Micro stutters in old games vs. overkill PC

[FTW900]

Yes, but you said you don't have any, at least during HL2 chapter.

Not in that particular two minute section you asked us to test, no, but only in the vanilla version (again, the update version did stutter for me in the level opening).

This is ridiculous once again--I'm not asking anything beyond what this PC should be capable of.
Hell, not even this but a PC from 00's or 2010's.

Heh, the PC I had when HL2 released would have run it at such a low average framerate, I wouldn't have been able to notice the stutter.

First time I was able to play HL2 at an acceptable framerate was in its Orange Box re-release on Xbox 360, and that was three years after the original PC release and it only ran at 720p/30 FPS; you must have had a beast of a PC for these older games at the time of their release to not remember any performance issues.

Level stutter is pretty common in Source games, it can't be fixed.
I do not pay attention to these stutters.
Back in the days, things were way worse at the level load, especially at the release when we had 'node graph out of date rebuilding'

I do not remember the details anymore, but I think I upgraded to ATI 9800 Pro only to experience HL2 at high settings , so it ran pretty well. Of course, we didn't have such advanced software back in the days, and I had less knowledge about things, so there is a chance I might confuse something.
But then again, we see that at least some people do not have these issues on less powerful or similar machines.
And I am pretty sure people won't have any stutters in Postal 2, for example.
Although it is not optimized well for the time of release, it is a very easy-to-run game nowadays based on the Unreal Engine, which I do not remember having any stutters whatsoever even on a weakass hardware.
For example, Deus Ex 1 also has stutters, which is insane!
I can literally install it a few dozen times into GPU memory with all the music, etc.
It simply shouldn't behave like that; this is an extremely overkill PC to run Deus Ex 1 without stutters. I hope we can all agree that 5 Ghz and 24 Gb of GPU VRAM is plenty...

[jorimt]

Although it is not optimized well for the time of release, it is a very easy-to-run game nowadays based on the Unreal Engine, which I do not remember having any stutters whatsoever even on a weakass hardware.

UE3 is and was infamous for asset streaming stutter, especially in open-world games. I.E. Batman Arkham Knight. So many UE3 games have stuttered for me over the years, I've lost count.

It simply shouldn't behave like that; this is an extremely overkill PC to run Deus Ex 1 without stutters. I hope we can all agree that 5 Ghz and 24 Gb of GPU VRAM is plenty...

I haven't played Deus Ex for a while now, but not all legacy games were forward looking enough to take advantage of modern hardware.

As I've stated in this thread before, overkill specs do not guarantee anything; it's all down to how the software of the given app was coded and whether it is even capable of taking full advantage of newer hardware. Some games are internally bottlenecked and will be so for perpetuity.

One such example is the original Crysis; its maximum framerate is entirely dependent on single-core CPU speed, and since our modern CPUs prioritize multi-core and threaded operation, maximum average framerates in that game have a limit, even on the most overpowered hardware.

But I digress.

Getting back to your particular issues, for the benefit of the thread, I will ask; what is your current CPU/GPU combo again? You mentioned an Intel CPU in your OP (10900k), but then an AMD CPU (7800X3D) in your later posts.

Finally, what is the average frametime spike you are experiencing in these games? 100+ ms, 50ms, 10ms, etc?

[FTW900]

UE3 is and was infamous for asset streaming stutter, especially in open-world games. I.E. Batman Arkham Knight. So many UE3 games have stuttered for me over the years, I've lost count.

Yeah, but I was referring to the first Unreal era (Unreal/Unreal Tournament/Deus Ex)

However, not all legacy games were forward-looking enough to take advantage of modern hardware.

While I agree, an overkill CPU should be able to brute force the game to run perfectly (we're talking about what...like x30 times faster hardware?)

One such example is the original Crysis; its maximum framerate is entirely dependent on single-core CPU speed, and since our modern CPUs prioritize multi-core and threaded operation, maximum average framerates in that game have a limit, even on the most overpowered hardware.

Yes, but I'm not complaining about the original Crysis because there are a few missions in the game that are notorious for being CPU-bound. I'm not attempting to address these issues (although it is possible; people overclocked their 10900k to 5.5 or 5.7 and experienced no drops during these missions (saw few vids on YT few years ago, not sure if they're still online)
I'm pretty sure it is possible to do the same on 13/14 gen CPUs with even greater success due to better single-threaded performance

Getting back to your particular issues, for the benefit of the thread, I will ask; what is your current CPU/GPU combo again? You mentioned an Intel CPU in your OP (10900k), but then an AMD CPU (7800X3D) in your later posts.

