GTA 5 PC slight frame drop from 60 to ~58FPS causing stutters

[sushimaster]

I have been experiencing some skipped frames in GTA 5 lately for PC where the game runs smooth for most of the time, but every couple seconds or so, it stutters and skips a couple frames and the FPS shows around 58, then back up to 60. The game is fine when I've first loaded into it, but after a little while, the issue occurs. This really only happens when I'm driving in the city, which I suspect loads more textures and polygons compared to the countryside.

The strangest part about this is that even after lowering all graphics settings, I still experience the frame drops. This may not seem like a huge deal, but I think it's noticeable and it annoys me to no end. In addition, the problem started occurring recently without any hardware changes. I really want to get to the bottom of this.

I think it had to do with the new NVIDIA driver, the one that came out for Witcher 3. Now I think there is a new one out in time for the Batman Arkham Knight release. Could it be these drivers are causing some bugs with the rendering in GTA?

My build is the following (which I think is more than enough to play the game):
Asus Z97-A motherboard
Intel Core i7 4790 CPU
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO cooler
EVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 GPU
Corsair Vengeance 8GB RAM
Crucial 512GB SSD
Cooler Master HAF 922 chassis

Anyone have any ideas on why I'm getting these small frame rate drops?

 

[WestonG]

Probably driver related. To know for sure use a tool such as MSI afterburner to display your GPU load in games. If your GPU usage drops when you get the stutter then I'd say it most likely is a driver issue. Also, if you're going over 3.5gb memory usage that may be the cause. The last 0.5gb of the 970s memory is much lower speed so going over 3.5 will result in more frame time variance which may be perceived as stutter.

 

[sushimaster]

Probably driver related. To know for sure use a tool such as MSI afterburner to display your GPU load in games. If your GPU usage drops when you get the stutter then I'd say it most likely is a driver issue. Also, if you're going over 3.5gb memory usage that may be the cause. The last 0.5gb of the 970s memory is much lower speed so going over 3.5 will result in more frame time variance which may be perceived as stutter.

Which driver do you think it is? I just downgraded the NVIDIA driver to the GTA V-ready version and things are a bit improved, but the stuttering still happens occasionally. Could it be a different driver like the Intel Chipset driver?

I don't think it's the memory because GTA shows I'm using half of the VRAM in the graphics settings, even with some pretty high settings.

 

[WestonG]

Try thoroughly removing the graphics drivers and then install the latest version. There may be some residual or corrupt files from old installations/etc. Another small thing worth checking would be to test with vsync disabled. It can cause stutter when you drop below your monitors refresh rate.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/faq/id-2284749/completely-uninstall-amd-nvidia-gpu-drivers.html