[SOLVED] Constant stuttering in games with 1080ti and RX 570, have no idea which component is at fault

[sennhei]

Hi,
for the past months I’ve been using an RX 460 4GB as a temporary gpu before switching to 1080ti. With the RX 460 I didn’t have stuttering (and never before on this rig, I used GTX 1070, vega 64 etc before).

Ever since I’ve made the switch to the 1080 ti I’ve been experiencing constant stutering during games. I’ve even tried my friend’s ASUS ROG Strix RX 570 4GB in my rig and I still have the same problem, The freesync makes things better in some games with RX 570 (Tomb Raider 2013 runs flawlessly in freync range, but on my non-freesync 1080p monitor it has stuttering), but other games stutter in freesync range too.

My monitor is a 4K LG 27UD58-B, and I've tested with a 1080p monitor and an LG Oled C7, experienced the same thing. I reinstalled the windows and tried earlier drivers too.

I've made a video to show what it looks like (with 1080 ti on my 4K monitor):
https://streamable.com/knz1a
The frame time is all over the place, as is the CPU usage (probably bc of the video recording sowtware, without it the frametimes are not that chaotic, but the stuttering is the same). I have stuttering in some games even when a game runs 60fps with 16.6ms frame time. Other games dont stutter when the fps is constant 60, but if the fps drops below 60, the stuttering starts.

My specs:
GPU: EVGA SC 1080 Ti
CPU: I5 6500
MB: Gigabyte GA-B150-HD3P
RAM: Crucial 16GB DDR4 2133 CL15
PSU: Cooler Master G650M 650W
Windows: newest Win10
Nvidia driver: 441.20


I know that i5 6500 is not a very good match for a 1080 ti, but I played at 4k without stuttering with vega64 with the same rig.

Can somebody help me? I have no idea what the problem is and what should I do to fix it.

 

[kanewolf]

Is that 16GB RAM a single DIMM or two DIMMs?

 

[Rdslw]

Is that 16GB RAM a single DIMM or two DIMMs?

i5 should work quite well for most titles.
3 reasons why I can think of:
1 single RAM DIMM or missmatched config running single channel.
2 OVERHEATING or broken power management settings in WinSht
3. HDD heavly fragmented boot drive ?

 

[sennhei]

Thats dual channel 2x8GB RAM. Before I reinstalled, my windows was running on a 120GB SSD, but I have an 1TB HDD and a 250GB SSD as well. I suspected that the stuttering was caused by the 45% (via HDSentinel) 120GB SSD, so I decided to reinstall the windows on my 250GB SSD (which is at 96%). So now I have the stuttering on my 250GB SSD, and before that, on my 120GB SSD.

@Rdslw can you elaborate on your second point, how can I check that?

 

[Rdslw]

@Rdslw can you elaborate on your second point, how can I check that?

Either CPU is not covered with thermal paste correctly or cooler is to weak (or dirty) to handle the cpu.
second part is power setting:
https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/use-maximum-cpu-power-windows-10
but dont set minimal speed to 100% if you dont want to remove your BOOST capability. (article is damn wrong)
windows can tell your cpu to run at 5% of its power tops, for example.
anything under 100%(on MAX) means CPU will not boost. (minimum should be 1% or 0)

 

[Karadjgne]

You'll need to do some management on that 250Gb ssd if it's filled to 96%. With the OS on it, it'll need space to be used as cache and pagefile access as windows goes about its job. Usually a minimum of 10% or 20-25Gb is recommended, more is better as many SSDs will slow down significantly when more than @ 50% filled.

Stuttering here can be from several things, but I'd guess the issue is mainly from the i5. It's trying to pump out maximum fps, but that's not enough and the 1080ti is filling in the gaps with a second repeat frame, you see the repeat as a stutter. Vsync only helps with stutter above monitor refresh, nvidia Adaptive vsync will turn off vsync automatically for fps below the monitor refresh to try and get eliminate the stutters.

You can try cutting down on some settings, chop them to medium, but you can also try through GeForce Experience and setting a 4k DSR, which will give that 1080ti some real work to do and balance out the workload between the 4 thread cpu and uber overkill gpu for 1080p.

Also make sure things like Xbox DVR and game helper are off/disabled in windows and that all the motherboard drivers, audio/lan/usb/Sata etc are upto date from the motherboard website as older drivers can conflict with new windows updates and cause stutters.

 

[sennhei]

@Karadjgne sorry if i wasnt clear enough, I meant the condition of the SSDs is 45% and 96%.

The i5 shouldn't be a problem in most games on 4K, as I said I played Hitman, COD WW2 etc without any stutter on my 4K freesync monitor with Vega 64 with the same rig.

And now I tried these games with both 1080ti and RX 570 (also with a GTX 1060 6GB) on my 4k and my 1080p monitors:
Pyre, Outcast Second Contact, AC Black Flag, Yakuza Kiwami 2, Observer, Sam an Max Season 2, Far Cry 5, Tomb Raider 2013, Observation.
Only Tomb Raider is stutter free in the freesync range with the RX 570 (with 1080ti it stutters). Most games wont stutter when the the framerates are exaxtly 60. Above and below 60, they stutter. But for example Pyre and Observation still have stutter when its 60fps with 16.6ms frame time.

I will try what you and @Rdslw suggested soon and report if it helped.

 

[Karadjgne]

Ah. Oh. Well that 120Gb is toast. End of Life by a long way if health is 45%. Honestly the 250Gb isn't far behind. Usually SSD manufacturers build in a redundancy to the SSD, kinda faking the life expectancy. You'll usually see an extra 6-13% over and above the 100%, so when the SSD would normally drop to 99% with age or 'bad sector' (like on a hdd), it gets replaced by 1% of the redundancy, so maintains the 100% for much longer. If you are now down to 96%, you've already had @ 10%-17% of the drive actually become unusable and it'll start cascade failures soon enough, which can affect anything from OS to games to boot files.

Cpu sets the fps limit. It'll pre-render all frames before passing those to the gpu, which finish renders those frames according to resolution and details. With the i5, resolution isn't a factor, that's all gpu so an i5 at 1080p will get the same fps output as at 4k. That's where the gpu makes a difference.

Most stuttering is found right at monitor refresh rates. If the cpu is giving 60fps to the gpu it's fine as long as that 60fps is consistent. But a single holdup, a 59.5fps sent, will often cause the gpu to have to repeat a frame as it can't get the one whole frame up in time to cover the refresh, it's a dance. And you get a stutter where you see the static repeat and the next frame is further along in the series.

So you'll have to play with settings, in game or in nvcp (turn pre-rendered 3d virtual frames from 3 to 1) etc to try and get fps away from being 60. You'd be better off with 50 or 70.

 

[Phaaze88]

Possible frame time hiccups from using a non-hyperthreaded cpu perhaps? Doesn't become an issue unless all the cores are loaded though.

 

[Karadjgne]

I thought that too at first, it's s quad i5 after all, but with any other gpu, including a Vega64, same 1080p / 4k monitors, everything is peachy. So my train of thought would be inclined to believe it's just a massive overkill situation, but the 4k monitor puts lie to that. ( didn't ask if running at 4k resolution on that 4k monitor, or 1080p on the 4k, which many ppl do with smaller gpus, hmmm).

But all the games seem to be running around 60fps, which is odd as there should be a reasonable discrepancy, some might be averaging 50, some well over 100, almost as if fps is capped somehow.

 

[RodroX]

If you don't mind playing at 60fps, turn ON vsync on the option menu of the games and see if its still stuttering.