Blur Busters Forums

Chief Blur Buster wrote: ↑

11 Dec 2019, 14:09

I assume this happens even offline & disconnected?

Situation: You had really smooth game and now you're getting frametime spikes you didn't get before -- in the very same game (and same game/patch version).

Sherlock Holmes Longshot Test #1: Can you download and test LatencyMon? It might provide a little more insight to the possible ballpark of the cause. Screenshots are welcome.

Sherlock Holmes Longshot Test #2: Temporarily try 100% CPU and GPU, disable power management. If your computer is disproportionately more powerful than your old one, you might be creating a situation where the CPU or the GPU is maxed out but the other is so underutilized (waiting for the other) that it goes into power-saving mode and adds power-management-induced stalls. When one is maxed-out, and the other is going into power-management, that creates frametime spikes. This does not always happen, but it's a Sherlock Holmes path.
-- A CPU or GPU upgrade sometimes seismically shifts the CPU:GPU utilization ratio, and sometimes the ratio gets so lopsided that one of them starts power managing to save power because it's so idle while the other is busy. Chips actually sometimes turns itself off for 5 milliseconds or 10 milliseconds. Even in the middle of 60 frames per second. The busy chip (CPU/GPU) ends up having to wait for the idle chip (GPU/CPU) to stop sleeping and wake up from its power-management. Voila. Starvation situation. Frametime spikes.

Sherlock Holmes Longshot Test #3: Try adjusting your frame rate cap. Cap your game at 240 frames per second. Cap your game at 60 frames per second. Uncap your frame rate cap. Caps disrupts the CPU:GPU utilization balance, as another route of solving Test #2 above.

Sherlock Holmes Longshot Test #4: Also try temporarily underclocking your hardware by about 10% or 20% -- both your CPU and GPU clock -- it's a shot in the dark but I've seen thermal throttling do it. The temporary underclock can help Sherlock-Holmes are cause. If frametime freezes disappears, you found your problem. Try to improve your cooling so you can stop underclocking. This can be a seasonal effect -- hotter and colder seasons -- if it is worse this time and your you're in the southern hemisphere then that's because it's summer approaching, probably getting hot where you live, creating more thermal throttling. Also, cool down your system (turn it off) for a bit and see if thermal throttling is gone at the beginning of a powerup. If underclocking and/or power-down coolofs, solved your problem temporarily, then:
-- Add a heatsink to your SSD, especially if it's a cheap NVME M.2 SSD
-- Add more fans, better cooling or water cooling for your CPU and/or GPU and/or spinning disks
-- Monitor the temps of everything including your GPU

Note about power noise: Power noise can be a cause, but there are usually easier lower-lying apple causes. Power noise induced frametime spikes is a devilishly HARD troubleshoot. Compare Kindergarten to a Ph.D. That's the difference in troubleshooting difficulty, sometimes. Statistically it's hard to know if it's related, but I know at least one PC that kept ECC'ing itself (Error Correcting Code) because of huge amounts of RFI (Radio-Frequency Interference). I've rarely but not non-zero seen ECC-cascades (chain reactions of multiple microsecond events) go into the multiple-milliseconds, creating momentary freeze/slow moments and human-visible stutter problems. It's almost voodoo. Fast-superslow-Fast-superslow-Fast etc. In the real world, that's frametime spikes. Historically noise made a computer crash but with a modern computer stuffed full of ECC logic (USB buses, PCI Express buses, memory chips, etc) to the brim, it's now possible for RFI-surges to cause temporary stalls instead of crashes. It's very rare and probably NOT the cause of your issue, but it's not a 0% chance. Unfortunately since it's usually not the cause of the problem (but sometimes is), it's so devilishly hard to troubleshoot. If you are a "Just In Case Guy", stay away from cheap generic power supplies, use a good more expensive power-factor 95% efficient computer power supply sometimes helps. Don't wire your USB/DisplayPort/highspeed data cables alongside power wires, along walls (that has hidden power wires behind it), or near transformers (your computer power supply or AC adaptor boxes), so redo your cable management behind your computer and move everything 6 inches away from the wall, just in case there's hidden wires or hidden mains-feed (from the power company). Also test your power for ground faults, that's a major source of RFI that has a ~1%-league chance of Rube Goldberging into a chain-reaction itself into frametime spikes. These may just do 100% squat uselessly, but that 1% chance it helps, definitely does not hurt. I almost guarantee it's a wild goose chase to a red herring, so only approach this in a "Be Prepared Like A Scout" manner. Troubleshoot with easier tests that are lower-lying apples.