Frametime Spikes Causing Stutter

[Souma-sargeras]

@Gravitön-area-52

I can confirm a stuttering gSync issue in WoW in any nVidia driver past 452.06, when they started updating the drivers for the new 3xxx series of cards. If you revert back to version 452.06, the gSync stuttering magically vanishes.

I can confirm that I just tried 457.30, get a massive stuttering issue, and revert back to 452.06 and everything is better.

nVidia has not solved this issue for months. They dont acknowledge it. I have a 1080ti and cannot upgrade even if stock existed, because I would need to upgrade the driver in order to use the new card, and games would be broken.

For now, try using 452.06 and see if that works for you.

Thank you so much! It worked for me.

[Ayobami-aerie-peak]

Add me to the list of people affected by this and possibly seeing it resolved with your driver rollback solution.

I’m on a Ryzan 2700 with an nVidia geForce 2080.

I was seeing this issue for a month or two over in Guild Wars 2 and had just assumed their game was bugged. When I resubbed here and the problem followed me, I started thinking my system was messed up.

Cut all my graphics down, started culling out addons… nothing worked.

So far… I’ve just been running toons back and forth in towns while in meetings for work… once I can get on properly, I’ll go out and run some real content in both games and a few other games as well… and see if it really fully fixes it.

No one else in my GW2 guild seems to have the issue - and thus far the ones noting that are all on 10xx cards. But this thread was started by someone with a card that I think is the same as a guild member…

So I’m really curious what is the common link between everyone affected by this.

[Tetharis-tichondrius]

Tried driver version 452.06 but there was no real change unfortunately.

My hunter still gets regular frametime spikes with a pet out but most (if not all) other characters feel fairly normal to play and the frametime graphs reflect that. Their graphs aren’t perfect but it’s not noticeable in combat, mainly just when loading in new areas or asset pop in which I believe is normal.

So far I’m leaning toward a game bug being the root of my hunter microstutter as it happens regardless of my settings combinations.

[Gravitön-area-52]

Sorry for the late reply. When reverting drivers stopped working for me, I had to reformat Windows and that seemed to work. I used the older drivers though once windows was installed.

[Stinkit-draenor]

Hi there, rarely post but came across this searching. My 2080ti with Windows 20H2 only stutters in WoW with anything higher than 446.14. Drivers after they introduced DX12 Ultimate and HAGS optimizations, which I kept off.

What I haven’t tried is HAGS On, or, downgrading to Windows 1909. So yeah, 446.14 makes my WoW buttery smooth. Hope it helps.

[Tetharis-tichondrius]

Hmm I thought those older drivers (pre 452.xx) were incompatible with 20h2? I’ve tried HAGS on/off so far on 20H2 but haven’t seen a real difference in WoW unfortunately.

[Stinkit-draenor]

They are very much compatible - Windows 10 auto-installs 432.00 so as long the driver you install is above that, it will remain.

I used DDU. Unplug ethernet (I think this is important so that you’re offline). Boot into safe mode, run DDU, it resets. Install 446.14 - custom - Driver only. I have tested with GeForce Experience and its fine too so you can technically just go express setup, however, I don’t need GFE. I hope this solves your micro stutter - it breaks my heart that a (at the time) $1000 GPU acts like this, esp. when I spend 90% of my time playing this game.

Also thanks for confirming HAGS on did not remove the micro-stutter.

[Pharazon-thorium-brotherhood (Pharazon)]

@Stinkit-draenor

So yeah, 446.14 makes my WoW buttery smooth. Hope it helps.

Thanks. Dropping down to 445.14 eliminated my stutter, while some others, including 452.06 did not.

[Stinkit-draenor]

Great news! Kinda stupid that we have to do this sort of thing. I accidently updated my drivers back to 456.71 and the stutters have returned. Going to try HAGS on and report back. EDIT: it’s still there with HAGS on

[Woubbie-trollbane (Woubbie)]

As I’m leveling through Shadowlands I’m finding the stutter is different on different characters, even when I have them logged in to the exact same area of Oribos on the same server. My arcane mage and moonkin have a nauseating and noticeable stutter, while my Havoc DH has zero. There are no differences in graphics settings between them. This is driving me mad, since the arcane mage is my main.

This actually started late in BFA, maybe the final patch? I didn’t play much the last few months on my main characters, just leveled the last of the alts, so I didn’t pay it too much mind, but the druid has been having this issue for months.

[EDIT] It’s a few hours since I posted this and I decided to see what happens if I change my mage’s spec. Lo and behold. Frost has a tiny amount of stutter, Fire has virtually none.
[SECOND EDIT] I use Ovale Spell Priority addon on every character; turned it off on the Arcane Mage and smooth as silk again. Doesn’t seem to affect all characters the same way, so must have something to do with the complicated rotations of some classes/specs over others. Demon Hunter has WAY fewer decisions to make from second to second than Arcane mage.

[Tetharis-tichondrius]

This may be a stupid question but I can’t seem to find these old drivers on Nvidia’s site. The oldest when I search up my card seems to be 451.48. Even using the advanced driver search yields nothing older. Any idea where I can get some of these?

[Gravitön-area-52]

I can’t post links but if you google 452.06 its the first google result.

I wanted to provide an update on this issue:

I went around nvidia since they escalated this up the chain and told me theres nothing they can do.

I bought a 6800XT, and while its impossible to get one of these right now for most, I can confirm this card does not have the issue of frame tearing.

I can also confirm that a secondary culprit of this problem is the discord overlay, and to a lesser extent, RTSS and its overlay. If you stop using both of these, and use the Radeon software to frame limit at 2 beneath your refresh rate, the game will not tear at all.

It took me a long time to get this figured out, and hopefully it will help someone. If you cant get your hands on one of these Radeon cards, it’s entirely possible refrain from use of one or both of these overlays may resolve your issue.

I required a new card for a new 4k144hz monitor anyway, so it wasn’t a waste of money

[Stinkit-draenor]

Hey Tetharis a further update. I was able to resolve the issue ONLY by turning V-SYNC on in the nvidia control panel under Global Settings to “ON”. I was going insane with this!

Also the recent 471.11 drivers, I believe the issue is fixed. I didn’t have enough to fully test everywhere, but I think its fixed. NOTE These are also the drivers that finally fixed the flickering for Shadowlands so there may be a correlation.

Anyways, the first suggestion above fixed it for me since you can’t use anything older than 456.71 anymore, as Windows 10 automatically updates your drivers now to that minimum.

[Stinkit-draenor]

Last update to this; the latest nvidia drivers fixed all stuttering for me (471.68). I dont even need to do any settings in nvidia control panel. yay.