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Nikus

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
10,370
I love the game but I'm gonna have to stop if I can't fix it because it legit makes me feel sick after a while. My graphic card is a 970, I have 16gb of ram and I'm only aiming for 1080p/60fps with medium settings, which I think should be fine... right? At this point I'd even take the low settings but there's almost no difference between low and high options. I've seen reviews saying the game runs fine at 60fps with High settings on a 970, but obviously it doesn't for me and many others, I've seen dozens of thread complaining about the stuttering, often from people with way better configs than mine. I've tried every fix recommended but it's still a mess, some areas in the game are running butter smooth for a while and suddenly crashing near 30fps for no apparent reason (it even dropped at 27 for a sec when I boosted with the bike on a road). My nvidia drivers are up to date.

Here's my config:

Intel Core i5-4690K @ 3.50GHz (4 cores/4 threads)
GTX 970 4go
RAM: 16go
The game is installed on an SSD.

I've tried putting every settings on low (models, shadows etc.), disabling ambient occlusion, anti aliasing, and even putting the resolution at 720p. And it still stutters like crazy, dropping below 40fps!

My PC runs demanding games like AC Unity and Arkham Knight on max settings and never drops a single frame. The last games I've played are DMCV and MGSV and both run at max settings, 1080p/60fps, so there must be something very wrong somewhere. I know the game has been patched after launch but it doesn't seem to have fixed the issues for everyone. I remember seeing reviews that said it was a perfect port even for modest graphic cards, but the absurd number of threads I'm seeing on Steam forums and reddit says otherwise :|

For some people the solution was as simple as turning off the controller vibrations (wtf), for others it was turning off vsync in the game.
I've tried pretty much everything I can think of, so I don't have many hopes of someone finding a solution for me, but maybe someone else had the same issues and found a solution that I didn't find elsewhere.

I should also note I gave 30fps a try for a while but it felt almost as bad as the constant frame drops, and I wouldn't be enjoying the game very much like this. It's frustrating, I'm usually patient and don't mind waiting a long time to play certain games, but I've already put 10 hours in this one and there's nothing else I want to play at the moment... It would be the perfect game at the perfect time for me but I've spent half of my time fidgetting with options and searching for fixes. Help me Era, you're my only hope :(
 

Dreamboum

Member
Oct 28, 2017
22,865
I never got to consistent 60 FPS with my 970 even when overclocked. I remember there was an issue with steam input tanking the performance of the game so it was advised to switch to the beta version of steam but idk if it was fixed or not.
 

7thFloor

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,646
U.S.
It was pretty much locked at 1440p60fps max settings for me on my GTX1080 + i7-8700, it shouldn't be running that poorly for you, keep troubleshooting I suppose.
 

Vexii

Member
Oct 31, 2017
2,386
UK
Tbh your 4th gen i5 is probably a big part of the reason why it's stuttering quite so bad. It's not the worst CPU in the world for older games but it's very much outdated, and any other processes going on in the background will make a struggling CPU choke even worse.

EDIT: just realised you also said that dropping graphics settings doesn't help - it's almost definitely the CPU unfortunately
 

Ra

Rap Genius
Moderator
Oct 27, 2017
12,207
Dark Space
How high is your CPU usage during the stuttering?

I read someone's comment on Youtube that they had constant stutters in Death Stranding with the 4690K, which were alleviated completely when they used a Ryzen 5 2600.

If performance isn't improving even when lowering setting, that pretty much points to the CPU. You're better off adding more GPU load in that case. Lowering settings just puts more on the CPU.
 
Last edited:
Apr 25, 2020
3,418
It's probably to do with your internet. The game loads in community elements as you move between segments of the map and that usually involves downloading the latest data. I have a top of the line gaming PC and I encountered the same thing in the same places all the time.
 

Vexii

Member
Oct 31, 2017
2,386
UK
It's probably to do with your internet. The game loads in community elements as you move between segments of the map and that usually involves downloading the latest data. I have a top of the line gaming PC and I encountered the same thing in the same places all the time.
This is a good point too.

Heck, I mean even playing on an ageing HDD could cause the issues you're describing here OP. Almost certainly however, it isn't the GPU
 

Ra

Rap Genius
Moderator
Oct 27, 2017
12,207
Dark Space
It's not and you're not helping him, as I said I have the same CPU and didn't experience this issue at all.






