High FPS but stutters and choppy feeling
High FPS but stutters and choppy feeling
Hello everyone, I've searched extensively in search of a remedy, but unfortunately I'm running out of options. I'm hoping someone with experience can help me out here. Please forgive if I can't clearly describe the problem—it's tough to pinpoint—and I'm not very familiar with PCs. What I'm experiencing is significant choppiness, lag, or stuttering in my FPS, which is making it difficult to play at a steady 100 fps or higher. The game becomes noticeably unstable whenever the frame rate drops below 100, and it rarely reaches around 90 fps. It feels inconsistent and not as fluid as it should be at full 100 fps.
After some investigation, I considered v-sync and g-sync settings. My monitor isn't listed among supported g-sync compatible models, but with a displayport cable and free-sync turned on in the settings, I managed to enable g-sync via the Nvidia control panel. I read that g-sync can struggle when the frame rate is far from the monitor's refresh rate (165Hz in my case), which might explain the issue. However, after switching both g-sync and free-sync off simultaneously, the problem disappeared—though it became slightly worse.
I also tried using v-sync in NVIDIA Control Panel alongside g-sync, but that didn't help. I've limited my games to around 95% of their intended FPS, yet the choppiness remains. It's hard to say for sure what's causing it, though I suspect it might be related to either the refresh rate mismatch or some other factor.
I noticed this problem mainly appears in more demanding titles like Modern Warfare 2, Warzone, Rust, Kingdom Come Deliverance, and Tarkov. On my system, I usually see around 80-120 FPS, which is smooth, but anything below that feels choppy. I've adjusted the refresh rate to 144, 120, and 60Hz, but the issue gets worse. All drivers and BIOS are up to date, RAM runs at 3200MHz with XMP enabled.
I'm feeling a bit stuck. If this is indeed the problem, maybe upgrading my monitor or CPU would help. But I'm not sure if that's worth it without more concrete information. I appreciate any advice you can offer. My PC specs are: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 (6-core), 16GB RAM at 3200MHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060, 465GB SSD, 2TB HDD, B450 TOMAHAWK MAX monitor, 165Hz, free-sync enabled.
Thanks in advance for your support.