I was considering switching to 7800x3d or looking for somebody to test this area on that CPU (recently I found out that it also drops 0.1 and 1% lows in some games/areas, very confused)

My main rig currently consists of a 10900k

Finally, what is the average frametime spike you are experiencing in these games? 100+ ms, 50ms, 10ms, etc?

They are definitely not extreme but noticeable, g-sync unable to smooth them out. I am again in the middle of encoding so cannot test things right away. I think most of them around 30-50 but I will have to check that properly one more time a bit later on

HL2.jpg (47.26 KiB) Viewed 1584 times

[jorimt]

While I agree, an overkill CPU should be able to brute force the game to run perfectly (we're talking about what...like x30 times faster hardware?)

And yet here we are.

I was considering switching to 7800x3d or looking for somebody to test this area on that CPU (recently I found out that it also drops 0.1 and 1% lows in some games/areas, very confused)

Historically, while there are exceptions, both AMD CPUs and GPUs have been known to have slightly worse overall frametime performance in the 0.1% and 1% vs Intel equivalents, or at the very best, about the same.

They are definitely not extreme but noticeable, g-sync unable to smooth them out. I am again in the middle of encoding so cannot test things right away. I think most of them around 30-50 but I will have to check that properly one more time a bit later on

50ms and under is within the "expected" range.

The problem with troubleshooting your particular issue (without a hands-on on your actual PC) is the level of stutter you've described thus far tends to be more game than system-specific.

I've participated in a number of these topics over the years, and in any of them where the OP states something along the lines of "I shouldn't be experiencing this stutter," and it's not actual recurring 1+ second hard stalls that are easily reproduced in any game due to outright faulty hardware, some form of extreme system misconfiguration, an RGB background program (etc.), it's virtually never resolved.

I'd offer a list of potential solutions, but you've seemed to have already tried most or all of them to no effect.

But hey, good luck, maybe others can share further suggestions here.

[Thatweirdinputlag]

Hello,

I do experience same sort of issues on old titles, even with overkill config somehow I was having stutters back and forth for no reason at all. Anyhow, I have an Asus Z790i, on the BIOS - advanced tab - Platform Misc Configuration - I disabled all the options while only Enabling PCI Express Native Power Management. This moves the ASPM's control to Windows OS instead of the BIOS.

For some reason, whenever I let the BIOS decide on the state of power management, this one game that I play just keeps on stuttering heavily. Enabling this feature lets windows decide how to control ASPM's instead which turned out to be way better than how the BIOS was doing.

Not sure how the option is called on other Mobo's, but basically they all have some sort of ASPM's "Active State Power Management" let me know which Mobo you have and I'll try to help.

[widow13]

Hello,

I do experience same sort of issues on old titles, even with overkill config somehow I was having stutters back and forth for no reason at all. Anyhow, I have an Asus Z790i, on the BIOS - advanced tab - Platform Misc Configuration - I disabled all the options while only Enabling PCI Express Native Power Management. This moves the ASPM's control to Windows OS instead of the BIOS.

For some reason, whenever I let the BIOS decide on the state of power management, this one game that I play just keeps on stuttering heavily. Enabling this feature lets windows decide how to control ASPM's instead which turned out to be way better than how the BIOS was doing.

Not sure how the option is called on other Mobo's, but basically they all have some sort of ASPM's "Active State Power Management" let me know which Mobo you have and I'll try to help.

Only ASPM I can find in my mobo is PCIE ASPM,is that the same thing?
And if yes, do I just simply need to enable it ? It's disabled currently.

[Thatweirdinputlag]

Hello,

I do experience same sort of issues on old titles, even with overkill config somehow I was having stutters back and forth for no reason at all. Anyhow, I have an Asus Z790i, on the BIOS - advanced tab - Platform Misc Configuration - I disabled all the options while only Enabling PCI Express Native Power Management. This moves the ASPM's control to Windows OS instead of the BIOS.

For some reason, whenever I let the BIOS decide on the state of power management, this one game that I play just keeps on stuttering heavily. Enabling this feature lets windows decide how to control ASPM's instead which turned out to be way better than how the BIOS was doing.

Not sure how the option is called on other Mobo's, but basically they all have some sort of ASPM's "Active State Power Management" let me know which Mobo you have and I'll try to help.

Only ASPM I can find in my mobo is PCIE ASPM,is that the same thing?
And if yes, do I just simply need to enable it ? It's disabled currently.

Would not hurt to do so. But the option that I mainly enable is the native ASPM. as to handover ASPM control to windows and not the bios.