The game is not that demanding, there's another issue here.

Your gameplay is constantly stuttering though. Framerate and frametime are two different issues.

To what do you assign the blame?
 

Vexii

Member
Oct 31, 2017
2,386
UK
It's not and you're not helping him, as I said I have the same CPU and didn't experience this issue at all.






The game is not that demanding, there's another issue here.

You're demonstrating in this very video via RTSS that an i5 4690K maxes out it's utilisation in this game dude, what the hell.

100% utilisation = performance ceilings being reached.
 

Ra

Rap Genius
Moderator
Oct 27, 2017
12,207
Dark Space
That was a quick yt search, it's not my video. I didn't experience any stuttering at all and I finished the whole game with a 4690, it's not the CPU.
Well you just provided a video of a PC with the same CPU/GPU as the OP, which showcases constant stuttering at 1080p, with the CPU topping out when it happens.
 

Butch

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,438
You're demonstrating in this very video via RTSS that an i5 4690K maxes out it's utilisation in this game dude, what the hell.

100% utilisation = performance ceilings being reached.

OP is experiencing this issue at 720p, I played the game at 60fps with the same CPU and no stutter.

Well you just provided a video of a PC with the same CPU/GPU as the OP, which showcases constant stuttering at 1080p.

I didn't watch the whole video, I'm just talking about the CPU which is not the issue here. It might be the vram limit of the 970.

leaving aside the stuttering, OP is getting 40 fps at times.

I have an i5-4440 @ 3.10GHz (4C/4T), its mostly not the CPU issue.
May be its VRAM limit?

Yup, that could be it.
 
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Vexii

Member
Oct 31, 2017
2,386
UK
Hey OP, try turning your texture detail setting down to its lowest setting to see if it alleviates the issue.
 
Oct 28, 2017
1,951
I have an i5-4440 @ 3.10GHz (4C/4T), its mostly not the CPU issue.
May be its VRAM limit?
Yup, that could be it.
Or may be not, because the OP mentioned lowering all graphics settings to the lowest and also tried playing at lower resolution.
May be its the perception of being sensitive to shuttering, some people get used to lower performance while playing a game after spend a good amount of time and others don't.

The usual performance tracking data should help, overlays with graphs.
 
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oneils

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,099
Ottawa Canada
OP is experiencing this issue at 720p, I played the game at 60fps with the same CPU and no stutter.



I didn't watch the whole video, I'm just talking about the CPU which is not the issue here. It might be the vram limit of the 970.

leaving aside the stuttering, OP is getting 40 fps at times.



Yup, that could be it.

the second video you linked to dropped to 40fps.
 
OP
OP
Nikus

Nikus

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
10,370

It is 100% your CPU.

And still getting huge drops with low settings and lower res would be normal?

It's not and you're not helping him, as I said I have the same CPU and didn't experience this issue at all.




The game is not that demanding, there's another issue here.


Yeah, as someone else said, maybe it's the VRAM. I don't know it it can be changed or if I'm stuck with what I have.

A friend recommended me to uninstall the game and re-download it. But it'll take a while so I'll try that tomorrow.
 

Resident Guru

Member
Oct 28, 2017
919
And still getting huge drops with low settings and lower res would be normal?



Yeah, as someone else said, maybe it's the VRAM. I don't know it it can be changed or if I'm stuck with what I have.

A friend recommended me to uninstall the game and re-download it. But it'll take a while so I'll try that tomorrow.
And still getting huge drops with low settings and lower res would be normal?
Yes. Your CPU can't process snd send data fast enough. It's why you are experiencing those huge drops.
 
OP
OP
Nikus

Nikus

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
10,370
Oh, another issue that I forgot to mention, and it may actually be the main cause 😬
It has to do with the "Memory for streaming" setting. Again, I still have issues regardless if it's on Low, Medium or High, but the memory available should be higher than what is displayed here, no? Or is that definitely my CPU?


akt4NM6.jpg


dvOHI7t.jpg


I have seen other threads on Steam and Reddit of people saying their available memory was wrong.
Like this one who has the same issue with low settings: https://www.reddit.com/r/DeathStranding/comments/hv34r3/available_graphic_memory_issue/
I don't really know what that setting does, I've seen people suggest to keep it on High even if it gets higher than what's available.

