So to begin I'm not sure if the micro stutter and generally, relatively lower performance are in any way linked, in the off chance that they are I want to describe my experience with the stutter. At first, I'd like to mention, my suspicion was that the stutter was tied to my RAM. I thought this because
usually upon a fresh reboot my games will run with nearly no microstuttering and over the course of 2-3 hours it will creep up until it becomes so unbearable that I will have to literally quit the game I'm playing and restart.
Anyways I'm going to try my hardest to remember everything I've tried in an effort to increase overall performance as well as directly address this micro-stutter over the past 3 weeks or so. In no specific order:
Re-seating my RAM: Seemed like a shot in the dark but an easy thing to try, alas this didn't solve the issue
Memtest86: Did a complete test of my RAM while I was out at work and came back to 0 errors upon completion.
Windows Memory Diagnostics: Basically a less thorough version of Memtest86 from my understanding; yielded 0 erros.
XMP Profile: By default it's off, I turned it on relatively early in the build process when I learned you don't get your advertised RAM speeds by default. So I had it enabled for a good while before being told this can sometimes cause stuttering. Tried this out for awhile with no luck, and was told by another "Turn XMP back on. Period." and have had it and left it on since.
It was also suggested to me to take the time to set my RAM timings manually but this is a new rabbit hole I have yet to delve into with time restraints. I'm told XMP is basically a default OC profile for you RAM but IDEALLY people suggest doing manual OCing (as with all overclocking I would assume this is the ideal course of action)
CPB/PBO/AMD Cool& Quiet: While I'm not entirely sure how these three functions work I've tried them on and off (auto) in bios. Neither seem to truly provide a noticeable increase or decrease in performance from my experience. When I was first setting up the PC I was dealing with chronic blue screens of death and unusually high CPU temps so it was suggested I disable PBO. I eventually updated by bios and this problem was solved quickly and completely and so I just recently re-enabled these settings (or disabled in the case of Cool and Quiet) and haven't seen much of a performance boost or thermal difference.
Running with as little background operations as possible: Obvious and simple step, closing as many unnecessary background tasks as possible...I'm looking at you Chrome.
Windows Power Plans: Set to 'AMD Performance' though I've read that AMD Balanced is slightly better? Not entirely sure and haven't tried it as, frankly, I don't think this is the cause of my stuttering or lower performance.
Max CPU usage setting in windows(?): Forget exactly what this setting was called or where it was located but early on when dealing with overheating issues and trying to address the BSOD catastrophe someone suggested I set this to 99% vs 100%. I
BELIEVE this has been set back to 100%
CPU Overclock in Ryzen Master: I run my CPU overclocking entirely through Ryzen Master/bios (mainly bios) and have it more or less set to auto/default. I haven't bothered with CPU OC too much as it makes me a bit nervous and I honestly just haven't had much time with work. I DO know my clock speed limit is set to 4.2GHz vs the 3.6GHz advertised cap by default so I've watched hit that 4.2 at full load. I'm sure there's more to OCing a CPU than that but If I've been satisfied knowing I'm at least getting the 4.2GHz.
GPU Overclocking: See OP. Though I will add that I haven't touched the memory clocking on the GPU as the posts I was reading to guide me through OCing the card said that nowadays most cards have enough memory, etc. etc. that it isn't super necessary. I also changed my fan curve to by +10% higher than every degree -- Starting around 40 Celsius -> 50% fan speed, 50 Celsius -> 60% fan speed, and so on. I don't care about my PC making a bit more sound if it means better performance at a safe level.
Updated Drivers/Chipsets: As far as I'm
aware I've all updated drivers. GPU drivers, CPU Chipset, bios updates, etc. etc. thought I suppose it couldn't hurt to double-check all of these again. I know I read someone mentioned audio drivers and stuff before which I honestly cant remember if I updated those or not, or if that would cause any issues to begin with.
Driver Verifier Command: I think I've run this through the command prompt window a few times and it hasn't reported any issues. I will say though, that Easy Anti-Cheat has has been BSODing me ever since I tried to play Rogue Company, if I try to boot the game it'll BSOD when EAC tries to load up so basically Im avoiding all Easy Anti Cheat games.
