Question BIZARRE - 3090 - Stuttering / hitching at lower resolutions but fine at higher resolutions. plz halp.

Leepoint

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Apr 21, 2006
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So I had 2080 and I'm fortunate (/ silly enough) to have upgraded to a 3090.

I've noticed a very odd thing happening when playing nearly all games at high (144) fps: Shadow of Tomb Raider & Forza Horizon 4 to name a couple: The amount of stuttering which was noticeable with my 2080 has actually seemed to INCREASE, while playing at the same 1440p resolution with the same visual settings.
The framerate output I have capped at 140fps on my 144hz monitor via nvidia control panel - according to my framerate monitoring tools I'm getting a steady 140fps - but this isn't reflected ingame AT ALL - in fact - its a hell of a lot smoother if I set the framerate to 60fps fixed within the ingame settings.

Now for the BIZARRE thing, If I up the resolution to 2880p, the games run say at around 50 fps fluctuating up and down (with gsync turned on) and it still looks way smoother than it does at 1440p (supposedly running at 140fps).

Got me thinking that my 2080 wasn't hitting that 140fps cap all of the time which makes me think it could be something to do with the cpu or other components becoming the bottleneck at high FPS.

It would be easy to say "well just play at higher resolutions", but that's not the answer I'm looking for. At present I'm only playing on a 1440p monitor, so I want the benefits of high fps rather than rendering out at a needlessly large resolution.
So I really want to find out whether it's a setting or a hardware issue that could be causing this?

My first suspicion was that the CPU (9900k) is bottlenecking at higher FPS, and the frame hitches from the CPU, are for some reason not being smoothed out through Gsync.
However, using Afterburner to monitor my cpu, the temps and workload look fine and are never capping out. (peaking about 60 degrees and 67% workload respectively).

Any help or ideas, or links to some appropriate page will be helpful. But everywhere I look it talks about turning settings down rather than up to improve performance :p.

Thanks!
 

Phaaze88

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However, using Afterburner to monitor my cpu, the temps and workload look fine and are never capping out. (peaking about 60 degrees and 67% workload respectively).
That analogy doesn't work with today's cpus because they have multiple threads. If your cpu only had a single thread, that would be accurate.
Since that cpu doesn't, all it takes is a single thread hanging at 90%+ to become cpu limited.
Monitor each thread, not the average of them all.
 

Leepoint

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That analogy doesn't work with today's cpus because they have multiple threads. If your cpu only had a single thread, that would be accurate.
Since that cpu doesn't, all it takes is a single thread hanging at 90%+ to become cpu limited.
Monitor each thread, not the average of them all.

Hi, I've just done a test monitoring all 8 cores, none of them peaked above 70 degrees during my test.
Monitoring 16 threads none of them peaked above 89% but I was still experiencing heavy stuttering. (it only hit 89% for a a fraction and dropped back down.

With this information have you got any idea what might be causing the issue? Or is there any information I can provide to help diagnose the issue?
 

Phaaze88

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With this information have you got any idea what might be causing the issue?
At the moment, no. But the more info you can provide... someone may actually have an idea what's up.

Full PC specs - you can use partpicker for simplicity: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/

When you swapped gpus, did you run Display Driver Uninstaller to remove the old driver, and then install the newest recommended?
 

Leepoint

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If I'm honest, I think the problem existed before, it always was a frustration for me, but I was expecting it to go away with the a 3090.
The fact that it's exaggerated the issue makes me think it's another component.

I didn't run the uninstaller, Geforce experience said my drivers were upto date as I'd recently updated them.
I'll try uninstalling and reinstalling now.

In the meantime here are my key specs:

https://ibb.co/NmJXKy3
ASUS Hero X Maximus
9900k
32gb Corsair
samsung 970 pro nmve 512gb
Asus TUF OC 3090
Corsair 750w Gold PSU

asus pg279q
 

Phaaze88

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What are all those ATA: MSFT XVDDs? I've never seen that before...
Oh... apparently it's a virtual disk format for Microsoft games. I guess you have quite a few of them.

Aside from the 970 Pro running in X2 mode, I'm not seeing anything out of the ordinary with that hwinfo pic.

Nothing else perhaps, shows signs of thermal throttling?
-Motherboard VRMs? Even 90C is within spec on that.
-The 2 Samsung drives? While they have 2 temp sensors(NAND flash and Phoenix controller), as long as neither is running over 75C, it should be fine.


There's also userbenchmark. Give that a go and post the link to your results. Something may stick out from there.
 

Phaaze88

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Ah thanks for the tip-off, fixed the x4 mode in the bios. Not sure why it was set to x2, as I'd 100% set it to x4 when I first installed it.

