[SOLVED] Why am I stuttering in every game?

[Waylax]

So recently I have purchased a new PC from Amazon. It has an RTX 2060 Super, 8gb DDR4, a 500gb SSD, and an Intel i5-9400F. My old PC had a GTX 970, 16gb DDR3, 1TB HDD, 1TB SSD, and an i5-4440. The old PC was great, but only around a year ago I started to notice it would stutter in games. Eventually I started to notice it more and more, to the point where it was almost unbearable to play any game that I had. Somewhere around that time is also when I bought the monitor that I have now, and here's where things get strange to me.

When I got this PC and loaded up Minecraft and a few other games, it still stuttered. Yes, a brand new PC had the same problem as my old one. On my old PC i've tried to fix this before, and so many times have I failed. I've tried reinstalling Windows, changing the fps cap / vsync, changing the in-game graphics settings, changing the resolution, testing my RAM with MemTest86, removing the two old sticks of RAM, jnstalling Windows to my other SSD and booting from there, unparking cores (they already were), reinstalling the latest Nvidia drivers, changing cpu core affinity, changing process priority, using HDMI instead of VGA, cleaning the dust out of my PC, changing the page file to the recommended value, and of course I eventually ended up buying this new PC.

So far on here, the stuttering doesn't seem as terrible, but it's still present. On this new PC, i've been trying certain things such as capping fps with RTSS, changing graphics settings in games, trying to use "EmptyStandbyList", updating the Nvidia driver, disabling my internet connection temporarily, and turning vsync on / off. Some games are worse than others, it seems - so right now i've been wondering what would cause all of this? Could it actually be something as simple as a monitor issue, or a connection issue? I'm very confused as to why two entirely different systems would suffer from the same type of stuttering. If anyone wants to help, please chime in because I have no clue what to do at this point.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

What games?

At first glance, I'd say its your ram. You have only 8gb. For gaming, there are a ton of games that will use upwards of 8gbs of ram at 1080p res.

So when your ram fills up, it's starts to use the swap/page-file, which is on your HD/SSD. Naturally this is much slower than your fast system ram. The effect being that once the ram fills up you get this stuttering and FPS drops. 8gbs used to be the sweet-spot for a gaming machine. That's now 16gb.

For your older system, it's possible if you were playing something like BF5 maxed out settings, then the GTX970 with only 4gbs vram could have caused very similar issues. You had 16gb on the old system, so I don't see that as being the culprit before, although from what you've said, similar results.

 

[captaincharisma]

it could be your low amount of ram. any gaming PC these days should have at least 16GB.

also do the games you have this problem on installed on your HDD or SSD?

 

[Waylax]

What games?

At first glance, I'd say its your ram. You have only 8gb. For gaming, there are a ton of games that will use upwards of 8gbs of ram at 1080p res.

So when your ram fills up, it's starts to use the swap/page-file, which is on your HD/SSD. Naturally this is much slower than your fast system ram. The effect being that once the ram fills up you get this stuttering and FPS drops. 8gbs used to be the sweet-spot for a gaming machine. That's now 16gb.

For your older system, it's possible if you were playing something like BF5 maxed out settings, then the GTX970 with only 4gbs vram could have caused very similar issues. You had 16gb on the old system, so I don't see that as being the culprit before, although from what you've said, similar results.

So far the games that stutter on my new system are The Forest, Minecraft, and Dying Light. I haven't tested any other games for this yet, though. On my old system I had the same games installed and the same stuttering on both, but Dying Light and The Forest had a lower fps of course.

 

[Waylax]

it could be your low amount of ram. any gaming PC these days should have at least 16GB.

also do the games you have this problem on installed on your HDD or SSD?

The HDD was in the old PC. My new PC (that i'm using now) has 2 SSDs. One of them being from the old PC.

 

[captaincharisma]

The HDD was in the old PC. My new PC (that i'm using now) has 2 SSDs. One of them being from the old PC.

are your games installed on the new SSD or old one? are they both SATA SSD drives

 

[Waylax]

are your games installed on the new SSD or old one? are they both SATA SSD drives

The only game installed on my new SSD is Minecraft.
The 1TB old SSD is SATA, the other is NVMe.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Have you update to the latest bios for your mobo? Could be some system instability so updating the bios would be helpful. Clean install of GPU driver? Also, are you using Geforce experience to optimise games? If so, don't. It's a turkey of a program and has a way of killing FPS in some games.

 

[Waylax]

Have you update to the latest bios for your mobo? Could be some system instability so updating the bios would be helpful. Clean install of GPU driver? Also, are you using Geforce experience to optimise games? If so, don't. It's a turkey of a program and has a way of killing FPS in some games.

