This happens with every game that I play on this computer, including games that I play on emulators. This computer is one that I’m proud of, but something I notice about it is this strange stuttering issue. The issue can be recreated very consistently…

I’ll start playing a game, play for five minutes, or an hour, doesn’t matter, there’s no stuttering. If I keep the game running but I’m not actually playing it for more than ten? Fifteen minutes? For example browsing Lemmy, when I come back to the game there will be stuttering, and while the stuttering happens I can hear a kind of rumbling sound coming from the tower. The stuttering doesn’t seem to properly resolve even after long periods of playing and my current way of fixing this is to close the game and open the game again. This computer is old but I do remember this happening when it was new and I’m wondering if this is normal/what the issue is? I tried Googling this, but the results I got were about a computer stuttering in general, the issue I’m experiencing is limited to games.

Just in case, here’s my specs!

  • 16 GB RAM

  • Intel Core i7-9700K CPU @ 3.60 GHz

  • NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti (11 GB)

  • Windows 10 64-bit

  • 2 HDD’s (2 TB total space)

Thanks!

  • yeehaw@lemmy.ca
    0·
    2 天前

    If I had to guess, drivers.

    Also any idea on ram consumption during this period? If you’re low on ram, and somehow something as simple as browsing Lemmy fills your memory, your computer will possibly page the game (move the running memory of the game from RAM to your HDD) which is significantly slower than RAM.

  • Pheta@fedia.io
    0·
    2 天前

    Pretty sure I have an idea on what your problem might be. Do you typically keep YouTube open or watch videos while playing a game?

    • yeehaw@lemmy.ca
      0·
      2 天前

      If this was true, then it’s a bug in something. Videos are practically the least demanding thing you can do on a computer these days…

  • Guidy@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 天前

    The next time this happens look at task manager and see what % memory you have available.

    Also as others have said consider replacing your HDD with an SSD, that’s the single biggest upgrade you can make to see a massive difference in quality of life with your PC.

  • Mothra@mander.xyz
    0·
    2 天前

    Look I’m not tech savvy at all, but I have been using windows for a very long time. Take the following with a grain of salt. Here’s my two pennies:

    1: Windows has a tendency to run background processes as soon as it detects you are idle, and once those processes start they don’t stop cleanly if you resume activity. I find they will stop for good only if I do something that forces clearing RAM to start a RAM intensive process, such as restarting a game in your case.

    2: The best deterrent to windows doing this shit in the background is to purge as much bloat as you can, and turn your wifi off if you are not using it. Turn auto updates off (or delay as much as possible). My laptop behaves pretty well on idle if it’s offline.

  • Deestan@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 天前

    Sounds like your computer has a bit lower RAM than it needs, in which case it “swaps”.

    This means taking some memory that’s not been used for a while and writing it to disk, and using the now free RAM for what you are currently doing.

    When starting a game, it likely swaps out browser memory to make room for the game. It loads all it needs into RAM to make the game run smooth.

    When tabbing out of the game, it swaps game memory to disk and swaps in browser memory.

    When going back to the game, it will swap game memory back in in bits and pieces. Turn around, the game needs to draw that door texture. That needs to be swapped back into RAM from disk. Slight stutter, then normal. Walk a bit further, it needs to play footstep sounds. Those needs to be fetched back in from disk. And so on.

    Writing/reading from a HDD makes noise and vibration, since it’s internally a core of spinning disks with several small motors moving back and forth.

    An SSD has no moving parts and will not make noise. Stutters will be shorter, but still happen.

    Adding more RAM will reduce or remove the need to swap to disk in the first place, and is the most useful upgrade to alleviate the issue.

    • Elaine Cortez@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      0·
      2 天前

      Had a hunch that my old HDD’s were at least partially related to the issue. Thanks for the explanation! 😃 Looks like SSD’s and more RAM are the way to go!

      • NaibofTabr@infosec.pubEnglish
        0·
        2 天前

        This is the correct answer and the function is called Virtual Memory in Windows but is commonly known as the pagefile or swap. Adding more RAM won’t save you from this, as Windows will automatically move memory files into virtual memory if they’re idle for awhile, regardless of how much RAM is currently in use. In fact adding more RAM will probably increase the size of the virtual memory which may make the problem worse for you.

