Stuttering in game and Desktop.

lambofgod008 · May 28, 2014

Ok, so i'm playing Saint's Row 4. Performance has been great a majority of the time, however, every now and then I get this stutter. The stutter is at an exact frequency it seems. The game is running smoothly, but whenever the stuttering starts, every second or so, it hitches. I noticed it was doing this in the game menu, as well. I've been able to get it stop a couple of times by alt-tabbing in/out, or so I thought. That solution is not very reliable, as it doesn't work every time. The stuttering will sometimes stop on it's own. What is weird is, one of the times I alt-tabbed out, I noticed it was making task manager's window stutter as well. I opened a window and dragged it around the desktop and IT was stuttering, too, in the same frequency. All of a sudden, it was gone. Went back into the game and it had stopped there, too. So, it's not an all-the-time thing, but it's got me worried that it is affecting my desktop, as well. This is not happening with any other game I have played, and I play a lot of games. Has anyone heard of a problem like this? If anyone could help me, I would appreciate it. My vid card drivers are up to date.

neon neophyte · May 28, 2014

in task manager, is anything else utilizing a lot of your cpu when the studdering occurs?

lambofgod008 · May 28, 2014

No, I sat there and watched it. There was no other process accessing the cpu at the time, other than task manager and the game. I also checked the performance tab, and everything seemed to be behaving normally. No cpu spikes or anything. It's a very strange problem.

lambofgod008 · May 28, 2014

Also, I had previously disabled steams online functionality, as well as it's overlay in the game. Just to rule those out.

neon neophyte · May 28, 2014

ssd or hdd?

lambofgod008 · May 28, 2014

Both. I have my OS on a 160gb ssd(samsung) and my steam folder is on a western digital 1TB hard drive.

neon neophyte · May 28, 2014

perhaps that is the issue. im really just guessing at this point though.

lambofgod008 · May 28, 2014

Also, I tried to see if the stuttering coincided with hdd access, and it didn't seem to be, at least, not according to my hdd light.

lambofgod008 · May 28, 2014

Yeah, I really have no idea what it could be. I would think a hardware issue, but it only happens with this one game.

neon neophyte · May 28, 2014

ive experienced something similar, turned out to be driver problems. a fresh install of drivers cleared me up. again though, i have no idea.

lambofgod008 · May 28, 2014

That is my next avenue. I read somewhere that realtek sometimes has a problem. The only reason I made that connection is because I saw that on another forum, in a thread about stuttering. Would you update all of the motherboard drivers, for all the devices? BIOS perhaps. The only reason I haven't touched the motherboard drivers for a while is because I read somewhere that new drivers may be for newer hardware revisions.

lambofgod008 · May 28, 2014

BTW, I know you probably already know this, lol, but my MOBO has a realtek audio chipset on it. I'm going to try updating those, as I found new ones on ASUS' site.

neon neophyte · May 28, 2014

oh i vaguely remember that problem as well.

Shaun o · May 28, 2014

Things you should check.
How hot your cpu is getting, as it will clock down in speed if too hot reducing the clock speed.

This will result in games, or the desktop becoming slow and jearky.
Your second check should be how hot your graphics card is getting, in such a case where the computer works fine, but after a few mins of playing the game it exhibits the same symptom every time.

Make sure you have no dust build up in the cpu heatsink, and the one on your graphics card, even if about six months old.

You should always check for malware, and bitcoin mining programs as well as they can be masked as a hidden process or what you think is a legit process of windows.

lambofgod008 · Jul 1, 2014

Ok, so it seems I was wrong about the stuttering occurring in this game only. I now have the same stuttering in all of my 3d games. I haven't seen any other game's stuttering affect the desktop, but just about every game has this issue now. It never seems to happen in 2d games, such as battleblock theater or rogue legacy. Also, it seems certain games are immune, but I could be wrong. I've never noticed it in Payday 2, for example.

I thought it may be a driver issue with my card, so I have rolled back drivers from nvidia's 337 drivers, to 334. Doesn't seem to have eliminated the problem. I just can't think of what it may be. I don't know where to start. My temps are never really that high. The highest I've seen the processor go is 45c, the highest I've seen the vidcard go is 81c, that was while playing crysis 3.

The problem with troubleshooting this issue is, I don't have a definite way to reproduce the problem. There have been times I thought it was gone, but eventually, it came back. It is utterly random in nature, it seems. Most of these components are under two years old.

There is absolutely no audio stutter, and there is no strange behavior from any process in task manager, during the stutters. Ram usage seems fine, and is never maxed out.

Is there any kind of diagnostic software that could actually tell me if my vidcard is faulty, or the cpu, perhaps? I ran memtest in windows, and returned no errors in my memory. Is it possible that some of this software that came with my MB is causing it, or maybe there is something physically wrong with the MB?

I have another videocard I could try, after I try the speedstep thing, but it's a 5850, so I feel performance will be significantly decreased to the point where I wouldn't be able to tell if it is stutter, or just general poor performance.

I'm sorry about my rambling, but I really don't know what else to do. You guys are my last hope, before I start buying new hardware. Thank you for your time.

lambofgod008 · Jul 1, 2014

Btw, is there a way to post a .png in here. I would like someone to see the processes I have running, as I'm not sure what all of them are, or which ones are vital. I have a few things running that are related to the MB that don't seem that important. I've already disabled all but what I consider important in my startup. Also, I have a TX850M from corsair as a PSU. What are the odds that this would already be failing on me?

lambofgod008 · Jul 7, 2014

Ok, it appears I was wrong again. It stutters in everything, it just takes longer to start sometimes. Playing a game seems to trigger this, but I can alt-tab out of the game, and I notice the stutter affecting window re-sizing. I can drag one side of a window back and forth and see the stutter in that. Eventually the stuttering window re-sizing stops and I can return to the game, which sometimes recreates the problem, and other times it will be gone for hours. I just opened my PC up, pulled out my videocard, used some air duster and seated the card back into the other PCIe slot. Still the same issue. I did use fraps the last time it was doing it, and it does appear to affect the framerate, as they were dipping from 60 to between 55 and 57 during the stutters. Again, is there some kind of diagnostic program I could run in the background that would record these strange behaviors?

I saw another forum where someone said they found out their antivirus program was constantly setting it's process priority, which was apparently causing their stutters. The only problem with that is, I don't have an AV program installed. Is there a program I could use that would show this kind of information? One that logs process behavior for a given amount of time? Thanks.

davidka0811 · Aug 19, 2014

What type of SSD you have? brand?

Stuttering in game and Desktop.

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