Game Stutter in Windowed

[Viking2121]

Hey everyone,

I'm vary familiar with PC hardware as I build PC's and I often like to overclock, have been doing it for years, But when it comes to software, I consider myself above average but no expert.

That out of the way, My system spec is at the bottom, I can play pretty much every game I own well above 60fps at 2560x1440, this is on a BenQ XL2730Z at 144hz Via display port cable.

Now I moved out of state, and I decided to bring only 1 monitor, so in my off time I like to play a few games but I also like to watch a stream or watch youtube, its simple in Windowed mode and works well but the games are so stuttery that its eye watering, With nothing but the game going its a mess in windowed mode, Every single game apart from Diablo 3.

I can get it somewhat smooth by setting the game to 1080p and just watching whatever off the side, I'll use GTA5 for example, GTA at 1080p I get well over 100fps, but it has this 30hz feeling and you can see it. Windowed borderless at 2560x1440 FPS is still around 100, but again its worse, it just feels and looks like i'm getting around 30 fps.

Games like Rainbow Six Siege or Wildlands play horrible in Windowed mode, FPS high, but feels and looks so bad, Probably the worst out of the lot of games I've played. 1080p is no good either with these games. COD WW2, BF1 and Forza Horizon 4 all get some sort of stutter feeling and look above 100fps. FH4 only uses 1 GPU in DX12, and its about as bad as the Ubisoft games.

Things I've tired, I've tried disabling SLI for each of these games, even physically removing a card for repair games still felt the same, stuttery. I've also tried setting my Overclocks back to default values due to a problem with a GFCI breaker issue having problems with my UPS, resetting the OC fixed that until I got rid of that breaker.

I didn't go back drivers as this has been happening for a few months on a number of drivers, Didn't have this problem on Windows 8.1.

I disabled Fullscreen Optimizations for every game, due to Windows notifications lagging the games, Disabled the Windows DVR/Gamebar stuff, I have disabled all and ever overlays such as steam, shadowplay and I personally use D3DGear, any and ever background software, had no change at all.

I also run SLI in x8/x8 mode as I do have 3 other PCIE cards, I took them all out to force x16 to the primary card, no performance change at all, all these games even Portal 2 in windowed mode, getting 300 and some FPS the game feels bad, feels like I'm on a lower than 60hz monitor.

I know DWM uses triple buffering and I expect some sort of latency, I'm not vary competitive these days away, but I'd like to play in Windows fullscreen smoothly so I don't have to deal with the alt+tab problems.

Anyone at all have any suggestions? I have tried HDMI at 60hz as I thought my 12 foot Displayport cable could be a problem, but its the same.

Thanks!

 

[atomicWAR]

SLI doesn't work in windowed mode so when you use windowed mode you lose a GPU cranking frames out. But it also sounds like more going on. Have you run DDU yet and then reinstalled your graphics drivers?

 

[atomicWAR]

DDU link

https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html

 

[Viking2121]

SLI doesn't work in windowed mode so when you use windowed mode you lose a GPU cranking frames out. But it also sounds like more going on. Have you run DDU yet and then reinstalled your graphics drivers?

SLI Does work in Windowed mode, Crossfire does not, unless AMD change something, My old GTX590 works well in SLI windowed mode, My 780ti's as well, as my 1070's, My HD7990 does not play well in windowed mode unless 1 of the GPU's is disabled.

Anyway thats another topic.

Single GPU present in the system, this stuttering feeling still happens, the game play is not smooth on just about every game I own. And yes I've tried DDU because of the weird black screen problem Nvidia was facing with some BenQ monitors last driver ago, Thought maybe it was something on my end but turned out it was a problem with Nvidia.

I'm not even sure if I can even capture it to be honest, It's so inconsistent but yet probably would take more than a cell phone and recording software to see it really. I can't remember it ever happening on my Ryzen system as I only had that system for less than a month and always played in fullscreen, and my i7 3770 system with my 780ti's I've done sold it.

 

[atomicWAR]

SLI doesn't work in windowed mode so when you use windowed mode you lose a GPU cranking frames out. But it also sounds like more going on. Have you run DDU yet and then reinstalled your graphics drivers?

SLI Does work in Windowed mode, Crossfire does not, unless AMD change something, My old GTX590 works well in SLI windowed mode, My 780ti's as well, as my 1070's, My HD7990 does not play well in windowed mode unless 1 of the GPU's is disabled.

Anyway thats another topic.

Single GPU present in the system, this stuttering feeling still happens, the game play is not smooth on just about every game I own. And yes I've tried DDU because of the weird black screen problem Nvidia was facing with some BenQ monitors last driver ago, Thought maybe it was something on my end but turned out it was a problem with Nvidia.

I'm not even sure if I can even capture it to be honest, It's so inconsistent but yet probably would take more than a cell phone and recording software to see it really. I can't remember it ever happening on my Ryzen system as I only had that system for less than a month and always played in fullscreen, and my i7 3770 system with my 780ti's I've done sold it.

While I'll believe you got it working, SLI support for windowed mode has never been officially supported to my knowledge. Nor in all the years I have used SLI got it to work consistently well. Some games I have got it to work but most I did not and the few I did get it to work in I did so with performance hits...one exception being batman where I actually got a gain but that was a SLI SNAFU of epic portion so I am not surprised by it being a one off, for me at least.

 

[Viking2121]

Alright, I seem to have fixed this problem by switching out the Display port cable to a DVI-D cable. Unfortunately I only have 1 display port cable and only 1 monitor that supports display port at the moment.

A few things could possible be a problem, I have a 12 foot display port cable that I have used all the way back since the HD5850 days, The cable could just be too long for 1440p and 144hz, but turning down the hz or resolution didn't change anything so it could of been a bad cable, I'm not sure. I had another BenQ monitor 24 inch 1080p 144hz monitor, I don't remember ever having this problem with that same cable.

As you know I run a BenQ XL2730Z and it does not support 144hz over the DVI port, What I did to get around this was to go to the Nvidia control panel and make a custom resolution, and set 144hz, and it works flawless so far over a 6 foot DVI-D cable. All them games I've mentioned, I can hardly tell a difference in full screen vs windowed mode, With SLI enabled in full screen and switching to windowed I drop maybe 10 fps at most in some games and I can hardly feel it other then the a bit of input lag due to Triple buffering with the DWM service.

 

[atomicWAR]

Glad you found the hiccup in your system. Just goes to show when your troubleshooting you never know where the problem will end up. Cabling is a commonly overlooked issue when things go wrong. I know I have over looked it initially only to find it after hours testing and tinkering. Sorry we weren't more help!

 

[Viking2121]

Glad you found the hiccup in your system. Just goes to show when your troubleshooting you never know where the problem will end up. Cabling is a commonly overlooked issue when things go wrong. I know I have over looked it initially only to find it after hours testing and tinkering. Sorry we weren't more help!

No no you were helpful Got my brain thinking, I just thought maybe someone else may have had a similar issue with windows 10 or well it seemed more like a windows issues as games ran smooth at full screen but not close to smooth Windowed, I mostly noticed it after the 1803 build of Windows 10 where it now shows notification in a fullscreen games, Game would lag like crazy but FPS would not change and now going to a single monitor, its just more noticable when trying to multi task. Before I never really ran in windowed mode as I had another monitor, so I was kind of lost to what it could be.

Always thought a Digital signal would either work or not, but there's more to it, Could of been as simple as the cable being too long for the amount of bandwidth.

Thanks!