Question GPU usage drops, resulting in FPS spikes ?

[Turbohelt]

Hello, I'm having some issues with my RX 6800 GPU. When gaming I will often see a massive stutter for a second and when looking in HWinfo I can see the GPU usage dropping and the power draw taking a dip as well.

I tried monitoring my fps, and with an average of around 120 fps in Wolcen I got 1% lows of 20 fps.
I tried disabling resizable bar, using DDU and reinstalling drivers, OS was freshly installed when I installed the GPU, tried disabling SMT. I ran Furmark and 3Dmark without and drops in performance and got scores of 9090 (Furmark) and 12965 in 3Dmark (15908 GPU 6331 CPU).

No thermal throttling as GPU stays around mid 60's, and CPU never even exceeds 60. RAM usage is steady even during the spiking and I'm at around 10GB used when gaming. I'm running 1440p with freesync.

My system:
MOBO: Asrock fatality b450 gaming k4
CPU: Ryzen 5 3600
RAM: 16 gb 3600 MHZ corsair vengeance LPX (Running at 3200 mhz due to mobo)
GPU: MSI RX 6800 Gaming Z Trio
PSU: EVGA GT 750W 80+ Gold
SSD: 500GB M.2

Attached a few pictures with some sensors from HWinfo - I will be happy to provide any additional information needed

Wolcen:

https://imgur.com/a/HwnXqWX

View: https://imgur.com/a/HwnXqWX


Furmark (No issues):

https://imgur.com/a/wxSb02G

View: https://imgur.com/a/wxSb02G


Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

https://imgur.com/a/8qoTjVn

View: https://imgur.com/a/8qoTjVn

 

[Crowii]

Unless you've got a larger list of games with that behavior, and with benchmarks running fine, then I'd look at game specific stutter/hitching fixes. Vsync on/off is a common one, for Fallen Order I've seen a lot of DXVK jank to get it running well.

That is to keep in mind that type of GPU behavior is often less about the GPU just randomly not working intermittently, but rather other processes in the pipeline hitching enough to not give the GPU work to do at a steady pace.

 

[Turbohelt]

Unless you've got a larger list of games with that behavior, and with benchmarks running fine, then I'd look at game specific stutter/hitching fixes. Vsync on/off is a common one, for Fallen Order I've seen a lot of DXVK jank to get it running well.

That is to keep in mind that type of GPU behavior is often less about the GPU just randomly not working intermittently, but rather other processes in the pipeline hitching enough to not give the GPU work to do at a steady pace.

Unfortunately it happens in most games. Star Wars, Wolcen, Temtem, Outer Worlds, Kingdom Come Deliverance - All of them has these weird stutters.

I've noticed it's mainly when something happens in the game. For an example if a door opens in Star Wars or I use an attack in Wolcen. It's running perfectly smooth if just standing still.

 

[Crowii]

Unfortunately it happens in most games. Star Wars, Wolcen, Temtem, Outer Worlds, Kingdom Come Deliverance - All of them has these weird stutters.

In that case I'd start off by reinstalling AMD Ryzen chipset drivers.

Disabling MPO is a common stuttering fix for Win 10/11, have a Star Citizen buddy that had to do that for his 6800XT, I'd look up how to do that.

Make sure you're using Balanced/High Performance power plan.

Lower the clock speed floor for your GPU in Adrenaline.

It's troubleshooting, make sure it's doing one at a time see what makes a difference. If none of it works, then this will be a throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks - kind of issue.

 

[Turbohelt]

In that case I'd start off by reinstalling AMD Ryzen chipset drivers.

Disabling MPO is a common stuttering fix for Win 10/11, have a Star Citizen buddy that had to do that for his 6800XT, I'd look up how to do that.

Make sure you're using Balanced/High Performance power plan.

Lower the clock speed floor for your GPU in Adrenaline.

It's troubleshooting, make sure it's doing one at a time see what makes a difference. If none of it works, then this will be a throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks - kind of issue.

Appreciate the ideas!

I tried your three first suggestions but without luck unfortunately.

When you say lower clock speed floor do you mean put a lower minimum frequency? I've tried the standard setting and tried overclocking with a min. frequency of 2300 MHz

 

[Crowii]

Appreciate the ideas!

I tried your three first suggestions but without luck unfortunately.

When you say lower clock speed floor do you mean put a lower minimum frequency? I've tried the standard setting and tried overclocking with a min. frequency of 2300 MHz

Yep, lower minimum frequency, although I will admit that's low on the list for a reason. Off-case where the minimum frequency is just a tad too high, causing GPU frequency to dip low since the clock/voltage targets just don't find a match for various reasons.