GPU stuttering, usage drops in game

[prjwebb]

I've been having issues with my system when gaming, bad frame times and stuttering. I've been using Afterburner to monitor things and my GPU usage is spiking up and down from 100% to anything as low as 0% as the stutters occur.
First thought was thermal throttling, but temps are all fine, and second was a CPU bottle neck...

I've recently rebuilt my rig, switching from a i5 6600K, Z170 S Sabertooth and 16GB 2400mhz Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4 to a R5 1600, Aorus Gaming 5 board and 16GB 3200mhz G Skills Trident Z DDR4. With the newer system I'm convinced that it's not a CPU bottle neck.

I've reformatted the system and done a fresh install with minimal software and latest drivers over the last couple of days. The problem persists.

The only things that have remained constant in the system are the Superflower Leadex 650W Gold PSU and my Sapphire Nitro Fury, as well as the SSD drives.
Any ideas what my problem could be?

 

[arc@css]

Sorry, I've not much to add here but when I saw your memory speed, I wondered if it could be that? I thought memory speeds were limited to around 2600 when using AM4, or has that changed with recent updates?

 

[prjwebb]

Sorry, I've not much to add here but when I saw your memory speed, I wondered if it could be that? I thought memory speeds were limited to around 2600 when using AM4, or has that changed with recent updates?

That's changed now.

 

[GizF1]

Does the Fury have the power efficiency option in global settings of drivers? If yes and you haven't already done so turn it off and try that.

Also try a utility called clock blocker

Giz

 

[nashathedog]

You shouldn't need to bother with Clock Blocker, When AMD first introduced the power efficiency button there was a problem which required clock blocker but that was fixed over a year ago, I have it turned off and my Fury runs fine.
I'd be more inclined to look at the cpu if turning power efficiency off does not help. it's more likely to be a compatibility issue of some sort. Try things like a lower ram speed too. Latest motherboard bio's?

 

[prjwebb]

You shouldn't need to bother with Clock Blocker, When AMD first introduced the power efficiency button there was a problem which required clock blocker but that was fixed over a year ago, I have it turned off and my Fury runs fine.
I'd be more inclined to look at the cpu if turning power efficiency off does not help. it's more likely to be a compatibility issue of some sort. Try things like a lower ram speed too. Latest motherboard bio's?

Yeah latest bios, power efficiency off, same issue with my old 2400mhz RAM. Same issue with my old 6600k.

 

[Phixsator]

I've been having issues with my system when gaming, bad frame times and stuttering. I've been using Afterburner to monitor things and my GPU usage is spiking up and down from 100% to anything as low as 0% as the stutters occur.
First thought was thermal throttling, but temps are all fine, and second was a CPU bottle neck...

I've recently rebuilt my rig, switching from a i5 6600K, Z170 S Sabertooth and 16GB 2400mhz Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4 to a R5 1600, Aorus Gaming 5 board and 16GB 3200mhz G Skills Trident Z DDR4. With the newer system I'm convinced that it's not a CPU bottle neck.

I've reformatted the system and done a fresh install with minimal software and latest drivers over the last couple of days. The problem persists.

The only things that have remained constant in the system are the Superflower Leadex 650W Gold PSU and my Sapphire Nitro Fury, as well as the SSD drives.
Any ideas what my problem could be?

What driver version are you using for your fury? how long has the problem persist? has it happened over multiple driver versions? if so which ones?

 

[Freddie1980]

What games are you playing? Some games are poorly ported to the PC and stutter in places.

 

[prjwebb]

What driver version are you using for your fury? how long has the problem persist? has it happened over multiple driver versions? if so which ones?

I'm on the latest but I've tried a bunch of different ones.

The worst offender is the Division, but I tested Overwatch and had the issue there too. Even in Heaven and Valley to a lesser degree.

 

[Gregster]

The Division stutters for me in DX12 and especially if I am running Afterburner but DX11 is butter smooth. Heaven has 2 major places for stutter and that is the start and the bit through the corridor in the dark. Valley has a spot as well but can't remember where.

 

[prjwebb]

Yeah I've got the issue in DX11 also. Sometimes it gets so bad that it's pretty much unplayable. Really frustrating as I figured it was my 6600K not having enough cores to keep up in resource heavy areas in Division, but same issues on the 1600.

 

[Gregster]

Ahhhh, I was hoping it was just a DX12 thingy and the other things were what we all get. I would drop your DDR4 memory to 2600Mhz and see if that helps. You are on a new system and memory is causing quite a few issues.

 

[prjwebb]

I had the issue on my old Z170 6600K 2400mhz DDR4 system also, so I don't think it's down to the memory. I will test though.

 

[Gregster]

Better to test and that way you eliminate another possible reason for the stuttering. If it is the GPU, I would be surprised, as that isn't a normal show of a failing GPU. Not sure what else it could be either but hopefully someone else has had the same and found a fix

 

[prjwebb]

I've done a bunch of google and see a lot of peopple on 390X having a similar sounding problem but never really see a solution.

 

[HeX]

When you say spiking up and down in Afterburner, are you talking about going from 100% to 0% at seemingly regular intervals?

If so that's an easy fix; go into settings in Afterburner and turn on "Unified GPU Usage Monitoring". You'll now get the actual GPU usage readout.

This should let you diagnose if you've got a CPU/GPU bottleneck, or if you need to look elsewhere.

Have to say that I'm using a Ryzen with a 290 and don't have any stuttering in Division.

 

[prjwebb]

I'll give that a go, thanks.

 

[prjwebb]

Not entirely sure what I did, but things are running really nicely in Overwatch now, really responsive, smooth and stable maybe the best I've had it feeling. No big dips in GPU usage and stable 200fps.
I had a quick test in Div before and that seemed like the GPU usage was solid, but I was running higher settings than normal trying to keep the load there so my overall FPS was a bit lower than I'd like it.

 

[Toss3]

Not entirely sure what I did, but things are running really nicely in Overwatch now, really responsive, smooth and stable maybe the best I've had it feeling. No big dips in GPU usage and stable 200fps.
I had a quick test in Div before and that seemed like the GPU usage was solid, but I was running higher settings than normal trying to keep the load there so my overall FPS was a bit lower than I'd like it.

A fluctuating BCLK would cause stuttering and massive latency-spikes. Check with latencymon and make sure you have the BCLK set to 100 and spread spectrum to auto/disabled (if you are still seeing latency-spikes you can try a low % setting). Had issues with stuttering before and never knew it could be the result of an uneven BCLK (at least on my board).

 

[prjwebb]

A fluctuating BCLK would cause stuttering and massive latency-spikes. Check with latencymon and make sure you have the BCLK set to 100 and spread spectrum to auto/disabled (if you are still seeing latency-spikes you can try a low % setting). Had issues with stuttering before and never knew it could be the result of an uneven BCLK (at least on my board).

Oh interesting. I can't actually adjust BCLK on my AM4 board atm, but it does fluctuate ever so slightly.