Dual Monitor Frame Stuttering

[luminant]

So I have a 980ti, and connected to it is a 60hz monitor (via hdmi) and a 144hz monitor (via display port).

I play games on the 144hz monitor, and watch twitch on the 60hz monitor. both 1920x1080.

It seems whenever I play Fallout 4 (in windowed mode) I get very noticeable frame stuttering, yet I sit at a constant 60 fps. I'm not sure if it is frame stuttering exactly, but it feels like it as the game does not feel smooth.

I tried doing a few known fixes to prevent frame stuttering in Fallout 4, but I believe this problem is not exclusive to this game, as I've experienced frame stuttering on World of Warcraft, euro truck sim and CSGO.

I have looked around for fixes, and so far I have tried:
-Setting my nvidia scaling option to GPU on both monitors.
-Disabling hardware acceleration in chrome.
-Setting both monitors to the same refresh rate.
-Using DVI instead of HDMI for my 60hz monitor.
-Disabling windows 10 transparency.

Edit: I tried using Firefox and Edge to watch Twitch, still had the same problem. So it isn't browser specific.

None of these fixes have worked for me. If anyone has any suggestions or ideas on how to fix this, please let me know.

For reference, my specs are:
Windows 10 Home (64 bit)
i5 4690k
Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 5
MSI 980ti
16GB 1866Mhz RAM (Kingston savage)
250GB Samsung EVO SSD.
2TB WD black HDD.
650watt Corsair PSU.
AOC G2460PG monitor (144hz)
Asus ve228h monitor (60hz)

 

[Guest]

Are you using the latest driver version?

 

[luminant]

Are you using the latest driver version?

Yes, I did a clean install when updating to them too.

 

[Guest]

Hm, have you checked if the refresh rate of the monitors fit to the graphics one? It might also be, that your monitors aren't supported.

 

[luminant]

Hm, have you checked if the refresh rate of the monitors fit to the graphics one? It might also be, that your monitors aren't supported.

My monitors are supported by my gfx card, and so are the refresh rates.
For reference, my card is an Nvidia 980ti (6GB of vram). I don't think this is a hardware issue because everything works flawlessly when I'm just using one monitor, or when my browser closed on my second monitor.

 

[Guest]

Sorry, but I dont think I can help you any more. It's probably some drivee settings issue, tho

 

[luminant]

Sorry, but I dont think I can help you any more. It's probably some drivee settings issue, tho

So perhaps downgrading my graphics driver could help?

 

[Guest]

Sorry, but I dont think I can help you any more. It's probably some drivee settings issue, tho

So perhaps downgrading my graphics driver could help?

No, I rather thought it could be some setting.

 

[luminant]

Well in case it helps, here are my global settings for my gfx card.
I changed monitor technology to "Fixed Refresh" specifically for Fallout 4 to see if that would make a difference, but it didn't.

http://imgur.com/a/qDuDk

 

[luminant]

I've also tried lowering my graphics settings when playing games, but that hasn't made much of a difference.
Also, just to add my 144hz monitor has G-sync which I make use of.

 

[Guest]

I've also tried lowering my graphics settings when playing games, but that hasn't made much of a difference.
Also, just to add my 144hz monitor has G-sync which I make use of.

Try it without Gsync, does that help?

 

[luminant]

Try it without Gsync, does that help?

So turning Gsync off didn't make a difference, however when I turned off the 60fps limit in Fallout 4, I noticed that having Chrome (or any browser) open on a twitch stream did in fact cause an FPS drop from around 120-130fps, down to 50-60fps.

Now I may have a solution, which seemed to work for 10 minutes of testing (I closed the game after that). I went into task manager and changed the priority of the Fallout4.exe to high and my frame rate was back to normal, even with a stream playing on my second monitor.

I'm going to do some more testing on my other games to see if it holds true for them, and also to see if this solution works for playing a few hours of a game while watching a stream.

 

[luminant]

It seems my solution posted above doesn't work for all games. After playing Mass Effect 3, CoD: Ghosts and South Park: Stick of Truth, I noticed the same problem of frames being dropped, and the game play not feeling very smooth while watching Twitch streams on my second monitor.

If anyone has any other suggestions or possible fixes then please let me know.

 

[Guest]

I'm sorry, I don't think I know any futher

 

[luminant]

Found a solution that has worked for me.
It turned out V-sync was cause of the "stuttering" issue. Tested it with several games (Fallout 4, CoD Ghosts, and Mass Effect 3 included), and after disabling v-sync I found the problem went away.

Only problem I found was that some games, like Fallout, don't have a simple way of disabling V-sync. Instead I had to change things in the .ini files to fully disable v-sync.
If you're in need of something to replace V-sync, I recommend using Frame Limiter in Nvidia Inspector, as this will limit the frames without input lag or other problems related to V-sync. Apparently MSI Afterburner is a good alternative for AMD users, but I cannot vouch for that as I am an Nvidia user.