Ideas on fixing intermittent stutter lag

[chazus]

Have you tried
1) Repairing WoW
2) Moving WoW to main SSD
3) Moving current WoW install elsewhere (just to another folder) and rebuilding/reinstalling game
4) Completely removing/reinstalling WoW

I have had cases where even disabling an Addon still resulted in it fucking things up. I had to literally remove it from the folders, even though it was disabled, to fix issues. Maybe just try moving your interface and wtf folders

[Saphyron]

Have you tried
1) Repairing WoW
2) Moving WoW to main SSD
3) Moving current WoW install elsewhere (just to another folder) and rebuilding/reinstalling game
4) Completely removing/reinstalling WoW

I have had cases where even disabling an Addon still resulted in it fucking things up. I had to literally remove it from the folders, even though it was disabled, to fix issues. Maybe just try moving your interface and wtf folders

Second this.

I've had problems with a wow install from an addon who fucked it.
By deleting it and all cache's for the game and then starting over usually fixes it.

[siren]

I had this exact same problem awhile back, my cache file had grown to something stupid huge like 8 gigs. After deleting the cache folder the issue went away and I now keep an eye on the size of the folder but it hasn't gone over a few megs in awhile.

The directory you will want to delete: C:\Program Files (x86)\World of Warcraft\_retail_\Cache

[Lery]

I have not tried repairing WoW. Can do.

Completely deleted Interface, WTF, and Cache folders. I do this because I'm an addon addict. I need a 12 step program lol! So, yes, this is done.

WoW is on my main SSD. Moving it to another drive is an option, just to test.

I think what I might do, is completely wipe out the drive, and reinstall everything. I do that from time to time and it's about time. Not sure when, but eventually. I think I will probably try the other options, like chazus has recommended first.

[BeepBoo]

That's the exact issue (from the video) I was having running netflix on Chrome video.. Do you have other programs running? Chrome? Other video?

Just FYI I also had this issue in netflix. This fixed it for me (it's a known bug with chrome currently).
https://www.quora.com/Why-does-Netfl...tter-on-Chrome

[Lery]

I thought I would come back and post some updates that I have. I have tried a few different things over the last few weeks, all with no success. Since I was due to reload the operating system, I went ahead and did that. I also went ahead and cleaned off the SSD drive that holds my games, and formatted that as well. Installed everything fresh. Unfortunately the stutter lag still happens. This is with NO addons. I think the zone contributes. For example, in the video shown, that section always seems to stutter lag. However, if I go down to the ship area, it doesn't do it as much.

Last night I was in a dungeon farming some materials and it started happening in there. For the heck of it, I lowered my settings from 7 to 1. It immediately stopped happening. Today I tested that area shown in the video, and it was noticeably less. Still some, but very slight.

I'm not sure what it could be. My computer is not the fastest thing on the planet, neither is it new, but it should be able to perform well enough for WoW. Heck it runs PUBG just fine and that must be a higher demand, less optimized, game. I'll continue digging around.

[Vash The Stampede]

Sounds like you're going beyond the VRAM of the RX 480 you have. That might cause the stutter.

[c0rnel]

I thought I would come back and post some updates that I have. I have tried a few different things over the last few weeks, all with no success. Since I was due to reload the operating system, I went ahead and did that. I also went ahead and cleaned off the SSD drive that holds my games, and formatted that as well. Installed everything fresh. Unfortunately the stutter lag still happens. This is with NO addons. I think the zone contributes. For example, in the video shown, that section always seems to stutter lag. However, if I go down to the ship area, it doesn't do it as much.

Last night I was in a dungeon farming some materials and it started happening in there. For the heck of it, I lowered my settings from 7 to 1. It immediately stopped happening. Today I tested that area shown in the video, and it was noticeably less. Still some, but very slight.

