I've a doozy here, and it's one I've tried to troubleshoot for almost two months straight now with no success.
I built a custom rig about three months ago after my old Omen PC reported it's SSD was closing in on being unusable. I took the opportunity to used some money I had saved away for this eventual day (The Omen lasted for 8 years before it's first issue showed up. Was very pleased with that machine) and cobbled together a new beast with what I considered was mostly some mid-range to potential higher end pieces. I put it all together and seemingly everything went well, but eventually something reared it's head and I suffered some odd graphical artifacts in Baldur's Gate 3. A reboot of the game fixed it, but then I noticed a horrible constant stuttering when I was playing and found out it was NVidia's Shadowplay not working correctly. It would not record Instant Replays at all when I was tabbed into the game. The option simply wouldn't work. Disabling it seemed to fix the stuttering. Reinstalling the drivers seemed to fix the behavior of the Shadowplay and everything went back to normal. Or so I thought.
Eventually that issue arose again, but I noticed then that a lot of other games and programs in general were behaving weirdly. It was always manifesting as this little, microstutter. That could happen anywhere between 5 or even 30 seconds. Sometimes rampant, sometimes not so much. I took great care to investigate why this was happening and how to fix it. But lo after two months of probing, giving it over to some tech boys at the shop to look at it (they reported nothing wrong, but I'm unsure if they truly went deeper into it upon reflection) and thinking I had finally discovered what the issue was a dozen times over, I just can't sus it out.
Every few seconds when say, watching a video, or playing a game. I'll lose a frame somehow. It manifests as a frame appearing in the program, being stuck on the next frame, then skipping ahead both for the third. I've used all sorts of diagnostic software to try and determine the cause and I just cannot track it down. At first I thought it was the GamePresenceWriter program of Windows. Disabling that DID solve it! For a time. And then it came right back the next day. Then I thought it was my old SSD I had my OS installed on. I took that drive out, put in a better, faster SSD. It did fix it! ...For all of a day! And then it came back again.
I did literally over a dozen fresh installs of Windows 10 and 11, and even with barebone installs with no fancy drivers or programs or anything, it would eventually resurface once more. I even ran it in Ubuntu, and the stutter still surfaced. Forcing the Nvidia control panel to be on a fix refresh rate fixed it! For 5 minutes. So that didn't work.
So eventually I just called it quits on the rig. Maybe one of the parts was damaged (though testing seems to say it's all fine) or perhaps there was a compatibility issue. All possible. I decide to just buy up a premade computer to see if the fault really was on the hardware level. And I could not believe my eyes. The stutter is on this new, premade, ROG machine.
So I'm at a loss of words on this one. Am I just insane and this has always been a thing with computers I've never noticed? I've taken dozens of recordings to demonstrate what the issue is (and that's to show capture software does indeed see it) and I just can't figure it out. Every little step I take in trying to fix this always has me back at the problem. To fully detail what it is I've done, have my list of things I've done - Though have my specs of BOTH machines first:
Custom built one:
Motherboard: X670 GAMING X AX V2
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7600x
GPU: Geforce 4060 RTX
RAM: 32gb, 6000 MHZ
PSU: 750w Corsair
Storage: 1TB Kingston SSD
Operating System: Windows 10 and 11 both tried
The premade is an ROG Strix G16:
(Best Buy link for it: https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/produc...s_tp_sllng_prdcts_plp&referrer=PLP+Top+Seller)
Motherboard:
CPU: i7-13700F
GPU: Geforce 4060 RTX
RAM: 32gb, 3200 MHZ
PSU: 500w something
Storage: 1TB NVME
Operating System: Windows 11
Things I've done!