*sigh*
Well this thread made me realize that whenever I upgrade my graphic card, I'll also have to buy a new processor :/
 

Butch

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,438
Yes. Your CPU can't process snd send data fast enough. It's why you are experiencing those huge drops.

Does this video have stuttering? Cause this is pretty much how I played it with this same cpu and maybe I guess I'm just not that sensitive to it then:



Well this thread made me realize that whenever I upgrade my graphic card, I'll also have to buy a new processor :/

Definitely, it's an old cpu by today standards.
 
OP
OP
Nikus

Nikus

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
10,370
Yes. Your CPU can't process snd send data fast enough. It's why you are experiencing those huge drops.
It's just weird that I run other recent AAA games without experiencing any of this, and Death Stranding was made for last gen consoles. I guess it has to do with how this game handles its data.
 

dgrdsv

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,885
Oh, another issue that I forgot to mention, and it may actually be the main cause 😬
It has to do with the "Memory for streaming" setting. Again, I still have issues regardless if it's on Low, Medium or High, but the memory available should be higher than what is displayed here, no? Or is that definitely my CPU?


akt4NM6.jpg


dvOHI7t.jpg


I have seen other threads on Steam and Reddit of people saying their available memory was wrong.
Like this one who has the same issue with low settings: https://www.reddit.com/r/DeathStranding/comments/hv34r3/available_graphic_memory_issue/
I don't really know what that setting does, I've seen people suggest to keep it on High even if it gets higher than what's available.

*sigh*
Well this thread made me realize that whenever I upgrade my graphic card, I'll also have to buy a new processor :/
VRAM is partially allocated by the OS (DWM, ~0.5GBs on all cards) and there may be other consumers at play.
Also your 970 has a 0.5GB of a slow VRAM partition which NV driver tend to handle differently between different games.
So 3.2GB figure is more or less fine, it's what you'd expect on a 4GB card with a twist like that of 970.

On the overall matter - check some monitoring tool like MSI AB to see what the reasons for frametime spikes are.
If it will show high CPU load (even at only one core) at these moments then it's the CPU.
If it will show high GPU load then it's the GPU.
If both will be low during these spikes then it's something else - storage or network or system RAM or some s/w incompatibility.

Edit: here's the same setting on my 2080 with the game outputting to a 4K surface which is a secondary display in addition to my 2560x1600 main one. 3.2GB is fine in your case:

ds20201115132534346.jpg
 
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leng jai

Member
Nov 2, 2017
15,119
I gave up on the game because no matter what I did it would stutter constantly. This is in a 4.4ghz 6600k, 16gb RAM, Samsung 960 Evo and 2070 Super.
 

arit

Member
Oct 29, 2017
125
Does this video have stuttering? Cause this is pretty much how I played it with this same cpu and maybe I guess I'm just not that sensitive to it then:





Definitely, it's an old cpu by today standards.


The description states that the used cpu is overclocked to 4.4Ghz.

My old i5-6600 was also not able to get locked 60 (with a 1080ti), though OP has the option to overclock with his K model which may help if the above video is used as a reference.
 

leng jai

Member
Nov 2, 2017
15,119
I could have sworn the Digital Foundry video said the game was not CPU intensive at all.
 

squall23

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,782
This doesn't help OP at all but I was using a 2080 Ti while playing it. 1440p/144FPS with max settings and nothing was overheating. The fans never increased speed once and then I just thought "is this game really that optimized?"

Some games like Total War Warhammer 2 and Red Dead Redemption 2 turn up the fans within like 5 minutes.
 

Skyebaron

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
4,416
Find a program that deals with startup programs. Like CCleaner portable. On CC, go to tools, startup disable everything you dont need at startup. On Windows services dont disable Nvidia Display Container. If some program you use donsent work after rebbot, just go again to CC and enable its corresponding service. Its pretty easy.

Or search on windows: msconfig >startup > open task manager.

I disable everything except for steam and windows defender.

