House causing PC Stutter/LAG, EMI/RFI?

[schizobeyondpills]

1. in bios disable ssd power saving
2. install drivers for your ssd from official site or use Snappy driver installer
3. check with latencymon for storport.sys or whatever else is spiking a lot in pubg(its ssd )
4. check that you connected ssd in proper slot according to what your mobo manual suggests. also try different ports.
5. disable windows power saving and idle stuff for drives.

[Dieter]

I can put my PC/PS5 running side by side in the same match, and my PC runs terribly, while the PS5 runs smooth (as of now). Although with what I've read, new devices can take awhile before the issue occurs, but brand new PC's i've brought to my house and tested, the issues occurred right away.

I already gave you a possible reason for that difference (PC vs. PS5) in one of my previous posts; the PS5 streams in assets faster, potentially reducing frametime spikes.

As for the issue taking longer to show on new devices, I've never heard that claim (and it certainly isn't the case where game netcode or your ISP is concerned), unless those claiming it are suggesting that it begins to occur as your device is slowly damaged electrically by your house or some sort of other electrical interference, which would seem extreme to say the least, and if that were the case, I don't know why you would "wait" for it to happen, as it would instead be best for you to immediately unplug all your devices and call an electrician as to avoid further damage to your expensive equipment.

Anyway, as someone experienced in this subject, I'm just pointing out the most common, obvious, and viable known causes of what you're describing, but if you want to ultimately dismiss them and jump down a potentially endless rabbit hole of the unknown, that's entirely your prerogative, just get ready to spend a lot more money and time, experience a lot more stress, and not game (happily) for a while.

I think that's about all I can contribute at this point without repeating myself. Good luck.

You can easily ignore that NetCode part and Frame Time or whatever, the Power EMI realistically doesn't give a fuck about nothing. No matter NetCode, Highest End Hardware, Most Expensive Peripherals, ISP, Power Conditioners, or any other thing. Simply it ignores those all at its best.

He better be enjoying at its fullest that PS5 right now.

As what I would suggest to him, it's already written on the last reply.

[jorimt]

EMI realistically doesn't give a fuck about nothing.

I refrain to discuss the subject of EMI, but you two are obviously free to entertain the possibility regardless.

All I know is many users in this situation find it impossible to accept frametime performance issues that are simply the limitation of modern system and game performance (PS5 potentially excluded; I still can't get my hands on it or a 3080, so I wouldn't know firsthand).

To be clear, I'm not saying that is or isn't the case in his situation, but nothing has really been ruled out well enough by what he's posted. For all we know, he could be experiencing user error, normal levels of system/game frametime spikes (solvable or no), netcode or ISP issues, interference (electrical of any variety, locally or otherwise), plain old OCD, or a combination of some or all.

I've given the most straightforward and common suggestions possible (and haven't gone further, as he keeps ruling out all possibilities through self-diagnosis), and he's free to take or leave them as he will.

Unfortunately, in my experience, most inquiries of this nature rarely come to a conclusion, being the askers ultimately refuse to accept one.

[Dieter]

EMI realistically doesn't give a fuck about nothing.

I refrain to discuss the subject of EMI, but you two are obviously free to entertain the possibility regardless.

All I know is many users in this situation find it impossible to accept frametime performance issues that are simply the limitation of modern system and game performance (PS5 potentially excluded; I still can't get my hands on it or a 3080, so I wouldn't know firsthand).

To be clear, I'm not saying that is or isn't the case in his situation, but nothing has really been ruled out well enough by what he's posted. For all we know, he could be experiencing user error, normal levels of system/game frametime spikes (solvable or no), netcode or ISP issues, interference (electrical of any variety, locally or otherwise), plain old OCD, or a combination of some or all.

I've given the most straightforward and common suggestions possible (and haven't gone further, as he keeps ruling out all possibilities through self-diagnosis), and he's free to take or leave them as he will.

Unfortunately, in my experience, most inquiries of this nature rarely come to a conclusion, being the askers ultimately refuse to accept one.