Uninstalled and reinstalled (DDU stuff) graphics drivers. Oldest drivers and newest drivers available, no difference
Clean install of different Operating Systems several times over. No difference, even on a new install with no additional programs or non mandatory drivers
Disabling of Windows Gamesbar programs
Disabling of Nvidia Gsync compatibility
Disabling of integrated graphics on CPU
Disabling of Audio drivers for graphics card
Usage of different monitors, keyboards, mice. Taking out all peripherals. No difference with any setup
Running in safe mode (major stuttering then actually. maybe cause cpu was being used a lot more?)
Using 75hz (On my ASUSVZ27V monitor) and 60hz. No difference in performance for either
Utilizing outlet sockets for power. Setting up both rigs in different rooms to test. No differences
As an additional observation. We have another computer in the household with a Geforce 1070. It displayed none of these issues from my testing.
And honestly probably a lot more I'm forgetting. Here's some things I've used to keep track of what's going on.
I've recorded my daily usage of the computer using both Nvidia's recording software and OBS. Both programs can see the stutter happening. I've tried doing it without either running as well and it will still surface. Sometimes the recordings will even show more stuttering than what was displayed. I use Rivatuner sometimes to keep track of my frametime data during games. Most pronounced is when a stutter can occur and it will spike up in the MS latency of one frame. Then entirely dip with the next. That just happens at random seemingly. Virtually all games. This occurs in web browsers videos as well. Sometimes it happens with local videos on the machine being played, sometimes not? I couldn't track that one down. This is likely the micro stutter I am referring to.
After so much work and effort, I refuse to believe there is not something determinable deep down somewhere here. And especially on TWO machines? One after another? AMD THEN Intel?? Well I can only relate a single thing here between the two, and that is both run a Geforce 4060 GPU. It is the only commonality with these pieces apart from the location of being in my home. I changed every other variable except those two. My last ditch effort here on my end is going out to get one of them amazing fancy new GAMING MONITORS to see if somehow the GPU really needs Gsync or some such to even run properly. If this doesn't work - I literally might swear off new computers for the rest of my life.
If anyone has any input. Any advice. Any call for new information. Let me know. I refuse to believe my old HP computer is outperforming these things in the most basic of tasks, but gosh darn is it looking like it is.
I built a custom rig about three months ago after my old Omen PC reported it's SSD was closing in on being unusable. I took the opportunity to used some money I had saved away for this eventual day (The Omen lasted for 8 years before it's first issue showed up. Was very pleased with that machine) and cobbled together a new beast with what I considered was mostly some mid-range to potential higher end pieces. I put it all together and seemingly everything went well, but eventually something reared it's head and I suffered some odd graphical artifacts in Baldur's Gate 3. A reboot of the game fixed it, but then I noticed a horrible constant stuttering when I was playing and found out it was NVidia's Shadowplay not working correctly. It would not record Instant Replays at all when I was tabbed into the game. The option simply wouldn't work. Disabling it seemed to fix the stuttering. Reinstalling the drivers seemed to fix the behavior of the Shadowplay and everything went back to normal. Or so I thought.
Eventually that issue arose again, but I noticed then that a lot of other games and programs in general were behaving weirdly. It was always manifesting as this little, microstutter. That could happen anywhere between 5 or even 30 seconds. Sometimes rampant, sometimes not so much. I took great care to investigate why this was happening and how to fix it. But lo after two months of probing, giving it over to some tech boys at the shop to look at it (they reported nothing wrong, but I'm unsure if they truly went deeper into it upon reflection) and thinking I had finally discovered what the issue was a dozen times over, I just can't sus it out.
Every few seconds when say, watching a video, or playing a game. I'll lose a frame somehow. It manifests as a frame appearing in the program, being stuck on the next frame, then skipping ahead both for the third. I've used all sorts of diagnostic software to try and determine the cause and I just cannot track it down. At first I thought it was the GamePresenceWriter program of Windows. Disabling that DID solve it! For a time. And then it came right back the next day. Then I thought it was my old SSD I had my OS installed on. I took that drive out, put in a better, faster SSD. It did fix it! ...For all of a day! And then it came back again.