I'm not sure what it could be. My computer is not the fastest thing on the planet, neither is it new, but it should be able to perform well enough for WoW. Heck it runs PUBG just fine and that must be a higher demand, less optimized, game. I'll continue digging around.

Can you post your wow grpahics and advanced settings window?

[Lery]

Can you post your wow grpahics and advanced settings window?

Sure. I have left the graphic quality set to 1. I have not experienced one ounce of stutter in most areas of the game. Even under heavy activity. Of course I don't want to leave it at 1, and should not have to. To Vash The Stampede's comment, I have no idea what that means or why that would be? Here you go:

https://i.imgur.com/4NZPfuX.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/ciaH4N1.jpg

[Manakuski]

Is windows 10 game mode off? Do you have the latest updates? Is game bar and game dvr off too? Possible Discord overlay off too?

Are you running your ram memory in dual channel?

[Fascinate]

Sounds like you're going beyond the VRAM of the RX 480 you have. That might cause the stutter.

That was my initial thought too but considering the lowest vram 480 is 4gb that seems highly unlikely in a game like WoW, even at ultrawide resolutions. Is it possible some of the ram on his card is bad tho?

OP what you could try doing is removing the graphics card completely and running WoW on integrated graphics. Whatever the game defaults to (should be like 720p with 5 preset) and see if you get any stutter there.

[Vash The Stampede]

That was my initial thought too but considering the lowest vram 480 is 4gb that seems highly unlikely in a game like WoW, even at ultrawide resolutions. Is it possible some of the ram on his card is bad tho?

OP what you could try doing is removing the graphics card completely and running WoW on integrated graphics. Whatever the game defaults to (should be like 720p with 5 preset) and see if you get any stutter there.

From the look @Lery pictures I see his resolution is set to 5120X2160 which is above 4k. The higher the resolution the more VRAM you'll use. Another hint is that he lowered the settings and the stutter went away. He never mentioned if he uses a RX 480 8Gb or 4GB, but I'd imagine a 4GB couldn't handle that.

[Lery]

From the look @Lery pictures I see his resolution is set to 5120X2160 which is above 4k. The higher the resolution the more VRAM you'll use. Another hint is that he lowered the settings and the stutter went away. He never mentioned if he uses a RX 480 8Gb or 4GB, but I'd imagine a 4GB couldn't handle that.

I'm not entirely sure, I know the answers to everything here. I believe the graphics card has 8 GB. When I open Radeon settings, go to System, that is what the Memory size says. You can scroll through the first page of this post for some of the information, and can see the memory utilization on the card was at most in the 30% range.

Since this is a fresh clean reinstall of the operating system, I don't have any of my utilities loaded back on. I believe however, I did notice the memory installed, which is the maximum 32 GB support by my motherboard, was running in dual channel mode.

I also noticed that in the WoW settings, it was using a resolution of 5120X2160. The resolution scale is set to 3440 x 1440. That is the maximum scale allowed by the monitor I'm running Dell U3415W monitor.

I do like the idea of pulling the card and seeing what happens with the integrated graphics. The integrated graphics is just some basic Intel VGA card. I'm not sure I even have a VGA cable around.

[Vash The Stampede]

I'm not entirely sure, I know the answers to everything here. I believe the graphics card has 8 GB. When I open Radeon settings, go to System, that is what the Memory size says. You can scroll through the first page of this post for some of the information, and can see the memory utilization on the card was at most in the 30% range.

Since this is a fresh clean reinstall of the operating system, I don't have any of my utilities loaded back on. I believe however, I did notice the memory installed, which is the maximum 32 GB support by my motherboard, was running in dual channel mode.

I also noticed that in the WoW settings, it was using a resolution of 5120X2160. The resolution scale is set to 3440 x 1440. That is the maximum scale allowed by the monitor I'm running Dell U3415W monitor.

I do like the idea of pulling the card and seeing what happens with the integrated graphics. The integrated graphics is just some basic Intel VGA card. I'm not sure I even have a VGA cable around.