Have you ever encountered EMI problems in your house?

Have you ever wondered what is really causing those Frametimes performance issues?

He already tried a lot of useful things. Starting from changing the hardware, different ISPs and even used the USP Power Conditioner. He basically tried every possible thing.

I see so many misleading assumptions here whom yet to this day are completely irrelevant which are also the reason this whole online community is filled up with different kinds of misleading theories that literally have no impact on fixing those issues whatsoever but just prolonging this problem even further.

If you wanna fix 100% this issue then you got to fix it from its heart. Not doing mumbo jumbo workarounds.

[jorimt]

Have you ever encountered EMI problems in your house?

Not that I'm aware of, and it is my suspicion that there are plenty of other people that think they have that haven't either.

Does that rule out the possibility? No, but I think it's far less common than some here would suggest.

Have you ever wondered what is really causing those Frametimes performance issues?

It's not just EMI that causes frametime spikes. In fact, that is the rarest and least vetted of causes. I've been trying to be nice here, but I have little patience for seriously entertaining that theory, unless you're in a third world country on a generator.

Again, I tend to avoid the subject because for whatever reason, it approaches political levels of sensitivity, so I'll leave it for others to discuss.

If you wanna fix 100% this issue then you got to fix it from its heart. Not doing mumbo jumbo workarounds.

I for one didn't suggest any workarounds, I instead told him to first consider if what he was experiencing was within the norm.

Here's my question, why do people like this think there shouldn't be frametime spikes? How do they know what should and shouldn't be expected in the first place? What's their point of reference?

As I've said, the most common cause of a frametime spike is when the system is forced to render a frame that requires a completion time longer than a single refresh cycle, which causes it to miss one or more cycles, triggering the previous frame to repeat once or more in the meantime, causing the appearance of stutter.

It's the classic bouncing ball example, where if even one frame is repeated or skipped, it breaks the illusion in an otherwise continuous animation. This is all that is happening when users experience intermittent or continuous stutter.

If you want to debate why it is being triggered in all cases, that's another thing entirely. But what stutter is IS known. How it occurs IS known.

Frametime performance issues on high-end systems is more typically due to outdated adherence to HDD architecture for asset streaming, poor engine/game optimization, and in online games, netcode and/or ISP limitations. People should first and foremost be complaining directly to engine and game creators, who usually solely focus on achievable average framerate targets, and often don't have a clue, and/or couldn't care less about prioritizing frametime performance.

If someone experiencing frametime spikes wants to determine if they potentially have an issue outside the expected norm, they should use Afterburner, play the affected games, and monitor their sessions; if their average spike (not counting game launch or loading screens) is ~50ms or under on average in gameplay, with the occasional ~100ms or so spike, it's within expected norm on your average system running your average more demanding AAA (especially online) game.

If it's full on 100-500ms+ spikes occurring every second or more in every game, then yes, you probably have an issue that should be investigated.

[Dieter]

It's not just EMI that causes frametime spikes. In fact, that is the rarest and least vetted of causes. I've been trying to be nice here, but I have little patience for seriously entertaining that theory, unless you're in a third world country on a generator.

This is the reason why this problem got this direction that people are misled toward wrong directions on so many levels. The guy himself stated that the problem does happen on every single game he has played and on top of he has no problems running all the hardware on someone else's house, with a whole different power electricity and even ISP as well. So there goes your "convinced" theory of frametime spikes, which assuming every single game has frametime spikes is absurdly ridiculous.

I for one didn't suggest any workarounds, I instead told him to first consider if what he was experiencing was within the norm.

Here's my question, why do people like this think there shouldn't be frametime spikes? How do they know what should and shouldn't be expected in the first place? What's their point of reference?

Ain't it a bit stupid to think that every single device and hardware is defective and causes those "frametime spikes"? Especially constantly having them on every single game?

