Occasionally the entire on-screen motion feels slower and more stable after a cold boot — how do I force this state?

[Plixe1312]

Hi everyone,

I've been chasing this for about a year and I can't find a way to reproduce it reliably. I'd really appreciate any insight.

MY SETUP
- CPU: Ryzen 7 7800X3D
- GPU: RTX 5070 Ti
- Monitor: BenQ ZOWIE XL2566K (360Hz, DisplayPort)
- Windows 11
- Games: Valorant (mainly), Rocket League

THE ISSUE
To be clear upfront: this is NOT about mouse sensitivity or aim feel. It's the on-screen motion itself — the visual movement of everything in the game world.

Most of the time, everything on screen moves and feels "fast".

However, maybe once every 2-3 weeks (completely unpredictable), I boot the PC and everything looks and feels totally different: the entire image moves slower, and motion is extremely stable and smooth. This is the state I want.

The moment I shut down and boot again, that state is gone and everything is back to moving fast.

IMPORTANT DETAILS
- This is NOT about FPS. Frame rate is locked at 357 FPS with a completely flat 2.8ms frame time in both states (verified with HWiNFO logging). There is zero measurable difference between the good state and the bad state.
- It's noticeable on the desktop too, not just in games.
- In the "slow/stable" state I can play 20 hours without hand fatigue. In the current state my hand is tired after 15 minutes because I'm constantly over-correcting to keep up with the faster motion.
- I'm the only one experiencing it — friends playing the same games don't notice anything on their end.

WHAT I'VE ALREADY TRIED
- BIOS: PBO, PBO Scalar, Curve Optimizer — all on Auto (verified)
- Power plans: Balanced vs High Performance (High Performance makes motion feel even faster), core parking min cores = 100%, min/max processor state = 100%, throttle states off
- bcdedit: no useplatformclock / disabledynamictick / tscsyncpolicy present
- CPU affinity experiments via Process Lasso (disabling cores)
- G-Sync/Adaptive-Sync ON and OFF, DyAc off, AMA off
- New DisplayPort cable
- RTSS / in-game frame caps at various values
- HAGS on/off, Game Bar off, NVIDIA overlay off
- Latest chipset + GPU drivers, clean Windows install
- Color format verified: RGB, 8bpc, Full range, 360Hz

MY QUESTION
Since this state does occasionally happen on a fresh cold boot, something in the system must be initializing differently. Is there any known mechanism (driver init order, DisplayPort link training, timer resolution, USB/HID enumeration, power state, etc.) that could explain why a cold boot occasionally lands in a completely different motion state?

More importantly — is there any way to force or lock that state so I can get it consistently?

Thank you.

[adrian_13371]

Hi everyone,

I've been chasing this for about a year and I can't find a way to reproduce it reliably. I'd really appreciate any insight.

MY SETUP
- CPU: Ryzen 7 7800X3D
- GPU: RTX 5070 Ti
- Monitor: BenQ ZOWIE XL2566K (360Hz, DisplayPort)
- Windows 11
- Games: Valorant (mainly), Rocket League

THE ISSUE
To be clear upfront: this is NOT about mouse sensitivity or aim feel. It's the on-screen motion itself — the visual movement of everything in the game world.

Most of the time, everything on screen moves and feels "fast".

However, maybe once every 2-3 weeks (completely unpredictable), I boot the PC and everything looks and feels totally different: the entire image moves slower, and motion is extremely stable and smooth. This is the state I want.

The moment I shut down and boot again, that state is gone and everything is back to moving fast.

IMPORTANT DETAILS
- This is NOT about FPS. Frame rate is locked at 357 FPS with a completely flat 2.8ms frame time in both states (verified with HWiNFO logging). There is zero measurable difference between the good state and the bad state.
- It's noticeable on the desktop too, not just in games.
- In the "slow/stable" state I can play 20 hours without hand fatigue. In the current state my hand is tired after 15 minutes because I'm constantly over-correcting to keep up with the faster motion.
- I'm the only one experiencing it — friends playing the same games don't notice anything on their end.

WHAT I'VE ALREADY TRIED
- BIOS: PBO, PBO Scalar, Curve Optimizer — all on Auto (verified)
- Power plans: Balanced vs High Performance (High Performance makes motion feel even faster), core parking min cores = 100%, min/max processor state = 100%, throttle states off
- bcdedit: no useplatformclock / disabledynamictick / tscsyncpolicy present
- CPU affinity experiments via Process Lasso (disabling cores)
- G-Sync/Adaptive-Sync ON and OFF, DyAc off, AMA off
- New DisplayPort cable
- RTSS / in-game frame caps at various values
- HAGS on/off, Game Bar off, NVIDIA overlay off
- Latest chipset + GPU drivers, clean Windows install
- Color format verified: RGB, 8bpc, Full range, 360Hz

MY QUESTION
Since this state does occasionally happen on a fresh cold boot, something in the system must be initializing differently. Is there any known mechanism (driver init order, DisplayPort link training, timer resolution, USB/HID enumeration, power state, etc.) that could explain why a cold boot occasionally lands in a completely different motion state?

More importantly — is there any way to force or lock that state so I can get it consistently?

Thank you.

Have you tried with expo profile off? It sounds like it could be unstable memory or some kind of training issue

[DudeBeFishing]

I'd verify that your display is actually running at 360Hz. When you move your mouse on the desktop, is the distance between each visible mouse trail consistent? Does the distance decrease when you increase refresh rate?

It might be a DSC problem. Maybe it's bugged with your monitor.

[Shade7]

I'd verify that your display is actually running at 360Hz. When you move your mouse on the desktop, is the distance between each visible mouse trail consistent? Does the distance decrease when you increase refresh rate?

It might be a DSC problem. Maybe it's bugged with your monitor.

I'm curious about these DSC issues. Do you have any links to discussions on DSC issues? Or was it just a random suggestion?

[kyube]

I'm curious about these DSC issues. Do you have any links to discussions on DSC issues? Or was it just a random suggestion?

It's not DSC.
It's not DSC v2
Whoever tells you otherwise is completely ignorant on scaling macro/micro/nano optimizations.

Mention your entire system & peripherals that you're using.
Send a ZenTimings SS.
I don't know why you're using 357 FPS cap. Who told you that this is a good idea?

Try battllng tearing by either using the typical GSYNC&VSYNC&Reflex (LLM=Ultra, if Rocket League) setup
or
DyAc+=Premium & NV Fast-Sync (assuming you can maintain 720FPS, if 360Hz)

[Shade7]

I'm curious about these DSC issues. Do you have any links to discussions on DSC issues? Or was it just a random suggestion?

It's not DSC.
It's not DSC v2
Whoever tells you otherwise is completely ignorant on scaling macro/micro/nano optimizations.


Thank you, I am new to the function of DSC, and am just reading up about it currently.