Going crazy from microstutter/framelag
Posted: 06 May 2021, 17:34
So basically I've had this strange near imperceptible but still noticeable micro jitter for as long as I can remember.
Specs beforehand:
10850K (Overclocked to 4.9 all core, 4.5 cache, 1.35 volts)
Z490 Formula
GTX 1080 (not overclocked)
Dell sd2716dg G-sync Monitor
Nvidia Driver 466.27
Logitech G502 set at 1000hz polling rate
4000Mhz CL16 2x16gb G.Skill ram
1000 Watt EVGA Power Supply
Windows 8.1 fresh install no updates.
At first I thought it was my old 5820K 2666mhz ram system that was causing the microstutter because of inconsistent frame times and 1% lows; however there were moments with my old system where everything appeared perfectly smooth and there was no microstutter. That was with driver 381.65. I already tried that driver on my new system but it did not resolve anything. After upgrading drivers on my old system, the smoothness went away and would not come back even when I reinstalled 381.65.
Even in 60fps locked games with perfect frametimes or in uncapped games with perfect frametime consistency, I still notice this slight jitter when moving the camera. In some games I play, I also notice that near the bottom of the screen there is some tear line but it does not appear in all my games I play, only some of them. It feels as though something is not matching up on my monitor despite metrics telling me otherwise.
I've followed the G-sync guide on blur busters and have all my settings set up according to that guide, including Ultra Low Latency Mode set to on in Nvidia Control Panel.
I've searched for years for possible variables affecting this from input latency to frametimes to power consumption to Motherboard drivers/chipsets, etc. I even tried stuff like editing the registry and using CMD commands for stuff like useplatformclock, tsyncpolicy enhanced, disabledynamictick, etc. I also tried stuff like setting maximum pre-rendered frames to 8 or 1 or anything in between, configuring nvidia control panel settings, BIOS settings, etc. Nothing works.
There were only two times in the past 4 years I noticed this perfect smoothness with no jitter at all:
The first time was when using driver 381.65 on the my old 5820K system, which went away permanently after updating to the latest 400 series nvidia driver required for Doom Eternal at the time.
The second time was just recently when I upgraded my system to a z490 setup. I installed windows 10 instead of 8.1 as there were no compatible z490 drivers for windows 8.1 and I literally did not touch anything except for using a debloater script and turning off windows defender and setting NVidia control panel settings to what I had in windows 8.1. Everything felt perfect and the motion in my games truly felt "real-time." I couldn't perceive a micro jitter nor could I see the strange "un-smoothness" near the bottom of the screen in the games that usually displayed that behavior. 60 fps locked games also almost felt as smooth as 144hz games. it felt unreal.
However, I do not want to use windows 10 as that is a whole other issue by itself. I reinstalled windows 8.1 after wiping the drive and editing the i225 lan driver to be compatible with windows 8.1 (couldn't find out how to edit the wifi and bluetooth drivers though) and the jitter issue came back. I suspect at this point it's likely some weird chipset driver incompatibility with windows 8.1 that the Asus Z490 Formula has and I'm just out of luck when it comes to windows 8.1; however, the fact that my old X99 system has the exact same issue despite having fully compatible and properly installed drivers on it's respective motherboard brings into question if something else is the cause. Another thing is that when I used the provided driver CD for the motherboard, it installed everything fine except the LAN and Wifi/Bluetooth drivers.
I'm going insane from this, I just want "true smoothness" and proper framepacing back in my gaming life.
Specs beforehand:
10850K (Overclocked to 4.9 all core, 4.5 cache, 1.35 volts)
Z490 Formula
GTX 1080 (not overclocked)
Dell sd2716dg G-sync Monitor
Nvidia Driver 466.27
Logitech G502 set at 1000hz polling rate
4000Mhz CL16 2x16gb G.Skill ram
1000 Watt EVGA Power Supply
Windows 8.1 fresh install no updates.
At first I thought it was my old 5820K 2666mhz ram system that was causing the microstutter because of inconsistent frame times and 1% lows; however there were moments with my old system where everything appeared perfectly smooth and there was no microstutter. That was with driver 381.65. I already tried that driver on my new system but it did not resolve anything. After upgrading drivers on my old system, the smoothness went away and would not come back even when I reinstalled 381.65.
Even in 60fps locked games with perfect frametimes or in uncapped games with perfect frametime consistency, I still notice this slight jitter when moving the camera. In some games I play, I also notice that near the bottom of the screen there is some tear line but it does not appear in all my games I play, only some of them. It feels as though something is not matching up on my monitor despite metrics telling me otherwise.
I've followed the G-sync guide on blur busters and have all my settings set up according to that guide, including Ultra Low Latency Mode set to on in Nvidia Control Panel.
I've searched for years for possible variables affecting this from input latency to frametimes to power consumption to Motherboard drivers/chipsets, etc. I even tried stuff like editing the registry and using CMD commands for stuff like useplatformclock, tsyncpolicy enhanced, disabledynamictick, etc. I also tried stuff like setting maximum pre-rendered frames to 8 or 1 or anything in between, configuring nvidia control panel settings, BIOS settings, etc. Nothing works.
There were only two times in the past 4 years I noticed this perfect smoothness with no jitter at all:
The first time was when using driver 381.65 on the my old 5820K system, which went away permanently after updating to the latest 400 series nvidia driver required for Doom Eternal at the time.
The second time was just recently when I upgraded my system to a z490 setup. I installed windows 10 instead of 8.1 as there were no compatible z490 drivers for windows 8.1 and I literally did not touch anything except for using a debloater script and turning off windows defender and setting NVidia control panel settings to what I had in windows 8.1. Everything felt perfect and the motion in my games truly felt "real-time." I couldn't perceive a micro jitter nor could I see the strange "un-smoothness" near the bottom of the screen in the games that usually displayed that behavior. 60 fps locked games also almost felt as smooth as 144hz games. it felt unreal.
However, I do not want to use windows 10 as that is a whole other issue by itself. I reinstalled windows 8.1 after wiping the drive and editing the i225 lan driver to be compatible with windows 8.1 (couldn't find out how to edit the wifi and bluetooth drivers though) and the jitter issue came back. I suspect at this point it's likely some weird chipset driver incompatibility with windows 8.1 that the Asus Z490 Formula has and I'm just out of luck when it comes to windows 8.1; however, the fact that my old X99 system has the exact same issue despite having fully compatible and properly installed drivers on it's respective motherboard brings into question if something else is the cause. Another thing is that when I used the provided driver CD for the motherboard, it installed everything fine except the LAN and Wifi/Bluetooth drivers.
I'm going insane from this, I just want "true smoothness" and proper framepacing back in my gaming life.