All games have massive Frame Rate Judder.

[Jbinn]

I believe I have the right term used for my issues (Frame Rate Judder.) because what I'm seeing on my screen is stutter/choppiness when panning my camera or moving side to side in my games, it's not screen tearing (I have that as well, but borderless windowed mode fixes it.) but just an annoying stutter every seconds when moving or panning. When I apply windowed mode to a game the screen tearing goes away, but what's left behind is stuttering when I move the camera. If I limit my FPS to 60 while running in windowed mode it's smooth for 3-5 seconds and then it stutters for a couple seconds and goes smooth again rinse and repeat. VSYNC completely eliminates my problem but most of the games I play receive terrible input lag from VSYNC or I can't hold 60FPS constant even on low settings and I get stutter (ARMA 3, ARMA 2, RUST etc.)

I also noticed that if I run a game that is older or I get insane amounts of FPS in the stutter us gone and so is the tearing. If I play CSGO I get 300-400FPS and theres no stutter or tearing, Battlefield 4 if I play on High I get 150fps no stutter or tearing, Bioshock 400 FPS no stutter or tearing. I play RUST, ARMA 3, BF4 on ultra or any demanding game the stutter/tearing is back unless I run VSYNC. I'm 26 and have been building PC's since I was 13 and even built a few for other people never had these issues or atleast never noticed them and I never used VSYNC. I know VSYNC fixes screen tearing due to having more or less frames on the screen than your monitor can handle but this isn't tearing this is stuttering. My buddies build I just did has a 980ti,6700k,16gb ram and he has no tearing or stutter with VSYNC off I hooked my PC upto his ROG SWIFT and kb/mouse and my stutter was still there.

My build:

msi r9 390 8gb gaming
benq gl2460 monitor
6600K @ 4.5ghz
8gb ddr4 2800
256gb Samsung ssd
asrock k6 z170
evga 650w gold fully modular

CPU TEMPS = 65c gaming
GPU TEMPS = 80c gaming

I've RMA'd the motherboard and CPU and that made no difference, also have tried different RAM and HDD.

Heres a few videos of my problem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgUvlPMyig
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zn7wNwV8Mk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFz30zLg6YE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM5Uak9pzXk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MykNQRelBuM

Things I've tried:

Fresh format
new CPU/mobo/ram/ssd
tried different monitor/mouse/kb
tried capping fps (works but adds screen tearing to center of screen.)
tried running windowed mode (fixes tearing but not stutter.)
tried capping fps and running windowed mode (adds stutter every 3-5 seconds.)
tried VSYNC (fixes problem but cant use it in all games.)
tried older drivers
tried many many different games
tried messing with settings, power settings, disabling overclock, undervolting, overvolting, downclocking

I also notice if I limit my FPS in a game like CSGO I get a huge tear line in the center of my screen but on each side of the tear line the game looks smooth so it's kind of liveable I guess. But If I limit my FPS with windowed mode the tearing goes away and it runs smooth but it stutters every 3-5 seconds even if I hold a constant 60fps. If I turn on VSYNC it fixes everything but unfortunately input lag and the fact that I can't hit 60fps in every game kills that solution. I'm trying to figure out if this is normal and if its not why its happening I've exhausted almost all possibilities. Please help! D:

[Falkentyne]

You've been building computers for 13 years, and yet you still don't know how to tell us what monitor and video card you're having problems with?

[Sparky]

The only option you have for eliminating all three of tearing, input lag, and frame dropping as a consumer is a variable refresh monitor(gsync or freesync).

A game developer also has the option of a synchronous framerate cap used in conjunction with v-sync, but I haven't seen this implemented by anyone(it requires hard limits on frametime to do well).

Borderless windowed mode is basically v-sync that drops extra frames instead of buffering them(this results in judder instead of the massive latency of normal v-sync).

If your framerate cap is close to your refresh rate(or a multiple thereof), then the tear line will stay close to the same place(generally move up or down the screen slowly, because the clocks aren't exactly matched).

This is what happens when a framerate cap is slightly lower than your refresh rate(when it's slightly higher, the latency slowly creeps up to the uncapped vsync line, then stays there):



Basically, your frame completion moves slowly closer toward the deadline for the start of next refresh, until it drops a frame and starts the process over.

High framerates without v-sync still have tearing, more tears per refresh interval, but there's less displacement per tear, so in some cases it's less noticeable.

In borderless windowed there's more input lag than vsync off, but no tearing, and at extremely high framerates the judder is less noticeable(the displayed frame is the most recently completed one at the start of the refresh cycle, so at 1000fps, you'd only get up to 1ms of judder from the delay between frame completion and the next refresh). At low framerates the judder can be extremely noticeable, at 61fps on a 60hz display, you'd get up to 16.4ms of judder, at anything less than 60fps you'd get up to 16.67ms of judder.(assuming a 60hz monitor).