As I've said, the most common cause of a frametime spike is when the system is forced to render a frame that requires a completion time longer than a single refresh cycle, which causes it to miss one or more cycles, triggering the previous frame to repeat once or more in the meantime, causing the appearance of stutter.

It's the classic bouncing ball example, where if even one frame is repeated or skipped, it breaks the illusion in an otherwise continuous animation. This is all that is happening when users experience intermittent or continuous stutter.

If you want to debate why triggering it in all cases, that's another thing entirely. But what stutter is IS known. How it occurs IS known.

What is IS known. But Have you ever tried to think clearly and deeply what could be the main source of those "missed cycles" that cause those stutters?

Look I ain't here to debate but realistically I just can't stand all this irrelevant and unnecessary stupid theories when comes to such delaying problems and feel-alike* "60fps on 220-300fps" and that fully breaks your whole gaming experience specifically on competitive one.

Frametime performance issues on high-end systems is more typically due to outdated adherence to HDD architecture for asset streaming, poor engine/game optimization, and in online games, netcode and/or ISP limitations. People should first and foremost be complaining directly to engine and game creators, who usually solely focus on achievable average framerate targets, and often don't have a clue, and/or couldn't care less about prioritizing frametime performance.

He changed to a whole new SSD. A whole new ISPs.

If someone experiencing frametime spikes wants to determine if they potentially have an issue outside the expected norm, they should use Afterburner, play the affected games, and monitor their sessions; if their average spike (not counting game launch or loading screens) is ~50ms or under on average in gameplay, with the occasional ~100ms or so spike, it's within expected norm on your average system running your average AAA (especially online) game.

If it's full on 100-500ms+ spikes occurring every second or more in every game, then yes, you probably have an issue that should be investigated.

Most of those issues/latencies are not even detectable on such monitoring programs as it all will show it is working normally as it should.


Look, Since my childhood I was an high functioning PC enthusiast and competitive player and I'm aware quite well how those things work. Not to sound arrogant back then there was no such problem that I could not find a fix for, no matter what and how hard it was, when I focused on something I always found a way to fix that shit on my own researching without watching any kind of tutorial as all of them were rubbish as to this day they are. Since I always fully lean toward my own experience and not just on different kind of theories and thesis.


You know what? it sounds too good to be true but that's the truth and how it really is with full respect to your knowledge and studying on this direction.

I'm out.

[jorimt]

This is the reason why this problem got this direction that people are misled toward wrong directions on so many levels. The guy himself stated that the problem does happen on every single game he has played and on top of he has no problems running all the hardware on someone else's house, with a whole different power electricity and even ISP as well. So there goes your "convinced" theory of frametime spikes, which assuming every single game has frametime spikes is absurdly ridiculous.

Every single demanding modern AAA PC game has frametime spikes. Some more than others, some less. Some only in loading screens or menu transitions, some everywhere. No modern PC can maintain a perfect 1:1 feed of rendered frames 100% of the time in every circumstance, regardless of system capability, else we wouldn't require all of these compensatory mechanics.

As for my "theory," I didn't say it applied in his case, I said he and everyone else having these issues should consider it first, as even without EMI issues, frametime spikes will occur.

Ain't it a bit stupid to think that every single device and hardware is defective and causes those "frametime spikes"? Especially constantly having them on every single game?

Not defective, imperfect, and more specifically, limited by physics.

You can certainly achieve zero frametime spikes in 8-bit sidescrollers though, and potentially, to a lesser degree, in highly tuned PS5/Xbox Series X games going forward now due to devs finally prioritizing asset loading advancement on SSDs.

At the moment, PC games on SSDs only benefit from decreased load times, with their remaining potential untapped (primarily for legacy and compatibility reasons).

What is IS known. But Have you ever tried to think clearly and deeply what could be the main source of those "missed cycles" that cause those stutters?

I just briefly explained many of the potential causes in the paragraph you excluded from your quote of mine, and I never ruled out EMI, I merely stated it was one of the rarest, and not the first that should be considered.