        Here is a more complete explanation: Swap file in Windows 10 & Windows 11: How to use it to optimize PC performance (increase, adjust, deactivate swap)?

        The pagefile is configurable. You can change which hard drive it gets stored on, how big it can be, and even turn it off completely. Turning it off has risks though, and may lead to system crashes (see the warnings in the article).

        You could add an SSD specifically to serve as a pagefile location and nothing else, in which case you could just get a small cheap one (a 32GB SSD would be more than enough for 16GB of RAM) - assuming that you have a place to plug it in to your motherboard, and then turn off the pagefile storage on all other drives in your system. That would be an easy change as you wouldn’t have to reinstall Windows onto a new hard drive.

        Ultimately though, the easiest and cheapest fix is to just change your behavior - close the game if you’re not using it for awhile and relaunch it when you want to play again.

        • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          0·
          2 天前

          virtual memory is related, but that’s a broader system that also gets used when no swap file was set up.

          I agree that adding more RAM won’t necessarily make the problem go away as windows might still swap the game out if it deems it more important to cache more files in RAM, but I don’t see why that would make it worse.

          • NaibofTabr@infosec.pubEnglish
            0·
            2 天前

            that also gets used when no swap file was set up.

            The swap file or pagefile is automatically set up in Windows 10/11. You have to do something manually to prevent it.

            I agree that adding more RAM won’t necessarily make the problem go away as windows might still swap the game out if it deems it more important to cache more files in RAM, but I don’t see why that would make it worse.

            By making the swap file larger, which may be an issue if the hard drive doesn’t have enough space left, and if not it will still increase the amount of time needed to recover data from the swap, because it’s larger.

            • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              0·
              1 天前

              The swap file or pagefile is automatically set up in Windows 10/11. You have to do something manually to prevent it.

              yes. but it still is different from virtual memory. that’s a broader thing.

              By making the swap file larger, which may be an issue if the hard drive doesn’t have enough space left, and if not it will still increase the amount of time needed to recover data from the swap, because it’s larger.

              then open the control panel and fix the swap setup. and then enjoy your more ram. the solution to this problem does not seem to be not upgrading to have more ram.

              • NaibofTabr@infosec.pubEnglish
                0·
                15 小时前

                but it still is different from virtual memory. that’s a broader thing.

                Of course, that’s why I said…

                the function is called Virtual Memory in Windows

                because that’s how it’s labeled in the Windows Settings menu.

                then open the control panel and fix the swap setup. and then enjoy your more ram. the solution to this problem does not seem to be not upgrading to have more ram.

                Adding more RAM is not a solution to OP’s described problem in any way. In the context of moving data from active memory to the pagefile, Windows doesn’t care how much RAM you have, only how long the data in active memory has been idle (which is not configurable). Adding more RAM to the system will do nothing to change that behavior.

                However, adding more RAM might make retrieving data from the pagefile slower. Yes you could adjust the pagefile settings to address this, as you said, but it still doesn’t do anything to address OP’s problem.

        • SolOrion@sh.itjust.works
          0·
          2 天前

          You could add an SSD specifically to serve as a pagefile location and nothing else, in which case you could just get a small cheap one (a 32GB SSD would be more than enough for 16GB of RAM)

          Honestly, assuming OP isn’t somewhere that the market for PC parts is extremely wonky compared to the US, if you’re going to get an SSD you might as well go ahead and get one big enough to serve as a boot drive. A 256gb SATA SSD is ~$20, and should be fine for that purpose. It probably won’t have DRAM at that price point, but realistically it’s not really necessary and still going to be a night and day upgrade over an HDD.

          • NaibofTabr@infosec.pubEnglish
            0·
            2 天前

            Sure but this still requires going through the reinstallation process, compared to just plugging an NVMe drive into a PCIe adapter and sticking it into an unused slot - done in 5 minutes. Plus maybe another 5 minutes to configure Windows Virtual Memory to only use that drive.

            • SolOrion@sh.itjust.works
              0·
              2 天前

              Reinstalling windows is hardly a laborious task most of the time, but even then my main point was that buying a 32GB SSD is pointless when you can get much larger ones for extremely cheap. Even if you don’t use it as a boot drive, more fast storage is never going to be a downside.