[Jbinn]

You've been building computers for 13 years, and yet you still don't know how to tell us what monitor and video card you're having problems with?

Sorry didn't realize I didn't put those in there:

BenQ GL2460
MSI 390 8G Gaming

[Jbinn]

You've been building computers for 13 years, and yet you still don't know how to tell us what monitor and video card you're having problems with?

Sorry didn't realize I didn't put those in there:

BenQ GL2460
MSI 390 8G Gaming

So what are you saying the videos I showed you are normal? my issue is normal? if so why do other PC's I game on not have this issue? I played on my buddies 980ti/6700k and it didn't have judder/stutter like my setup? I don't get why my setup is so messed up legit the videos don't do it justice the games stutter like crazy. If it's normal why have I never noticed it before? is it something new with recent setups that people just notice? I guess I just don't get it... I built so many pc's never had issues and on this PC I built my personal one I can't even enjoy games with VSYNC.

[lexlazootin]

Get a freesync monitor or don't run borderless windowed.

This problem isn't anything new.

[Sparky]

You've been building computers for 13 years, and yet you still don't know how to tell us what monitor and video card you're having problems with?

Sorry didn't realize I didn't put those in there:

BenQ GL2460
MSI 390 8G Gaming

So what are you saying the videos I showed you are normal? my issue is normal? if so why do other PC's I game on not have this issue? I played on my buddies 980ti/6700k and it didn't have judder/stutter like my setup? I don't get why my setup is so messed up legit the videos don't do it justice the games stutter like crazy. If it's normal why have I never noticed it before? is it something new with recent setups that people just notice? I guess I just don't get it... I built so many pc's never had issues and on this PC I built my personal one I can't even enjoy games with VSYNC.

This issue has existed since the 90s, ever since double buffered rendering took over from just in time rendering. And yeah, it's impossible to diagnose from a youtube video, the possible exception being footage from a high speed camera. You can't solve this problem without either variable refresh displays or hard deadline rendering.

[Jbinn]

But what I don't get is why have I never noticed this before and why do other computers run better? If this was a normal issue wouldn't more people be experiencing it? Like I said my buddies 6700k/980ti runs much smoother. Also why when I watch livestreams of the same games I have stutters in or watch youtube videos they don't look like mine? you can literally see the stutter in my videos.... I've legit never had a "stutter" problem ever before I was playing RUST and ARMA 3 and all my games smoothly before. The weird thing is I had a 970GTX/i5 4690k build that I owned prior to this one and it also stuttered but only sometimes.

[Sparky]

I don't know why you never noticed it before, maybe you used lower settings so you got better framerates? Does your buddy get better framerates or have a higher refresh rate or gsync monitor? I know I've had the issue for decades, but I first recognized it when I started playing starcraft 2 on a 60hz LCD instead of Brood War on an 85hz CRT. Now I can notice it on both monitors in most games.

I think we notice things a lot more easily if we've experienced something even slightly better.

Also not sure why you switched from a 970 and 4690k, that's pretty much a sidegrade.

[Jbinn]

I don't know why you never noticed it before, maybe you used lower settings so you got better framerates? Does your buddy get better framerates or have a higher refresh rate or gsync monitor? I know I've had the issue for decades, but I first recognized it when I started playing starcraft 2 on a 60hz LCD instead of Brood War on an 85hz CRT. Now I can notice it on both monitors in most games.

I think we notice things a lot more easily if we've experienced something even slightly better.

Also not sure why you switched from a 970 and 4690k, that's pretty much a sidegrade.

I switched over because I assumed my build has some issue that was causing the problem but turns out it wasn't. I also made profit off of the build after owning it for a year and I decided to just go skylake, wasn't really looking for any upgrade.

What I don't get is when I hear about screen tearing most people don't say anything about screen judder/stutter or anything like that, I always assumed tearing happened but the game would still run fluid. Also one thing that sucks is the only affordable freesync monitors have low ranges of 38-144hz and some of my games force windowed mode so freesync wont work for those :-/ I don't know maybe my eyes are more susceptible to the tearing now? but when I go on my buddies PC and play games its smooth as butter. Yes he gets maybe 20-30fps more than me in most games and he has a ROG SWIFT 27" GSYNC monitor but when I played on his PC I disabled GSYNC and I also used my PC on the same monitor. I don't think 20fps is whats making it smooth because the games that stutter for me I get over 100fps all day, it's definitely less prominent at high FPS but between 60-120fps I can usually see it pretty aggressively.

Also what I don't get is why I'm able to pick it up with recording software? I can see the stutter in my youtube videos yet I didn't use a camera to record it, I used capture software. If it was screen tearing stutter wouldn't it not be visible on capture software?

It's totally KILLING pc gaming for me though, if I go on my 360 I see no tearing, no stutter go on my expensive PC and games are barely playable :-/