I did literally over a dozen fresh installs of Windows 10 and 11, and even with barebone installs with no fancy drivers or programs or anything, it would eventually resurface once more. I even ran it in Ubuntu, and the stutter still surfaced. Forcing the Nvidia control panel to be on a fix refresh rate fixed it! For 5 minutes. So that didn't work.
So eventually I just called it quits on the rig. Maybe one of the parts was damaged (though testing seems to say it's all fine) or perhaps there was a compatibility issue. All possible. I decide to just buy up a premade computer to see if the fault really was on the hardware level. And I could not believe my eyes. The stutter is on this new, premade, ROG machine.
So I'm at a loss of words on this one. Am I just insane and this has always been a thing with computers I've never noticed? I've taken dozens of recordings to demonstrate what the issue is (and that's to show capture software does indeed see it) and I just can't figure it out. Every little step I take in trying to fix this always has me back at the problem. To fully detail what it is I've done, have my list of things I've done - Though have my specs of BOTH machines first:
Custom built one:
Motherboard: X670 GAMING X AX V2
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7600x
GPU: Geforce 4060 RTX
RAM: 32gb, 6000 MHZ
PSU: 750w Corsair
Storage: 1TB Kingston SSD
Operating System: Windows 10 and 11 both tried
The premade is an ROG Strix G16:
(Best Buy link for it: https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/produc...s_tp_sllng_prdcts_plp&referrer=PLP+Top+Seller)
Motherboard:
CPU: i7-13700F
GPU: Geforce 4060 RTX
RAM: 32gb, 3200 MHZ
PSU: 500w something
Storage: 1TB NVME
Operating System: Windows 11
Things I've done!
Uninstalled and reinstalled (DDU stuff) graphics drivers. Oldest drivers and newest drivers available, no difference
Clean install of different Operating Systems several times over. No difference, even on a new install with no additional programs or non mandatory drivers
Disabling of Windows Gamesbar programs
Disabling of Nvidia Gsync compatibility
Disabling of integrated graphics on CPU
Disabling of Audio drivers for graphics card
Usage of different monitors, keyboards, mice. Taking out all peripherals. No difference with any setup
Running in safe mode (major stuttering then actually. maybe cause cpu was being used a lot more?)
Using 75hz (On my ASUSVZ27V monitor) and 60hz. No difference in performance for either
Utilizing outlet sockets for power. Setting up both rigs in different rooms to test. No differences
As an additional observation. We have another computer in the household with a Geforce 1070. It displayed none of these issues from my testing.
And honestly probably a lot more I'm forgetting. Here's some things I've used to keep track of what's going on.
I've recorded my daily usage of the computer using both Nvidia's recording software and OBS. Both programs can see the stutter happening. I've tried doing it without either running as well and it will still surface. Sometimes the recordings will even show more stuttering than what was displayed. I use Rivatuner sometimes to keep track of my frametime data during games. Most pronounced is when a stutter can occur and it will spike up in the MS latency of one frame. Then entirely dip with the next. That just happens at random seemingly. Virtually all games. This occurs in web browsers videos as well. Sometimes it happens with local videos on the machine being played, sometimes not? I couldn't track that one down. This is likely the micro stutter I am referring to.
After so much work and effort, I refuse to believe there is not something determinable deep down somewhere here. And especially on TWO machines? One after another? AMD THEN Intel?? Well I can only relate a single thing here between the two, and that is both run a Geforce 4060 GPU. It is the only commonality with these pieces apart from the location of being in my home. I changed every other variable except those two. My last ditch effort here on my end is going out to get one of them amazing fancy new GAMING MONITORS to see if somehow the GPU really needs Gsync or some such to even run properly. If this doesn't work - I literally might swear off new computers for the rest of my life.
If anyone has any input. Any advice. Any call for new information. Let me know. I refuse to believe my old HP computer is outperforming these things in the most basic of tasks, but gosh darn is it looking like it is.
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