Look I ain't here to debate but realistically I just can't stand all this irrelevant and unnecessary stupid theories when comes to such delaying problems and feel-alike* "60fps on 220-300fps" and that fully breaks your whole gaming experience specifically on competitive one.

There are plenty of "stupid theories" and well as stupidity in general, but it doesn't make such stupidity untrue. Imperfection is stupid, but it exists regardless.

As for competitive online gaming, it gives no guarantees where consistency and performance are concerned. You can pick any Ninja or Shroud stream and you will see halts and pauses. No amount of money can eliminate performance issues, it can only reduce them.

He changed to a whole new SSD. A whole new ISPs.

If it's due to the given game, or the ISP (or EMI, for that matter), it doesn't matter what parts you swap out. You yourself alluded to this previously.

Most of those issues/latencies are not even detectable on such monitoring programs as it all will show it is working normally as it should.

There are indeed limitations of measuring the system with itself (which is what external methods such as FCAT are for), but they will give you a baseline instead of nothing at all. You have to start somewhere as to rule the more common causes out.

The OP has provided anecdotal info, but he has yet to provide any actual data, be it phone captures, frametime graphs or numbers, so we're solely going by what he subjectively considers unacceptable.

All anyone can do here currently is speculate.

[kryztripleb]

This is the reason why this problem got this direction that people are misled toward wrong directions on so many levels. The guy himself stated that the problem does happen on every single game he has played and on top of he has no problems running all the hardware on someone else's house, with a whole different power electricity and even ISP as well. So there goes your "convinced" theory of frametime spikes, which assuming every single game has frametime spikes is absurdly ridiculous.

Every single demanding modern AAA PC game has frametime spikes. Some more than others, some less. Some only in loading screens or menu transitions, some everywhere. No modern PC can maintain a perfect 1:1 feed of rendered frames 100% of the time in every circumstance, regardless of system capability, else we wouldn't require all of these compensatory mechanics.

As for my "theory," I didn't say it applied in his case, I said he and everyone else having these issues should consider it first, as even without EMI issues, frametime spikes will occur.

Ain't it a bit stupid to think that every single device and hardware is defective and causes those "frametime spikes"? Especially constantly having them on every single game?

Not defective, imperfect, and more specifically, limited by physics.

You can certainly achieve zero frametime spikes in 8-bit sidescrollers though, and potentially, to a lesser degree, in highly tuned PS5/Xbox Series X games going forward now due to devs finally prioritizing asset loading advancement on SSDs.

At the moment, PC games on SSDs only benefit from decreased load times, with their remaining potential untapped (primarily for legacy and compatibility reasons).

What is IS known. But Have you ever tried to think clearly and deeply what could be the main source of those "missed cycles" that cause those stutters?

I just briefly explained many of the potential causes in the paragraph you excluded from that quote, and I never ruled out EMI, I merely stated it was one of the rarest, and not the first that should be considered.

Look I ain't here to debate but realistically I just can't stand all this irrelevant and unnecessary stupid theories when comes to such delaying problems and feel-alike* "60fps on 220-300fps" and that fully breaks your whole gaming experience specifically on competitive one.

There are plenty of "stupid theories" and well as stupidity in general, but it doesn't make such stupidity untrue. Imperfection is stupid, but it exists regardless.

As for competitive online gaming, it gives no guarantees where consistency and performance are concerned. You can pick any Ninja or Shroud stream and you will see halts and pauses. No amount of money can eliminate performance issues, it can only reduce them.

He changed to a whole new SSD. A whole new ISPs.

If it's due to the given game, or the ISP (or EMI, for that matter), it doesn't matter what parts you swap out. You alluded to this yourself.

Most of those issues/latencies are not even detectable on such monitoring programs as it all will show it is working normally as it should.

There are indeed limitations of measuring the system with itself (which is what external methods such as FCAT are for), but they will give you a baseline instead of nothing at all. You have to start somewhere as to rule the more common causes out.

