Why does every open world game on the planet stutter no matter your rig?

bjarnidk

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Sep 23, 2012
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Can anyone answer this? Why can't you play any open world game (Arma, Skyrim, RUST etc.) without it constantly getting microstutters (0,1-0,5 sec stutters) to load objects?

It doesn't matter whether you run it off an SSD or a HDD, it still stutters, although the stutters may be a tiny bit shorter on the SSD.

Is there ANY way to play these games with NO stuttering?

CPU: 4770K
GPU: 970 GTX
RAM: 16 GB 2,4 ghz
Motherboard: Z97P-D3
PSU: Corsair CX 750M, 750W
Monitor: AOC 24" LED G-Sync g2460Pg running at 144 hz
 
Due to nature of open world games, no?
well, in theory, if you could load whole game (all 20+GB of it) to ram, no stutters on loads but... some games are bigger than that and others (skyrim) don't even support it. (32 bit, max memory usage of 4GB)

reason for loads is that game loads things that are at certain distance of you. (like distant textures) then replaces them when you get closer with better versions (aka loads the textures up) and.. again once you are closer (possibly)
same applies for all things in open world games. the problem is that unless ALL graphical assets fit into GPU ram and ALL game assets fit into normal ram, things need to move.

and moving includes delays. How long delays of course depends on amount of GPU ram and normal ram and how big bandwidth they have and processor to handle said moving but... yeah. How well the loading up of new areas is handled depends on the game a lot though.

so.. in theory, yes, games could be without loadup stutters but in practice, they'll exist.

In reality though, constant stutters of 0,1 to 0,5 seconds is a lot though and hint at something else like hardware limits. Posting details about your computer (GPU, CPU, ram and so on) could help People here possibly pinpoint the real culprit.
 
Well I posted my information. I don't think it's just me, though. I get it on my laptop too. What annoys me the most is that it's not just when moving between places but it also happens when standing still in many games.
 
well... while high temperatures and resulting throttling might cause such, monitoring cpu/GPU temps during use and said stutters would be needed for results on that. (gpuz and cpuz can do that)

Other possibility is PSU, it is down on tier four on PSU list: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-2547993/psu-tier-list.html
which is classified as "not for gaming rigs or overclocking, avoid unless you can't afford anything better"

so.. based on above, it is likely that it is either temperature based throttling or.. PSU cannot give GPU/CPU enough oomph when it needs it causing said small problems.
 
Open world games are simply much more intensive, especially on RAM subsystems since you constantly replace textures with higher resolution textures as you get closer to them. Also have to draw a larger area with lighting effects that have to be calculated for quite some distance, which is taxing on both the CPU and GPU. You also typically have a lot of characters running around in the local vicinity, which also takes a bit of CPU time to get a handle on.
 
Well, Arma runs like garbage no matter what, Rust is far more computational intensive than you'd think, for the same reason minecraft is, and Skyrim actually runs pretty well for me. Scaling back view distances can help ALOT. Because how much time are you actually spending looking at the far off mountains and trees and stuff that you're forcing your computer to process?
 
using Hwinfo ( http://www.hwinfo.com/ )and leaving it running should give some idea of voltages. (sensors)
If voltages differ a lot from the indicated it would most likely mean faulty PSU.
DQqz3tQ.png


Leave it running for a while and possibly try the games that cause problems.

That all depends on what your motherboard sensors tell so if said sensors are not working, no certain results, However without attaching volt meters to all the voltage points on mainboard and recording them on other ways (resembling laboratory setup and requiring good voltage meters to get accurate results) it would be the best way to go forward.

Edit:
As side note, lacking knowhow, screenshots can be taken with print screen button.
paste on paint, crop out unnecessary stuff (like I did) and upload it to one of multiple online image sites. (I used imgur.com as you can find out)
after that, post either link to the image here or.. do as I did and use
Code:
[img]url to image[/img]
to post the image.
Either way will work and at that point everyone can see current, min, max and average voltages at the time you took the screenshot.
 
In the last post, I see the voltages, yes but at that point, no real problems. Usually problems appear when the PSU is actually used more heavily (aka gaming) and at that point it is possible that either the voltages drop (minimum value) or CPU/GPU temperature goes too high and computer throttles their speed to keep temperature in check.
In this case I suspect PSU more but.. anything is possible and said sensors list shows a LOT of data on temps, speeds, and all.

Also on the overclocked question earlier, first screenshot shows CPU max clock as 4399MHz which is.. WAY above it's normal clock speed.

Let the thing run, use computer and check on the values once you notice something is off the normal. (the stutters are not normal on that setup, as far as skyrim goes at least. Unless you are using heavily modded version of it)
 


It's not that much higher, only 400mhz more than it's stock max speed clock. http://ark.intel.com/products/75123/Intel-Core-i7-4770K-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-3_90-GHz

butttttttt, it could still be an unstable OC (CPU and/or motherboard being the issue) and that can cause hiccups like that. Try putting it back at the stock settings, see link above.
 
Well, I looked into it again and seems that 4.4GHz is normal for your processor because.... it is not I7-4770k but I7-4790k (as shown by 1st screenshot of HWinfo.

Making said clock speed non-issue.

Still, keep it running, use computer and review of the values should be done once the out of normal stutters happen. It is entirely possible that everything is fine as far as PSU goes and problem might be elsewhere but eliminating problems one at a time is best idea.

For CPU thermal throttling, HWinfo would also work fine. (has it's own thermal throttling yes/no section for CPU) and same goes for CPU temperatures.
For GPU, it seems not so much. for that I would suggest GPU-z whose sensors page show similar data. (leave it running, play game, once it stutters a bit, alt-tab back and take a screenshot of gpu-Z graphs.)