Question Severe stuttering and freezing in NVLink gaming scenarios

[StupidLameInterface]

And no, this isn't about micro stuttering. This is about intermittent drops to 0-2 FPS for anywhere from a hardly noticable split second, to 6-8 second freezes that makes my heart sink. These stutters and freezes seem to only occur when I'm running my PC in an NVLink setup, and times during and after cutscenes see the highest chance and severity of problems. The DirectX version doesn't seem to matter, as the issue occurs in both the DX9 Witcher 2 and DX11 titles like Witcher 3, Tomb Raider and GTA V. All these games run smooth as silk on a single GPU.

Now then, not long ago a very bad power surge destroyed a disk in my RAID 10 where my games are stored. That's when all this began. I moved my GTA install to an external drive to see if the array was somehow the problem, but the problem sadly persisted. Also, Windows and my graphics drivers are both fully up to date (though a double check wouldn't hurt I suppose.) Context out of the way, my main question is how exactly to troubleshoot what the problem is. It could be the PSU, GPUs, CPU or something else all together. ALL ideas are welcomed and appreciated. I really don't have the money to replace anything outside of the disk for the RAID array. Thank you for reading.

SET UP:
- ASUS X570E Gaming Mobo
- AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU
- HP RTX 2080 GPUs
- HyperX Fury 4x8GB DDR4 Memory
- Crucial P2 500GB NVME (OS)
- Seagate Barracuda 2TB RAID 0 (Game storage)
- EVGA Supernova T2 1000 PSU

 

[Aeacus]

Context out of the way, my main question is how exactly to troubleshoot what the problem is.

Simple solution: don't use NVLink when you play games.

NVLink was created for workstation use, where on e.g 3D rendering, it helps to speed things up. However, NVLink wasn't created as SLI, where you could game on two GPUs at once. Also, i doubt that any of the games support NVLink in the first place.

Just because you can game on NVLink, doesn't mean games have to run butter smooth. It's like buying a Quadro and then game with it. While somewhat possible, result won't be pretty.

Even on Nvidia page, it doesn't say anywhere that NVLink is for gaming,
link: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/design-visualization/nvlink-bridges/
But what it does say, on multiple instances, is that NVLink is for worstation and virtual compute server use.

 

[StupidLameInterface]

Simple solution: don't use NVLink when you play games.

NVLink was created for workstation use, where on e.g 3D rendering, it helps to speed things up. However, NVLink wasn't created as SLI, where you could game on two GPUs at once. Also, i doubt that any of the games support NVLink in the first place.

Just because you can game on NVLink, doesn't mean games have to run butter smooth. It's like buying a Quadro and then game with it. While somewhat possible, result won't be pretty.

Even on Nvidia page, it doesn't say anywhere that NVLink is for gaming,
link: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/design-visualization/nvlink-bridges/
But what it does say, on multiple instances, is that NVLink is for worstation and virtual compute server use.

Good point. I'm still worried that everything went south after that power surge but that's paranoia probably. Everything was so buttery smooth before man, you don't understand! But I'll defs keep what you said in mind. Thank you for the help.

Edit: Even if it frankly wasn't that helpful.

 

[Aeacus]

Everything was so buttery smooth before man, you don't understand!

You ran out of luck? Or perhaps updated GPU drivers?

Whatever the reason, NVLink isn't for gaming.

If it works great, you got lucky. If it doesn't, you know why and best to accept it.

 

[Ralston18]

Use Task Manager, Resource Monitor, and Process Explorer (Microsoft, free) to observe system performance.

Use all three tools but only one tool at a time.

Look for what changes or otherwise happens when the stutters and freezes occur.

Just keep the tool window open and viewable while gaming. May affect game play a bit but the objective is troubleshooting - not to immediately and constantly win.

Be methodical and watch carefully.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer

With and without NVLink.