The OP has provided anecdotal info, but he has yet to provide any actual data, be it phone captures, frametime graphs or numbers, so we're solely going by what he subjectively considers unacceptable.

All anyone can do here currently is speculate.

The discord im in with 60+ people have all ran tests with new hardware etc. Many many many of those devices work fine for a few days, and the issue comes back. So when I said "it hasn't hit my ps5 yet" im not assuming this. Im taking it from people who have been dealing with similar issues, although we all believe my issue differs from theirs. Some games run smooth, the stuttering isn't 24/7 in all games, no input lag, and power conditioner did not help, and my desktop isn't affected.

This happens on all devices that hit my house. This isn't my PC. My hardware works fine in other places. This isn't your typical natural frame spikes. The video down below is an example of what occurs. It's literally 1000x worse in PUBG, and the servers are down for atm so I cannot hop on and record, but the issues are similar, except its like that almost non stop, and the game feels like its running 30 FPS. As you can see, the "stutters" are not happening all the time on Fortnite, but very frequent. It depends on the games. I can play the same games on my PS4, have the exact same stutters, and the games that are fine on my PC, run fine on PS4. I'm not getting "ping spikes".

The reason im considering this is EMI is due to running everything off battery, and I mean everything, the issue still occurs. Running my internet off the UPS, or using phone data, with everything in my house turned off. So I don't know what it could be other than EMI, which is why im on here. Brand new pc's get hooked up to my house, and the same issue occurs.

I've had stuttering issues before and it happens. I've been able to fix it every time, but I've NEVER seen anything bad like this, which is 1000x worse and unplayable, and super weird things going on as massive desync, and 250fps feels like im playing on 30 fps. I assumed it was hardware/internet for awhile. I even believed it to be the game until I ran many tests playing other games on multiple devices and the same issues happen on all of them. It was hard to notice at first due not playing some of the games that the issues are worse on, and as I said some games such as COD MW are pretty smooth. Until I hopped on Fortnite I believed it to be the servers, until I went on my PS4. Then I started testing multiple games and each had the same issue, even mobile devices.

I hope something can tell me what's going on in these videos. It feels like stuttering, other games feel like frames are skipping. I have no idea. Until pubg servers are fixed and I can record, you'll see how terrible it is. It's that in the videos but pretty much non stop.

As I've said, this happens in online/offline. I've recorded Fortnite, CSGO, OSRS & RS3 in the videos below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hm1n-5a ... nnel=Chris

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGqxZXd ... nnel=Chris

[diakou]

The reason im considering this is EMI is due to running everything off battery, and I mean everything, the issue still occurs. Running my internet off the UPS, or using phone data, with everything in my house turned off. So I don't know what it could be other than EMI, which is why im on here. Brand new pc's get hooked up to my house, and the same issue occurs.

Alright - so I haven't really inserted myself into EMI at all because obviously, it is a lot harder to deal with than anything else I ever have. I assume I don't suffer from EMI due to things being pretty nice lately since a few last fixes (then again, I always could be, you never know!), but let me toss a very minor helping hand here.

If EMI is the problem, wouldn't you be able to borrow, loan or purchase a device that could test for abnormal EMI values around your PC? outdated articles from 2009 suggest that a pc can be upset with an electrical field strength of "just" 48 V/m and an unshielded one at 9 V/m between frequency ranges of 3-500mhz and 700-1500mhz (back in 2009)

Susceptibility of PC to electromagnetic interference



World health organization has a few numbers from 1998 regarding EMI from household stuff @ 30cm distances
https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detai ... tic-fields


So what I'm pretty much saying is, if it's EMI, it should at least be showing right? I may be wrong obviously, but I'm not too sure how EMI is capable to affect your systems without showing. It's either in dirty electricity impacting your PC (but you said you ran it on battery, maybe the battery was bad too? anomaly? Maybe it was producing EMI?) or it should be showing around in some way. How to filter for it and what not, I have no idea. But once you do have a way to test it, either borrowed, purchased or even hiring someone. You'll be able to cross another thing off your list. You could even check the differences between your PC @ a different place and the EMI there versus the one at home at that point.

