: Periodic rare stuttering or micro freezes on a laptop during gaming in emulators?
: Periodic rare stuttering or micro freezes on a laptop during gaming in emulators?
Hello. I’m looking for some guidance or possible solutions regarding an issue I recently encountered. I observed occasional brief stuttering during gameplay, specifically in 2D games. It occurs sporadically—sometimes once a minute, other times every 30 to 40 seconds—and isn’t constant. When checking the frame rate, it remains steady at around 60 fps, but during these moments it drops to 58 or 55 fps, with occasional spikes to 69 fps. Sometimes the audio stays clear, while other times you might also notice sound stutters. This problem appears when using the Mednafen emulator for Sega Genesis games and also occurs with MelonDS when playing Contra 4.
I attempted to cap the FPS at no more than 60 in the NVIDIA control panel and adjusted VSync in the NVIDIA console, but it didn’t resolve the issue. Interestingly, other emulators such as MAME or newer consoles like Xenia Canary do not experience this problem. My PC games on Steam generally run smoothly above 60 fps, so the drop might be more noticeable when it occurs.
What might be causing this? Are there any specific factors I should consider?
Are there certain jobs that start every single minute?
What amount of memory do you possess?
Are you performing additional activities alongside your gameplay, such as using Discord?
Now this is interesting. I've just checked again, and found the following: my Disk 1 SSD is 0% during the whole stable 60 fps situation but it changes to 10% every time the lag occurs.
https://imgur.com/a/cc6lcgz
View: https://imgur.com/a/cc6lcgz
2 screenshots showing 60 fps situation and 56 during the lag^
So, SSD can be causing this?
>> Is there some tasks that kicks off on a frequency of one per minute?
How much ram do you have?
Are you running any other tasks while gaming. Discord perhaps?
Nope, shouldn't be. Also no discord, or other messengers. As for RAM I have 16 gb.