can do a lot to eliminate stuttering.

Enabling Freesync software And V-sync on the monitor can help too.

That helped a little more, thank you. Still choppy unfortunately but nowhere near as bad.

 

[Karadjgne]

In the radeon software, try setting it to Quality instead of performance. It'll be a small fps hit, but better that than a stuttering game.

 

[Kondha]

In the radeon software, try setting it to Quality instead of performance. It'll be a small fps hit, but better that than a stuttering game.

I did that as well but no dice. Still stutters pretty badly.

 

[Karadjgne]

The only thing I can think of that might be an issue is DirectX. League of Legends (believe it or not) is actually DX9.0, not DX11 or DX12, which all newer games are based on. Windows10 is supposedly DX9.0 compatible, but you have to choose that mode in Compatibility when you click on the run icon.

So what you could try is installing the DirectX 9.0c SDK, download direct from Microsoft. Because all the DX9 files are named differently to DX11 or DX12 files, there's no compatibility issues.

Install DirectX 9 on Windows 10 to Play Old Games. – MYTECTUTOR

mytectutor.com

I had to do this to play some really old games like Starwars KotOR and Neverwinter Nights.

 

[Kondha]

The only thing I can think of that might be an issue is DirectX. League of Legends (believe it or not) is actually DX9.0, not DX11 or DX12, which all newer games are based on. Windows10 is supposedly DX9.0 compatible, but you have to choose that mode in Compatibility when you click on the run icon.

So what you could try is installing the DirectX 9.0c SDK, download direct from Microsoft. Because all the DX9 files are named differently to DX11 or DX12 files, there's no compatibility issues.

Install DirectX 9 on Windows 10 to Play Old Games. – MYTECTUTOR

mytectutor.com

I had to do this to play some really old games like Starwars KotOR and Neverwinter Nights.

No luck; I tried that but it didn't fix anything.

I did happen to find a method that 90% fixes everything though. There's still some minor stuttering but running the games as an administrator seems to help a lot for some reason, at least on the older games.