These are all basic advice I'm sure, but I feel like things are done in the wrong order often regarding this. People will buy ferrite assortments and more when told it might be a X issue rather than seeing if you suffer from it. I'm not sure why people keep going with the "if the shoe fits" mentality regarding this. Just because you throw certain possible "fixes" at the problem, if you have no way of measuring it outside of "it's not lagging anymore or it's lagging" you're running into such a huge statistical uncertainty.

I hold about 70% of Jorimt's views regarding this, but the other 30% obviously believes there might be more potential problems regarding EMI.
1) due to constant more new tech that emits EMI where as the research or studies seem to lag behind
2) due to more and more powerful PCs error correcting itself way too well

I just think you should almost always attack the root cause and if there's an actual way of measuring, you should use that. There's certain things that are not measurable and that is so hellish to deal with. Such as how improving RAM from 2133mhz cl15 to 3200mhz cl14 in a flash game utilizing 3% cpu of a intel-6700k is able to make the game have a night and day difference in responsiveness / input confidence (not input lag, tho to some it feels like it) FPS lows increasing? definitely not, they didn't even budge. Only hopes is to maybe use intel's v-tune to see what the difference in memory is doing directly and how that's correlated to an "undetectable" responsiveness change to the input feel. Especially when that feeling is straight up night and day, you'd think there should be an obvious statistical showcasing somewhere. But neither input lag testing or FPS lows showcase any significant difference in that specific game, yet there's improvements in input feeling to the same degree of how going from a 120hz to a 240hz felt. Ridiculous.

TL;DR
Approach the issues more directly if there's measurable possibilities, especially if you're willing to throw some money at it. When asking for help from others, attempt to paint the complete picture and why the symptoms are more problematic than what they sound on first-glance etc. I don't believe we can ever rid anything of a problem, but I do 100% believe we can get things to a more than enough acceptable level, just because all we can do is reduce, doesn't necessarily mean we cannot reduce enough

Good luck!

[jorimt]

I even believed it to be the game until I ran many tests playing other games on multiple devices and the same issues happen on all of them. It was hard to notice at first due not playing some of the games that the issues are worse on, and as I said some games such as COD MW are pretty smooth. Until I hopped on Fortnite I believed it to be the servers, until I went on my PS4. Then I started testing multiple games and each had the same issue, even mobile devices.

If it happens in the same games on every device, how does that rule out the games? Wouldn't it point further to the games?

I ask again, how are you determining what is and isn't normal? What is your point of reference? We need an established control group example of what should be happening, and you have yet to provide one for your particular situation.

As I've said, this happens in online/offline. I've recorded Fortnite, CSGO, OSRS & RS3 in the videos below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hm1n-5a ... nnel=Chris

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGqxZXd ... nnel=Chris

To give you an idea, this is what atypical stutter tends to look like:

phpBB [video]

Your video examples aren't exhibiting atypical stutter, especially for online games. Add that with your "super weird things going on as massive desync, and 250fps feels like im playing on 30 fps" comment, and this leads me to conclude that you're instead primarily "feeling" the issue, which means (barring PUBG, which is known for performance issues) it has less to do with stutter, and much more to do with perceived input lag and delayed input reaction, be it buffer bloat, rubber banding, server lag, etc, which isn't going to be as easily depicted in videos or graphs.

You briefly mentioned you took your devices to another location, and things improved. Again, this first points to ISP issues. Ping and framerate don't tell the whole story in this respect. You could have an ISP package with high download and upload speeds and low ping, and still experience the issues you're describing, which, as you've noted, can be intermittent.

EMI is the nuclear option with no known permanent solution by even those that have pursued it (and I don't believe it is typically intermittent), so as I've been saying this entire time, you first want to consider if what your experiencing is in the norm (and then accept it), and if it isn't, whether it is something you can first address conventionally.