Severe Stuttering in Towns/Crowded Areas + High RAM/VRAM Usage (System: Dell Alienware Aurora R12)

PC Bug Report
1

Hi everyone,

I’m experiencing some very severe stuttering/frame-time spikes in Diablo IV, particularly when entering towns, major areas, or locations with a lot of other players.

My PC is a mid-range system that should be more than capable of running Diablo IV, so I’m trying to determine whether this is a known game/engine issue or something specific to my system.

My system specifications

  • System: Dell Alienware Aurora R12

  • CPU: 11th Gen Intel(R) Core™ i5-11400F @ 2.60GHz (BFEBFBFF000A0671)

  • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB (Dell OEM, 1028 C973)

  • RAM: 2x8GB Kingston FURY DDR4 (XW21KG-HYD-NX)

  • Storage: 1 TB PCIe Gen 3 NVMe SSD (CX2-GB1024-Q11 NVMe LITEON 1024GB)

  • Original storage: 256 GB NVMe SSD (Micron 2300 NVMe 256GB), upgraded to the current 1 TB drive above

  • OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Ver 25H2

  • BIOS: 1.1.30, 2025-04-15, latest BIOS version

The system is otherwise running normally, and I’ve also checked my temperatures. CPU and GPU temperatures are within normal ranges, so overheating/thermal throttling doesn’t appear to be the cause. I also recently reapplied thermal paste to the CPU using Arctic thermal paste.

What I’m experiencing

The game generally runs reasonably well during normal gameplay. However, when I:

  • Enter a major town

  • Teleport back to town

  • Enter an area with many players

  • Encounter a particularly crowded hub

the frame rate can suddenly become extremely inconsistent.

The most noticeable problem isn’t necessarily the average FPS, but the severe hitching/stuttering. The game can feel like it freezes or pauses briefly even though the FPS outside of these situations is perfectly playable.

I’ve also noticed something interesting in Task Manager:

Both GPU VRAM usage and system RAM usage increase substantially in crowded areas.

My RTX 3060’s 12 GB of VRAM gets very close to its maximum, while my 16 GB of system RAM also approaches its maximum.

This makes me wonder whether Diablo IV is aggressively streaming/caching assets in these areas, potentially causing memory pressure and/or paging.

I’m not certain whether this is actually a memory leak, so I don’t want to incorrectly label it as one. However, I’ve noticed that memory usage can become quite high during extended play sessions and especially after visiting crowded areas.

Is anyone else experiencing this?

I’d particularly like to hear from players with similar hardware who experience:

  • Severe stuttering when entering towns

  • Stuttering when many players are nearby

  • VRAM usage approaching the GPU’s limit

  • System RAM usage approaching 100%

  • Stuttering that becomes worse after playing for a long time

If you’ve experienced this and found a solution, I’d really appreciate hearing what fixed or reduced it for you.

For example, did any of these help?

  • Lowering Texture Quality

  • Changing DLSS settings

  • Clearing/rebuilding shader caches

  • Changing NVIDIA driver versions

  • Increasing the Windows page file

  • Upgrading from 16 GB to 32 GB RAM

  • Changing any Diablo IV graphics settings

  • Disabling overlays/background applications

  • Reinstalling the game

  • Any other workaround

I’d also be interested in hearing from people with 32 GB or more RAM. If upgrading RAM significantly reduced the problem, that would be useful information for determining whether 16 GB is simply becoming a limiting factor for Diablo IV or whether there’s a separate memory-management issue.

I’m mainly posting this to see whether this is an isolated issue with my system or something other Diablo IV players are experiencing as well.

Thanks!