Stuttering in games

[B1GG5]

I just RMA'd my second gtx 280 and got a gtx 470 back from EVGA. My first 280 suffered from artifacting and its replacement suffered from the "pink screen of death". Around when i started getting the PSOD on my second 280, i started noticing that some of my games would have weird stuttering problems. I thought this was just another problem caused by the card going bad ,but it seems that the stuttering is still persistent with my 470. Crysis has the most stuttering out of all my games, but STALKER and Penumbra: Black Plague also have this issue.

My framerate will be very good in every game. Crysis will usually have around 40 fps (very high, 4xAA, 720p). The problem seems to happen whenever I move or look around in the game. I can't even sprint in a straight line without having several split-second hitches in the framerate.

I don't remember having this issue until recently. Updating my drivers didn't seem to do anything. I tried bringing my CPU back down to stock speeds but that didn't help either. I'm still not sure what is causing the problem. Any help is greatly appreciated!


i7 920 @ 3.0ghz
GTX 470 EVGA
Corsair 4gb DDR3 RAM @ 570mhz 9-9-9-24
EVGA x58 SLI LE
Seagate 500gb HD
Corsair TX750w PSU

 

[B1GG5]

Alright. I discovered that the RAM I have is actually kinda iffy. The specs on the box don't match the actual specs. This is apparent from all the newegg reviews. The spec voltage is actually supposed to be 1.5v but in actuality it is about 1.7v or more. The spec speed is really 1333MHz but being that I can't bump the voltage higher than 1.65 I can only reach around 1100MHz and have it still be stable.

I think it should still be under warranty, since Corsair RAM usually has a lifetime warranty. So hopefully I can get the sticks replaced for free if that is the problem. I'd rather not have to spend any more $.

I'm also gonna try and swap out a friend's GPU with mine and see if it is/isn't my 470.

Taking my pc to a shop is going to be my last resort. My case weighs a freakin ton so moving it about is a little inconvenient hahaha

 

[swifty_morgan]

Why don't you buy 3 sticks of the right friggin ram and get it over with ?

 

[B1GG5]

Hahaha Im gonna replace them! Believe me I want this mess to be done with. I'd just rather not have to spend more money than I have to. If you're sure its the RAM then would I need to upgrade something better like 1600Mhz or higher? Or if I could get my current ones replaced with some proper functioning 1333Mhz RAM and just buy one more 2gb stick should I do that?

 

[B1GG5]

I just ordered 3 x 2gb sticks of 1600Mhz ram. I should be getting them sometime this week. I'll update once I get them installed.

Thanks everyone for all the help so far! BTW

 

[swifty_morgan]

Wow, long time no hear, I thought you were dead .... LOL

1.65 v0lts I hope... ????

 

[B1GG5]

hahaha not yet!!

Yes, 1.65v! Made sure of it

If this fixes all my problems I will cry tears of joy for 14 hours straight, seriously

 

[cor33]

I'm hoping to hear if you find a solution,
I have the same problem and I also have a GTX470.
I have an OCZ vertex SSD so I wouldn't think the HD would be the problem for me. I am noticing the stuttering a lot in Crysis 2 and for me it's unplayable but yet the framerate is pretty high when I'm not running around. I was thinking its my CPU since it's only a core2duo but since I see you have the problem with a much better CPU I'm not sure now....

 

[B1GG5]

Okay so my ram came in and I now have it installed in my pc. Unfortunately, the stuttering is STILL there in every game it was in before.
I'm really starting to think my gpu is the problem. I've seen that many people have been having problems with the 470. Whether it may be the hardware or the drivers idk.
@Cor33 - Does your framerate stutter like I've described in other games too? For me some are okay while others are worse. I wouldn't say that it makes my games unplayable though, just unenjoyable.

 

[cor33]

So far recently I've played Bulletstorm, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood and they both stutter quite a bit and even Starcraft 2 kind of stutters when I move across the screen but since its a RTS its not as big a deal. Dead Space 2 was not too bad at all but a little stuttering. Ya I guess its not unplayable but for me I cant stand it...In Crysis 2 if I sprint it stutters quite a bit but in a gun fight if I'm not moving too much it seems fine. Also once in a while when I start a level and start moving around I'll move and it will freeze for a good 2 seconds.
The odd thing is when I first got my ssd I played Crysis 1 and I was pretty happy with how it played on max settings 8xmsaa. But now it seems like all the games I play have stutter. I was going to upgrade my CPU which is a full upgrade and I would lose it if games were still stuttering lol. I've tried a lot of things and I hope we can figure it out....do you have a friend with a decent video card to swap and see if it is the 470?, I would be kind of disappointed if it was.

 

[swifty_morgan]

go into the nvidia control panel and set pre-rendered frames to 8. make physx work off the processor.

 

[B1GG5]

Yeah I'm gonna try and swap with someone soon and see if another card runs better. You say Crysis 1 is pretty smooth for you? Mine's not too bad it's just full of tiny stutters that only last a fraction of a second. But RTS games are pretty smooth for me. SupCom 2 is almost flawless as is Civ V for the most part.

 

[cor33]

Ya Crysis 1 was like you said tiny stutters and then I bought my SSD and the stutters were pretty much gone so I thought I found the fix for any stuttering I might have...but it looks like I was wrong.
The thing with Crysis 2 that bothers me is that I hear people saying that they are surprised how well it runs on their older system with perfect smooth frame rate. Technically my computer should easily tear through it...Frustrating.

swifty I tried that and no luck with that either.

 

[B1GG5]

Changing what you said doesnt help. I must have tried every combination of settings in nvidia control panel there is.

Yeah Crysis 2 should be easier to run. Something is definitely not right.

