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Question

Stuttery Movement on gaming PC Help!

Jan 28, 2020 2:26PM PST

Symptoms:

Stuttery movement especially when aiming down sights in Insurgency Sandstorm and BF3 making them unplayable. Problem is worse with a zoom optic. Problem is fairly consistent throughout game. Stuttering not present in DayZ game although I am getting a strange kind of grainy snow effect when using night vision goggles which is very off putting. Night time also looks very grainy although these issues may not be related to the stuttering?

i9-900K 3.6 Ghz
Gigabyte Z390 UD motherboard.
RTX 2060 Super
Memory 16GB Dual DDR4
Speed 2800

This is a new pre-built PC and the problem has been there since the very beginning. I haven't contacted the manufacturer yet as I want to learn how to correct the issue before potentially sending it back for checks.

What I've tried to fix it:

Switched mice and tried a wired mouse.
Disconnected wireless dongle for keyboard and wired it in.
Disconnected dongle for headset.
Tried a different monitor which has g-sync enabled.
Tried many different in game graphical settings and framerate smoothing options framerate cap etc.
Checked I'm on native resolution.
Checked task manager for any resource hungry progs running in background.
Updates GPU driver from the Nvidia app.
Closed realtek audio.
Re-installed the games.
Checked I'm in dual ram mode.
Checked GPU and CPU temp and performance with MSI Afterburner, all good and stable. Not sure what to look for with RAM but it appears stable and well within limits.
Able to run games on max graphical settings at high frame rates but stuttering is still consistent.

Windows update is enabled but I read that it's good to manually update certain drivers especially for the chipset but I can't find the right one and don't really know what I'm doing. I created a restore point but couldn't see the driver on the intel site. I downloaded CPU-Z to have a look at my system.

Many years ago I had a gaming PC with a similar problem and it turned out to be some stupid programme causing interference. I suspect something may be corrupted or a faulty part somewhere. Maybe just a driver or something?

Any help greatly appreciated!

Discussion is locked

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Answer
I'd like to see the Web Speccy report.
Jan 28, 2020 2:33PM PST

The 2060 is a nice card but I would only push it to about 1080p and 60Hz before I think I'd start to see stutter today. BUT there are other factors such as a HDD with high values in 01, 07 (SMART values) and the other areas. A web speccy report would reveal this and the monitor in use.

As to the i9 driver, try the maker's site. Again I won't go looking as the exact board would be in ... the web speccy report.

Let's get that report in here. Here's how:
https://www.piriform.com/docs/speccy/using-speccy/publishing-a-speccy-profile-to-the-web

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Stutter
Feb 6, 2020 8:39AM PST
http://speccy.piriform.com/results/DrR6zvdhSUoP6HiEvGaloL5

Hi and very sorry for the delay. I've posted the link to the specs report above. I've checked a few other things since my original post.

Re-installed windows
Tried another wireless mouse and a wired mouse.
Downloaded most recent GPU drivers using NVidea app.
Used speedtest.net to check internet and all seems fine. I use my xbox on the same internet connection and she runs smooth as anything.
Disconnected my keyboard to rule out any interference form it to the mouse.
Tried both HDMI and DP cables.
Disabled game mode which can apparently cause issues.

I'll go into a bit more detail about the symptoms of the problem. It seems to be best described as micro stutter. It is barely noticeable whilst moving the character around within a game (although in Insurgency Sandstorm it is and makes me feel a bit sick) but becomes much more apparent when aiming down sites. On a 1x scope this is irritating but on a higher zoom optic it is totally unplayable. Accurate minor adjustments of the reticle are impossible it will only move in increments of a few milimetres as if I'm trying to move the mouse with sand under it or fluff stuck in it. It's not something I'm being fussy about either and my xbox runs far smoother on the same connection.

The games I've tried it on are in order of most affected:

Insurgency and Insurgency Sandstorm: Consistently terrible
Battlefield 3: Consistently bad
Escape from Tarkov: More intermittent. Actually seems worse in offline mode which could be an important factor, it's not just online play.
DayZ: No issue whatsoever, runs smooth as butter with precise aiming on all scopes, no stutter.

One thing I haven't tried is updating drivers for the motherboard or rolling back drivers for the GPU. I read somewhere that manual motherboard driver update should be done after a windows install. If someone could talk me through this or any other suggestions for diagnosis.

Thanks.
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More info
Feb 6, 2020 8:50AM PST

Another thing I should mention is that I don't think this problem is frame rate related or screen tearing. Usually when I look into this issue that's what comes up but I've used MSI and other FPS counters and I'm getting very consistent performance from my cores and GPU. I'm not sure how to interpret the RAM but it looks stable too. I've tried all kinds of graphical settings and combos to no avail. G-Sync is enabled on both my pc and monitor. I've tried it with and without v-sync, frame rate smoothing, frame rate capping etc etc.

Is there a diagnostics tool that can analyse the system as I'm playing and identify other deeper issues I wonder?

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Yes, you could analyze, find more test tools.
Feb 6, 2020 9:11AM PST

But the Seagate is showing the usual issues in values 01 and 07. If you run this test on good drives you see the difference.

This issue has been done to death. Some folk get upset I won't write at length. Also, it does not matter if the OS is on that drive or if the game or such is or is not there. You will also find that ALL IS WELL and then the issue returns.

Other comments plus the HDD in question.

1. The Seagate is showing issues. Well done area, fix? Replace or remove with a good drive.
2. Unplug USB drives during game time. USB drives do take a bite out of performance.
3. "Number Of SPD Modules: 0"
Time to talk to the makers about this. Could be a Speccy reporting issue or the BIOS is out of date OR the RAM isn't exactly compatible. Try CPU-ID and what it's memory tab reports to check it out another way.
4. https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Motherboard/Z390-UD-rev-10/support#support-dl-bios notes updates for memory compatibility and for the 9900KS (you have a 9900 but I don't know which one exactly.)

ITEM 1 is the prime suspect. The others are about areas that I would update and ask since we can't have RAM issues.

5. RTX 2060 driving a 1440p 144Hz monitor. Could be less than happy results. Most likely have to tweak game settings lower. Again, item 1 overrides my concerns about this one.

6. https://whatismyipaddress.com/ip/194.168.4.100 is interesting.
Later you may want to test with an open DNS like 8.8.8.8 and 4.2.2.1,

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"The Good, the Bad and the Ugly"
Feb 6, 2020 9:43AM PST

Here's a random Speccy to show a good and an ugly drive.
http://speccy.piriform.com/results/TQA2DHiouHdkOE6jykXy7Kp
The WD is good, the Seagate in this one is ugly.

Here's my bad Seagate:
http://speccy.piriform.com/results/fd2oW1DCpYOV3OLQ8l5vuss

The more you see this 01 and 07 value and the fallout the more you understand it's an easy one to correct. Then again you always have a new client but same old problem which without fail they want to try anything but what you know. To make matters worse when the drive is not the boot drive they will see the machine fly straight then falter as they try drivers and more so they will convince themselves it's not the drive.