I've only used Geforce Experience to download the newest driver and that's it.
I've heard that their optimization feature wasn't good as well.
I haven't updated to the latest bios for my motherboard yet. I thought that was something done automatically.
I'll try to look up my motherboard and update the bios if I can.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

I've only used Geforce Experience to download the newest driver and that's it.
I've heard that their optimization feature wasn't good as well.
I haven't updated to the latest bios for my motherboard yet. I thought that was something done automatically.
I'll try to look up my motherboard and update the bios if I can.

Yes, do that. Bios update may help. But consider getting more ram. Worth checking out captaincharisma suggestion on SSD. Maybe run crystaldisk to see if both SSD's are working ok.

Clean install for Nvidia Driver. Download driver directly from website, not through Geforce experience. Choose custom install and select the clean install tickbox. Then install and reboot. Don't install geforce experience. You can deselect it from the custom install menu.

 

[Waylax]

Yes, do that. Bios update may help. But consider getting more ram. Worth checking out captaincharisma suggestion on SSD. Maybe run crystaldisk to see if both SSD's are working ok.

Clean install for Nvidia Driver. Download driver directly from website, not through Geforce experience. Choose custom install and select the clean install tickbox. Then install and reboot. Don't install geforce experience. You can deselect it from the custom install menu.

Yeah, i'm planning on getting more RAM, but I still think that isn't what's causing the stuttering.
8gb of RAM should be more than enough for a game like Minecraft. I'll run CrystalDisk in a bit, and I just updated my bios. Asus-Q installer popped up when I restarted though, and now i'm just making sure everything is up to date.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Yeah, i'm planning on getting more RAM, but I still think that isn't what's causing the stuttering.
8gb of RAM should be more than enough for a game like Minecraft. I'll run CrystalDisk in a bit, and I just updated my bios. Asus-Q installer popped up when I restarted though, and now i'm just making sure everything is up to date.

Yes, I'd agree that 8gbs should be enough for Minecraft.

 

[Waylax]

Yes, I'd agree that 8gbs should be enough for Minecraft.

The drives are fine. The bios update did nothing to fix the stuttering.

 

[Waylax]

Pay attention to the frametime at the bottom of the graph, specifically.

 

[Ketchup79]

Is this the Microsoft Minecraft or the Mojang one? As you can tell from your screenshot, that game specifically is all CPU bound, not GPU at all. It may also be sigle-core, which is why you aren't seeing much speed improvement over your old system (since it has six cores).

 

[Waylax]

Is this the Microsoft Minecraft or the Mojang one? As you can tell from your screenshot, that game specifically is all CPU bound, not GPU at all. It may also be sigle-core, which is why you aren't seeing much speed improvement over your old system (since it has six cores).

This is the Java edition, and it shows Mojang on the loading screen.

 

[Ketchup79]

Well, I (my kids anyway) like that one better. What kind of internet connection do you have? Is it wired or wireless? CPU and internet connection are the main factors in the Mojang version, and obviously you have plenty of CPU for that game.

 

[Waylax]

Well, I (my kids anyway) like that one better. What kind of internet connection do you have? Is it wired or wireless? CPU and internet connection are the main factors in the Mojang version, and obviously you have plenty of CPU for that game.

It's not just this game which is causing issues for me, but I have a wireless connection.

 

[Ketchup79]

Are the other games that are stuttering relying on your online connection (multiplayer/ etc)?

 

[Waylax]

Are the other games that are stuttering relying on your online connection (multiplayer/ etc)?

Nope. So far all of the games i've been playing are offline.

 

[Ketchup79]

Ok. So the framarate on your example looks steady assuming you have vsync on, the beginning I assume is just the loading of the world. Can you run the same test in another troublesome game?

 

[Waylax]

Ok. So the framarate on your example looks steady assuming you have vsync on, the beginning I assume is just the loading of the world. Can you run the same test in another troublesome game?

Note the frametime spikes at the bottom left graph. These are the points in which I stutter.

 

[Ketchup79]

So, if you notice, this is the same point your CPU and GPU usage drop as well. Is your drive light on during these slowdowns? If you aren't sure, run the same test, replace one of the unchanging pieces like CPU clock with HDD usage. And just for kicks, you might want to replace a second one with network usage.

 

[Waylax]

So, if you notice, this is the same point your CPU and GPU usage drop as well. Is your drive light on during these slowdowns? If you aren't sure, run the same test, replace one of the unchanging pieces like CPU clock with HDD usage. And just for kicks, you might want to replace a second one with network usage.

I don't have an HDD. I have an SSD.
Also, I played the games offline and they still stuttered.

 

[Ketchup79]

Windows calls the section HDD usage, no matter what you have. That's why I phrased it that way. And even though you play the game offline, it doesn't mean Windows isn't slowing things down with other online activities.