Theres also the myriad of PC tuneup videos with clickbait thumbnails for gaming:

 
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Toreal

Member
Nov 5, 2017
91
OP do you have XMP enabled for your ram?
I used to game on a i5 4670k with a 970 and the difference between XMP enabled or disabled was night and day.
You should also maybe look into overclocking your CPU, those chips can go high even on air cooling.
 

brain_stew

Member
Oct 30, 2017
4,731
It's not and you're not helping him, as I said I have the same CPU and didn't experience this issue at all.






The game is not that demanding, there's another issue here.


In the first video the CPU is running 600mhz faster than the op's and is hitting a clear CPU bottleneck given the GPU and CPU utilisation. If you're hitting a CPU bottleneck, you're not going to get consistant frametimes.

The second video isn't close to maintaining a locked 60fps.

You're can't expect a low clocked 4c4t to deliver a locked 60fps in modern titles anymore, it's just not a realistic expectation.
 
Jan 21, 2019
2,902
I know many people are adamantly against the idea that it is your cpu. But is used to run a 4c/4t cpu until a month ago and it sucked in a lot of modern games. Death Stranding, Mafia, star wars fallen order, asscreed syndicate. All stuttering, some worse than others, lowering settings didn't help.

I upgraded from a 6600k to a 6700k and all my problems were gone. Went from 100% utilization to 50 or lower.

I could have sworn the Digital Foundry video said the game was not CPU intensive at all.

Did they test old ass cpus from 2014 or did they run the best of the best and see 30% utilization? Big difference.
 

leng jai

Member
Nov 2, 2017
15,119
In the first video the CPU is running 600mhz faster than the op's and is hitting a clear CPU bottleneck given the GPU and CPU utilisation. If you're hitting a CPU bottleneck, you're not going to get consistant frametimes.

The second video isn't close to maintaining a locked 60fps.

You're can't expect a low clocked 4c4t to deliver a locked 60fps in modern titles anymore, it's just not a realistic expectation.

My 6600k still runs 95% of games at locked 60fps just fine. It's mainly this, Ubisoft open world games and RDR 2 that can't.
 

brain_stew

Member
Oct 30, 2017
4,731
My 6600k still runs 95% of games at locked 60fps just fine. It's mainly this, Ubisoft open world games and RDR 2 that can't.

A 6600k with with DDR4 memory is much faster than a 3.5ghz Haswell with slow DDR3 memory.

It also depends on what your definition of a "locked" 60fps is. For me, that's no frametimes above 16.6ms and a 0.1% low of 16.6ms, for most it will just be the framerate counter staying around 59-60fps (which could still mean a lot of frames above 16.6ms, even if that is the 1% low figure).
 
Oct 25, 2017
1,957
Germany
Is it DEFINITELY only this one game, OP?

When Forza Horizon 4 was new, it ran terrible on my GTX 970 / i7 6700k. Tried with the graphics settings a long time and couldn't replicate the framerate from benchmark sites using my card. Two days later found out that every game ran worse almost 30%.

Uninstalling/Reinstalling drivers didn't help. Then I used GPU driver clean-up tool and switched the PSU lane (stupid to change two things at the same for troubleshooting, I know), and then it was performing normal again.


Edit: OP should check CPU load and temps on CPU/GPU using MSI Afterburner and report back before we suggest more solutions.
 

dabri

Member
Nov 2, 2017
1,728
Op you need to also check that you aren't running any extra strenuous programs in the background.
Back when I used to game on pc a lot more, virus protection software could cause hitching like this unless you manually set the games files as being ignored. It could easily be something else running on your system which is pushing your CPU or io just over its limit.
 

xyla

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,386
Germany
I had a similar setup last year where I had stuttering throughout FH4 when it would play great a week before.
Turned out that Discord was hogging CPU for some reason and I was hitting 100% spikes which made the game perform terrible.

Check if you have anything running in the background that uses more CPU than it should.
The autostart cleanup is also a good suggestion if you didn't already do that.
 

Cantaim

Member
Oct 25, 2017
33,362
The Stussining
In today is a small ass world news. I just realized that Nikus and I are friends on steam lol. Nope someone can help you with Death Stranding though. Been seeing him you start the game a lot and I know exactly what that means when I'm on steam
 
Oct 27, 2017
73
I have the exact same cpu and gpu but less ram and I don't experience any stuttering, though my internet isn't great so I play in offline mode, have you tried putting steam in offline mode?