 

[swifty_morgan]

Crysis2 should run well on most machines. it's only DX9. In the BIOS, did you chose to run optimized defaults..... also, with the new ram, did you select XMP mode ? It should make the ram run where it should.

try turning stuff off ( auto run on start up. ) search/msconfig. start up and services. use filter under services to turn off microsoft stuff.

 

[cor33]

Hey swifty,
for me I have an overclock but before overclocking I had it set to optimized defaults so the only thing changed was for the overclock, I could try running everything at stock but I don't think that would make a difference. I heard a couple people talk about selecting XMP mode...I'm guessing this is only for DDR3 because I can't find anything like that in my BIOS. Could my problem be a CPU bottleneck?, I can't see how it would cause problems that bad but right now I have an e6750 at 3.5ghz so it is a little older....

 

[cor33]

I posted a video I recorded with FRAPS to show how mine looks in Crysis 2 with stuttering.
Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0wT0qyeWtE

 

[swifty_morgan]

A friend of mine's been messing with SLI set ups recently. The last one ( using this game ) he's running the gigabyte gtx560's and he said he couldn't run it at max. He had to turn it back to "high" i think it was......... I don't have the game but i think there's 3 settings. Maximum-high and something else.... correct me if I'm wrong. his hardware is beyond most peoples here. Try reducing your video demands and see what happens.

 

[cor33]

Well on the highest settings I would imagine if he has two 560's he should crush this game so I'm not sure what's wrong with his setup. My fps don't drop much lower than 30 in the craziest spots (besides the stuttering of course). Also I have tried the lowest settings and even reducing the resolution and still the same. I have a feeling I probably won't figure this one out because I've tried about everything, I'll have to see what B1GG5 says about switching video cards...

 

[HEXiT]

well for a start turn of the fsaa theres a huge penalty for it in crysis. if you must set it, use x1 or x2 maximum, turn every thing else down to minimum and run the crysis bench mark.
run it 3 times and take note of the minimum fps.

if your over 40 minimum which you should be by a fair way, then crank up the settings including screen rez till you get a minimum of 35 in the benchmark. that is the maximum you will now play the game at.
you should be pretty much near maximum settings at 1920x1080

ingame your minimum fps will/should drop to no less than 30fps which means you can now turn on vsync and triple buffering to get smoother gameplay.

if at this point your still having issues then try a different set of drivers sometimes they can help things.

also check your startup items, make sure you dont have any itunes or phone apps running at boot. then check task manager and see if you can get down to about 55-60 processes. some basic windows services can be disabled easily without any noticeable impact on usability.
i also see your running dual channel not triple channel, although not a big deal it would help performance some if you got another 2 gigs of ram to enable triple channel mode.

 

[B1GG5]

Sorry I havent posted in a while guys. I've just been busy with prom and stuff ya know.

I'm gonna swap my card with a friend's 9800gt this week and finally see if my card is the issue

 

[cor33]

Hey B1GG5 I'm not sure if you figured anything out yet but I found a solution for my Crysis 2 problem. I switched to windowed mode instead of full screen...and what do you know, it was crisp and smooth frame rate.

I wonder if anyone has any idea why it would be stuttering in full screen and not in windowed? Also I do have the latest Nvidia drivers(beta).

 

[manuelpo]

Hi, i have a similar problem with Turok 2008.
It uses UNreal engine 3, i thought it would stutter as it did with other games, but this time i thought: "well can be the audio" so i deactivated the audio from the in game menu.
Stutter ENDED.
that was incredibly awesome, i realized that it is the sound that makes unreal engine 3 games stutter. Most of them.
But i think is not enough yet.. 😛

 

[manuelpo]

i tried disabling the audio options in turok 2008 and stuttering in unreal engine 3 games simply ended. Vanished without a trace.
Now id like to see if there is a solution to play with the sound and no stutter 😛

 

[B1GG5]

Hey guys. I'm back! Now I know you all thought I fixed my problem and just didn't reply but sadly this is not the case. I've been busy with rl stuff and I just haven't had time to bother with my pc problem. I've decided to pick it up again and hopefully with the help of you guys I can fix this b*tch once and for all 😛
I just replaced my 470 (which had started to artifact and do other weird things after I stopped replying in this thread) with a fresh, new 580. With it all of my games run phenomenally, BUT the stutter is still present 🙁
It is still just as I have described it previously in this thread. I'm not sure if I said it before, but the random hitching that happens is often predictable which game event will trigger it. It seems that certain sounds will cause the stutter. In penumbra, when the breathing sound for an enemy is loaded. Stutter. Every time my character steps on a floor of a different material with a different footstep sound. Stutter. Amnesia also seems to have a problem with sound. Thunder and the other strange/creepy noises that happen at the beginning of the game all greet me with a nice half-second freeze frame.
In crysis, looking down the sights of the gun seems to often trigger a stutter. It doesn't happen all the time however. Firing my gun or picking up a new one sometimes triggers it as well.
I've replaced my RAM, HD, and GPU with still no luck against this issue. It's looking less and less like a hardware issue to me. Idk what else to try other than a full windows reinstall. I just would hate having to install everything again. Maybe I should wipe my old HD and install windows fresh on that and see how things run.
If any of you have any more ideas please let me know!

 

[issicus]

i tried turn off the sound in bulletstorm it didnt solve the problem..

i tried turning down the resolution from 1600x900 (30fps max) to 1280x720 (60fps max) and that made it some what less noticeable. a bit smoother too.

im sure an SSD would help.

what about win7 32bit instead of 64bit?

does any one have a system that plays it with out stuttering? if so what is it?


i5 3.3ghz
4gb adata
1tb WD black
HIS radeon 6870
coolermaster 700w
realtek hd soundcard