Microstutter and dropped frames, I've tried everything.

[JoobieDoobieDoo]

I have had weird stuttering issues for a long time now, and I've now reached the point that it's beyond what I can search or throw money at the problem to try and solve.

I get random strange stutters, micro stutters, and lagspikes/dropped frames to varying awfulness in various games and apps. Even with console games plugged straight into my capture card, any preview of that signal (whether it be through OBS or RE Central) has gross stuttering and dropped frames. Despite switching to the raw passthrough HDMI signal from my capture card, into to the same monitor, looking perfectly smooth 60fps.

Temps are normal, and nothing is even cracking 70% usage anywhere.

I have no problem sharing recordings, screenshots, anything. Just want to get this thing fixed so I can boot up a game or a stream and it finally just works with out flipping through settings for hours every time I install a new game.


Things that stutter:
OBS Preview
Recordings from OBS
RE Central preview and recordings from it(capture card software)
PCSX2
Most tests on TestUFO when OBS or a game is running in the background
Tower Unite
Destroy All Humans Remastered
Dark Souls Remastered
Assassin's Creed III (this may just be a terribly optimized game)
Age of Empires III
Age of Mythology
Minecraft Java and Bedrock (some how gets mostly fixed if I turn on in-game vsync, despite running NCP v-sync and G-Sync)
I can list tons of games, but you get the idea.


Things that don't stutter:
Certain games?
Elden Ring doesn't for the most part
Binding of Isaac (I've gotten to not stutter as far as I can tell after I disabled Fullscreen Optimizations)
TestUFO tests, as long as nothing else is running (doesn't stutter with no other apps running anymore after getting matching 165hz monitors, but it did when one of them was 60hz.)
Most of anything in Chrome
File Explorer/Windows things


Things I've tried:

G-Sync on or off.
RTSS limiter at, 3 below refresh rate, and in game's limit, 3 below in-game's limit.
NCP framelimiter
Every Windows power plan
The Ryzen power plans
Running only one monitor
In game framelimiters
Upgrading monitors to matching 165hz G-Sync
Just about every NCP setting
Updating BIOS
Disabling any HDDs connected
Tried both single monitor display mode and multi monitor display mode in Nvidia Inspector
Set all Windows sleep settings to never
All the recommended steps in "Best G-Sync settings" post on this website
Disabling/Enabling XMP
Enabling/Disabling Resizable BAR
Disabling Fullscreen Optimizations (this is the one thing that has made a difference. This helped with a bunch of games, but a lot of things still stutter)


Things I haven't tried:
Fresh install of windows (I really really don't want to set up all my apps, plugins, templates, and settings again for work)
A non RTX GPU (I had a 2060 in here for awhile and I remember it seemingly having the same issue, but I haven't tested that one in awhile and gave it to an ex-partner.

I don't know at this point, maybe I got a bad GPU and need to RMA. Maybe the 30 series has an issue? Is my mobo too older for my hardware? CPU bottleneck, even though usage and temps are super low? Don't even know anymore.



Specs:
Ryzen 3600 with a Vetroo V5 air cooler
ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3070 Ti 8GB
16gb RAM running in XMP at 3200
EVGA Supernova 750 GT, 80 Plus Gold 750W (GPU power is not daisy-chained, I'm using two separate cable from PSU)
MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX mobo
NVME WD Blue 1tb boot drive
a bunch of various SATA SSDs
One 3TB HDD (had the stutter before and since getting this, but tried disabling and it made no difference)

Additional Info:
Both monitors are on DP cable.
Both are MSI 165hz G-Sync

[JoobieDoobieDoo]

I have also now clean offline safemode DDU my graphics drivers to the most recent version.

[JoobieDoobieDoo]

Making a custom resolution in NCP and setting both monitors to 120 seem to mostly fixe issue of stutter in OBS. Will have to test other things. Test UFO tests seem to look fine? Youtube seems ok? But will have to test more with that. As well as other games and apps.

[JoobieDoobieDoo]

Update on this issue. I have now also tested putting my old GTX760 in this machine and it has the same exact stuttering. So I think bad GPU can be ruled out.

I think some of the time what I might be seeing is judder and not stutter? Or maybe both? Frames duplicating in uneven amounts to fit my RR, on top of super low pixel response times having very little blending or blurring of those frames. A lot of shows, movies, and youtube videos seem to have a terrible flickery unsmooth look to them on my system.

Here is an example. The guitar panning shot looks super gross and unnatural. Flickery and choppy and lagging. What I can only guess is very very server judder? But I am not entirely sure.


https://youtu.be/81--1mu69vA?t=32

However, you'd think it this was the issue, changing my refresh rate in NCP to something goes evenly with the content's fps would fix this issue right? It does not. I've tried pretty much every refresh rate with content that has this issue and none fix it. Doesn't matter if it's 165hz, 144hz, 120hz, or 60hz. All have the same terrible flickery look on panning shots. 120hz should in theory look good with everything because 24fps, 30fps, and 60fps all go into it super evenly. Alas, it is not my golden refresh rate that solves all my problems. I am still once again, at a loss with why everything looks so terribly unsmooth on my system.

[jorimt]

I've moved this topic from "G-SYNC" to general since 1) contrary to popular assumption, G-SYNC can do nothing to improve system-side stutter, regardless of configuration, and 2) you've already tested with G-SYNC on/off and your frametime performance issues persist.

Here is an example. The guitar panning shot looks super gross and unnatural. Flickery and choppy and lagging. What I can only guess is very very server judder? But I am not entirely sure.


https://youtu.be/81--1mu69vA?t=32

It's the video itself, same thing happens to me when I play it. With video, panning issues are highly content-dependent (panning speed during capture, native video FPS, encoding choices, etc).

For instance, unlike your video example, this one pans fine for me:

phpBB [video]

Regardless, stuttery videos typically aren't an indicator of frametime performance in games.

Be careful not to conflate issues when troubleshooting stutter or you won't get anywhere. Also be aware that some stutter (regardless of your system's capabilities) is expected and often source-related.

[JoobieDoobieDoo]

This issue was never resolved. Here is an exact recording of the issue in as plain as a visual representation as I can think of. Please help I have been struggling with this for a long while and still have no idea how to fix it.

Pay attention to how to line jumps and doubles and generally doesn't look smooth. Despite looking smooth on my end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhn0__afT1s

[Zodasaur]

This issue was never resolved. Here is an exact recording of the issue in as plain as a visual representation as I can think of. Please help I have been struggling with this for a long while and still have no idea how to fix it.

Pay attention to how to line jumps and doubles and generally doesn't look smooth. Despite looking smooth on my end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhn0__afT1s

You said that you've already tried everything. Since that's the case, unfortunately there couldn't be anything else left for you to do. Most likely it's a medical issue with either your eyes or your brain that's not going to be fixed by us asking you to try things on your computer that you've already tried.