I guess memory can't be the issue if you have 8GB. My suggestion is to turn the settings back to the way it was in the game and slowly turn down each setting until the stutter is resolved. Was this an issue before an update in the game? Might be Blizzard introduced a bug in the game engine that's causing this.

[Lery]

I guess memory can't be the issue if you have 8GB. My suggestion is to turn the settings back to the way it was in the game and slowly turn down each setting until the stutter is resolved. Was this an issue before an update in the game? Might be Blizzard introduced a bug in the game engine that's causing this.

I'm not sure when it started. I can't say it was always there, and I can't say it wasn't. Prior to my reload, and definitely had modified settings using Panjno settings. He is Youtube person that makes videos on improving FPS. Now that I'm back to default settings, with everything, I can see the stutter lag much worse when using the slider setting of 7 compared to before the reload. So you're on the right track with modifying stuff until it goes away.

I'll keep trying different things and see how it goes. Strange thing is, playing with settings at 1, I don't really see a problem. It plays nicely and looks the same to my eye.

[Vash The Stampede]

I'm not sure when it started. I can't say it was always there, and I can't say it wasn't. Prior to my reload, and definitely had modified settings using Panjno settings. He is Youtube person that makes videos on improving FPS. Now that I'm back to default settings, with everything, I can see the stutter lag much worse when using the slider setting of 7 compared to before the reload. So you're on the right track with modifying stuff until it goes away.

I'll keep trying different things and see how it goes. Strange thing is, playing with settings at 1, I don't really see a problem. It plays nicely and looks the same to my eye.

Put your settings back to 7 and then turn off Anti-aliasing and see if the stutter is gone. If not then turn it back on and move to the next one. It maybe tedious but eventually you'll find the cause.

[Twoddle]

Look in the UEFI there's some graphics memory setting (yeah I know it's for integrated gpus) and other shit. Close Blizzard launcher while playing.

[Zedonius31]

This looks like a delay between the screen refresh and the video card that makes it look like the game is that half second delayed and the variable frame rate is messing with the timings on your display.

Are you using any sort of Upscaling? Like DSR (Digital Super Resolution i think?) ? To force a different resolution than your monitor supports? Check refresh rate of your monitor and make sure it is set right in windows. I would also try turning V-Sync "ON" (Force it in Nvidia control panel).

[Vash The Stampede]

This looks like a delay between the screen refresh and the video card that makes it look like the game is that half second delayed and the variable frame rate is messing with the timings on your display.

If you can see it in his recording then it isn't a delay on the screen refresh.

[Lery]

Just some information on this. I have not messed around much with in game settings, due to time. I'm still at graphic quality 1 and 2.

Regarding upscaling. I'm not sure where to look on AMD settings. I can verify that the monitor is a 60hz refresh. It's showing that way in Windows and the AMD software. The monitor, in case I didn't list it, is a Dell U3415W. In the AMD settings, I see GPU Scaling is off, Scaling Mode is set to Preserve aspect ratio. There is one setting called Virtual Super Resolution, which is on. I found the explanation of that here https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/vsr and I don't think that is applicable, but maybe.

I did some thinking about if this could be caused in any way by my network. I see that Blizzard utilizes two utilities for this. Their own "Looking Glass" website which utilizes WinMTR. Then they suggest you also download and run WinMTR for a different type of directional test.

I ran them yesterday and found interesting returns. WinMTR for US, has two IP address to run against. One is 137.221.105.2 and the other is 24.105.62.129. To the IP address of 24.105.62.129 I had 16% packet loss just on my router hop. To the IP address of 137.221.105.2 I had a packet loss to my router of 16%. I then tried running it against google.com, and have no packet loss. No idea what is up with that yet. I did remove QoS on my router, as well as my PC immediately after reloading the operating system from scratch.

I did the above, because I do now, out of no where, get random disconnects. That never happened prior to my reinstall.