What could be causing my consistent lag or stuttering without any obvious explanation?
What could be causing my consistent lag or stuttering without any obvious explanation?
I've never had problems, but one day it started and it hasn't stopped. There is no malware, and all temperatures in the GPU and CPU are okay. Also, the stuttering is more visible (harder) in DirectX games, I think. Not 100% sure. There is no stuttering/lag when doing a benchmark. As said before, never had this problems before.
Specs:
Windows 10 Home
Intel Xeon E5 2620 v2
AMD Radeon RX470 (Sapphire)
16GB RAM 1600 MHz
500W PSU
I began by addressing what I believe resolved my specific problem:
Turning off NVIDIA Overlay in games.
I should have noticed something was wrong before; it would cause my mouse to run extremely slow after playing games, especially when opening replays, making it nearly impossible to close. I could attempt a fresh installation of GeForce Experience and see if that improves the situation, but currently it performs better and shows fewer significant FPS drops during gameplay.
BIOS Update.
This is something many recommend. It was an issue I faced years ago when I wasn’t as tech-savvy as I am now. I hadn’t updated my BIOS after setting up my system for a full year. Since I had never owned a gaming PC before, I assumed occasional frame drops in Rocket League were normal. Together with other problems, I felt quite frustrated after fixing it. Still, I was content with what I had.
Chipset drivers.
I hadn’t updated my chipset drivers either. My AMD 2700x appeared to be slightly underperforming right out of the box and I wasn’t sure why. I ran a User Benchmark before and after, and the results improved slightly. I’m not certain if this affected my stuttering or not, since it was done alongside disabling NVIDIA Overlay.
Graphics card drivers.
This could seem straightforward to many, but as someone just starting out, I knew very little at first and it was often overlooked until I realized why my games were lagging more than usual.
Windows OS corrupt files.
There are several cases where corrupt OS files led to performance drops in games or general strange behavior in Windows. Some of my games would crash randomly, and a friend suggested checking system files. You can run a command in Command Prompt called
sfc /scannow,
which has previously fixed corrupt files on my machine. You’ll need to open Command Prompt by searching for it in the Windows search bar, right-click and select Run as Administrator, then enter the command above. It usually takes around 5 minutes. Alternatively, you can navigate to your file explorer, go to "This PC," right-click the desired drive, click Tools, and choose the "Check" option under Error Checking. Any drive without the OS will indicate it doesn’t need checking, though it’s not harmful.
Windows "Game Mode"
This might be a key factor. I’m not sure, but I think it’s enabled by default. According to Techspot, this could significantly improve FPS. Try disabling it by searching for "Game Mode" in the Windows search bar.
HAGS
or
Hardware accelerated GPU Scheduling
This setting is also listed near "Game Mode." It might help in some cases, though results vary. It’s a newer feature in the NVIDIA driver update and could improve performance in CPU-heavy games.
Windows 10 Power Plan
This could be more about overall performance than just stuttering. Under "Power Options," adjust your system settings. Go to "Power and Sleep" settings, click "Additional power settings," choose "Ultimate Performance." (Not recommended for gaming laptops)
Disabling Dynamic Tick
Several users have found this helpful, and it often reduces stuttering frame rates. Right-click the Start menu and select
Command Prompt (Admin). First, type
bcdedit /set disabledynamictick yes
and press Enter. Then add
bcdedit /set useplatformclock true
in the Command Prompt and press Enter. Finally, enter
bcdedit /set tscsyncpolicy Enhanced
and press Enter. Close the Command Prompt window and restart your system.