Windows Updates: 100% up to date.
ISLC Intelligent Standby List Cleaner: Someone suggested in my FF14 guild that I try out ISLC which clears cached memory. He said to check my task manager for cached memory and if was ever getting above 8gb or 9gb that this could be an issue and to try running ISCL in the background which keeps that number down. I never noticed it really get too far above 8GB so I gave it a try without much results and wrote this off as not the cause of my problems.
Nvidia Control Panel: All settings geared towards optimized performance vs 'balance, energy saving' etc. etc. I tend to use NVCP global settings across the board but I will tinker with my ingame video settings for each game (Witcher 3, Nier Automata, FF14, League of Legends, Modern Warfare, Risk of Rain 2, etc.) but at the end of the day I haven't had much success in reducing the stutter aside from trying to get the highest FPS across the board in order to make the stutter less impactful if that makes sense?
V-Sync/FreeSync/Gsync: This while I don't think is my problem has always kind of been beyond me. I've read so many posts and been told so many things that I don't really know what to believe about these settings. For starters I tried V-sync enabled/disabled exclusively via NVCP (Global settings) and v-sync enabled/disabled exclusively via ingame settings and every combination of the two. I also have a Freesync monitor which has Freesync ON and I've enabled the "Gsync compatible" setting in NVCP and I will say
this definitely helps as opposed to these settings not being turned on. I've tried no Vsync and it's noticeably worse.
FPS Capping: In the same vein as V-Sync/Gsync/freesync, I've also tried to throw in FPS caps/limiters to these combinations to see how that worked out and landed on: Capping my FPS to 143 with a 144hz monitor made the most sense if I WERE to use a cap. Though with V-sync enabled capping it didnt make much sense anyways and if I'm to play without V-sync? Well I'm DEFINITELY not getting anywhere near 144fps steady on ANY of my games so I think V-sync enabled or a 60FPS cap and 60hz monitor setting are my two options.
I'll add this microstutter existed before I bought this 144hz monitor and was on a 60hz AOC monitor exclusively. Vsync still had the same positive effect. So I think this is to be expected for most people and once again NOT the cause of my microstutter.
Now as for a few things I HAVEN'T tried yet but have been suggested to try:
- Manual RAM timings
- Latency Mon? Looking at this website I honestly couldn't figure out how to apply it to my issue or even use it. It seems to be audio oriented?
- Checking for a faulty SATA cable
- Someone mentioned that the PCIE cables running from my PSU -> GPU and that if theyre split off the same cable it can be an issue sometimes, and that a split cable therefore split powerload is better or something? Right now I have 6-pin with a dangling 2-pin that is attached to the 6 but not needed on the left, and a 8-pin (6-pin + 2-pin split like the one next to it but they're both used this time)
- Testufo (I messed around with this a little bit, it was a nice visual tool for seeing different FPS and refreshrates or whatever but not much of help for microstuttering or solving underperformance
- Motherboard AGESA? A guy was saying something about how my Motherboard is kind of dated (I knew I shouldn't have skimped out on the motherboard) and this and that about AGESA 1.0.0.3ABB = BAD and AGESA 1.0.0.3ABBA = GOOD. Upon googling this I didnt really know what to do with this information and moved on.
- Peripherals I haven't tried a process of elimination approach to plugging and unplugging different peripherals to see if any of them are causing the stutter. To me this kinda seemed like a shot in the dark, though I do plan on giving it a try. Im just unsure how to test this accurately with the stuttering being something that creeps.
- SSD/HDD? So I have an HDD installed but currently it has literally nothing on it. Maybe my SSD is the culprit?
If you think an image of any of my hardware (Like those PCIE cables on my GPU) could possibly help root out my problem here I'm more than glad to post them here!
IF YOU MADE IT THIS FAR YOU'RE A GOD DAMNED HERO THANK YOU FOR THE READ! Im genuinely just out of ideas.
My big final question: If I cant solve this issue is there A) Any chance doing a complete factory wipe of the entire machine would solve this problem, or is it more likely a hardware issue?
OR
B) Places you can send or take your PCs into that you can pay for professional troubleshooting on things like this?