As for my user benchmark results:
https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/34530950
Hot-diggity, it breezed though without a hitch.

I'm thinking either:
A)Windows
-Xbox game bar and game mode are disabled? Although, you might need those for your MS games? I'm not sure - you're gonna have to test that.
-Windows Search > Display > Advanced Display Settings > Display Adapter Properties > Monitor tab. Make sure the refresh rate is set to the monitor's native refresh, click Apply(if allowed), and exit.
-Just like above, but instead of clicking on Advanced Display Settings, click on Graphics Settings. Are the 2 options there off by default? Heck, maybe try them out for a bit - they might actually help.

B)Your in game settings
-Just gonna have to experiment with this one...
-Instead of 140/144fps, how about 143?

C)Nvidia Control Panel settings
-In Manage 3D Settings, Power Management Mode is set to either Adaptive or Maximum? Vertical Sync set to Fast - my own preference, since there's literally no downsides V the Off setting.
-Low Latency Mode: On/Off. Hmm, you may have to play around with that one, as it may not change anything.
-In Display > Change Resolution and Adjust Desktop Size and Position, do the refresh rates match that of your monitor?
-Don't forget to click Apply to save the changes you've made, and then exit.

Or it could be none of those, and some 3rd party software on your PC that you may have overlooked.
 

Leepoint

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Ok, I think it's something to do with frame pacing / tearing. Using Doom Eternal to test. (ingame vsync turned off, no ingame frame limiter)
Seems like anything over 100fps in all tested games and scenarios causes noticeable issues - the higher the framerate the more noticeable the issue (unless I have Vsync turned "on")

Nvidia control panel settings: I've tried the below with Gsync on & off and it doesn't effect things (since for these tests Gsync isn't really being called into play).
Vsync OFF & No frame cap = "Stuttering / tearing" present at 300fps+
Vsync OFF & 140fps cap : "Stuttering" present at locked 139fps.
Vsync OFF & 143fps cap : "Stuttering" present at locked 142fps.
Vsync OFF & 144fps cap : "Stuttering" present at locked 143fps.
Vsync FAST & No frame Cap: "Stuttering" present at 300fps+ (but less obvious stutter than with zero Vsync)
Vsync ON & No frame cap = zero stuttering at 144fps

The last option looks beautifully smooth but I've avoided this in the past because of input lag - ideally I was looking for a solution which wouldn't create input lag.

Through research I understood that by locking my max FPS to under my monitor (option 2 above) it would prevent tears and stuttering as the gpu would only generate 140.
So I tried locking the framerate with RivaTuner instead at various framerates.

Vsync OFF & 360 Frame cap in RivaTuner = 300+fps very poor stutter
Vsync OFF & 144 Frame cap in RivaTuner = 144fps very poor screen tearing
Vsync OFF & 143 Frame cap in RivaTuner = 143fps very poor screen tearing
Vsync OFF & 140 Frame cap in RivaTuner Tuna = 140fps very poor screen tearing
Vsync OFF & 130 Frame cap in RivaTuner = 130fps stuttering reduced
Vsync OFF & 120 Frame cap in RivaTuner = 120fps very minor stutter
Vsync OFF & 100 Frame cap in RivaTuner = 100fps almost zero stuttering

I know it's not the GPU.
I suspected thermal throttling or some other throttling via other components, but that would show itself in framerate drops.
Perhaps it's some 3rd party software causing the issue, but I hope it's just setting somewhere that I have incorrectly set... Could it be perhaps an issue with my monitor?
 
If I'm honest, I think the problem existed before, it always was a frustration for me, but I was expecting it to go away with the a 3090.
The fact that it's exaggerated the issue makes me think it's another component.

I didn't run the uninstaller, Geforce experience said my drivers were upto date as I'd recently updated them.
I'll try uninstalling and reinstalling now.

In the meantime here are my key specs:

https://ibb.co/NmJXKy3
ASUS Hero X Maximus
9900k
32gb Corsair
samsung 970 pro nmve 512gb
Asus TUF OC 3090
Corsair 750w Gold PSU

asus pg279q

bad news... its a known issue @ low resolution with those cards.... maybe drivers will fix it, but at this time its a thing,,,, a thing you cant fix
 

Leepoint

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Apr 21, 2006
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18,510
bad news... its a known issue @ low resolution with those cards.... maybe drivers will fix it, but at this time its a thing,,,, a thing you cant fix

Thanks for this. I'm actually taking this as a positive - if it means I can stop pulling my hair out looking for the problems!
Can you point me to some references where I can read-up on this? Thanks!

If it's likely to be fixed with driver updates then it's totally fine.
If not, then I might have to consider a return... Or hasten my search for a 4k display. 😬