Constant Micro Stuttering since 1.21.6

[GrizzlyManBear]

Hello, I already posted this in the discord but figured Id post this here for more visibility as Id really love to get back to playing as soon as possible.
despite my best efforts I am unable to locate the culprit. I have done extensive research on both the official forums and github and cannot seem to find a solution that works. I was fine before the newest release, but upon updating I am now experiencing a consistent "hitch" or stutter every few seconds that seems to get gradually worse as I play on, mostly noticeable through running/jumping or moving my mouse quickly (i.e. my avatar freezes for less than a second mid jump/run, fails to jump due to stutter, or looking from side to side becomes choppy as my view 'catches'). I have tried everything listed in this link; https://www.vintagestory.at/forums/topic/15490-trying-to-fix-the-stuttering-ᵖˡᵉᵃˢᵉ-ʰᵉˡᵖ/  and any hyperlinks included in responses, nothing has worked so far. I do admittedly run a lot of mods but they were not giving me trouble with frames until recently, and I have tried both stripping mods away one by one and also cutting the entire mod list entirely, neither have stopped the stuttering. All background processes closed, Windows processes de-bloated (with OOSU10), tried every config suggestion for both in-game graphics settings and the NVIDIA control panel, tried rolling back a graphics driver version. Even tried uninstalling and reinstalling the game. All to no avail. Only perceivable performance issue is on task manager - I watch the RAM usage climb slowly as I play, seemingly correlating with the frequency of the stutters. GPU usage stays fairly consistent, and none of my components are hot enough to be throttled. I am desperate for any suggestions, and I'd be grateful for even just conjecture at this point.

My PC is not exactly 'high-end' but I also would not consider it 'low-end', either. My specs for reference (Running windows 10 pro);

- Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5930K CPU @ 3.50GHz  
- 32.0 GB RAM
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 (12 GB)
 

 

Edited December 21, 2025 by GrizzlyManBear

[Venusgate]

I am also getting micro stuttering recently without upgrading from 1.21.5, and am also moderately modded. Have you tried clearing mod cache?

[r3g]

+1

[pigfood]

Your PC was high-end a long, long time ago. Today, the cheapest CPUs available will outperform your 5930K quite a bit.

Your freezing sounds like a garbage collection/memory leak issue. As far as I can tell, 1.21.6 has no significant memory leaks on my system. I do get very rare freezes (maybe every couple of hours) for maybe 0.5 to 1s.

With your system, I would probably limit the view distance to something like 192 or even less.

[LadyWYT]

Welcome to the forums! I am no tech guru, but here are a couple of things you might check:

22 hours ago, GrizzlyManBear said:

upon updating I am now experiencing a consistent "hitch" or stutter every few seconds that seems to get gradually worse as I play on, mostly noticeable through running/jumping or moving my mouse quickly (i.e. my avatar freezes for less than a second mid jump/run, fails to jump due to stutter, or looking from side to side becomes choppy as my view 'catches')

You might check your mouse polling rate and mouse software, especially if you use a gaming mouse. I use a Corsair Harpoon and ran into a similar issue a while back. Setting the mouse to a lower polling rate and disabling the software while playing VS solved the issue, though I will also note that the software also seems to have updated and is no longer causing problems while running. Still, it's something to check, just in case.

You might also try turning VSync off, as I've found that playing with it turned on can produce some microstutters occasionally.

 

23 hours ago, GrizzlyManBear said:

I do admittedly run a lot of mods but they were not giving me trouble with frames until recently, and I have tried both stripping mods away one by one and also cutting the entire mod list entirely, neither have stopped the stuttering.

If you are running mods, it could easily be a mod problem, and the more mods you try to run at once the beefier hardware you'll need. Mods that add loads of items, or otherwise heavily modify gameplay by adding new systems, are prime suspects. You might try starting over with a fresh install of the game and ensure vanilla is working properly(to be fair, it sounds like you've tried this), and then add your mods back one by one and test as you go to see if/when the issue reappears. It's tedious work, but generally the most effective way to root out problem mods.

Otherwise, you might try paring down your modlist a bit, or look into hosting a private server to play on in order to take some of the load off your gaming rig. Adjusting graphics might help as well.

23 hours ago, GrizzlyManBear said:

Only perceivable performance issue is on task manager - I watch the RAM usage climb slowly as I play, seemingly correlating with the frequency of the stutters. GPU usage stays fairly consistent, and none of my components are hot enough to be throttled.

If the GPU isn't having problems though then it's probably an issue unrelated to the graphics. Maybe a memory leak? Check your log files to see if there's anything weird going on; if there's a memory leak it should be noted. If you enable the Dev settings tab, there are some options there that you can turn on prior to a play session to record more data to the logs when certain issues occur, that will help narrow down exactly what's causing the issue.

The only other thing I can think of to try is try to see if there's anything specific that triggers the stuttering, such as entering certain areas of the map or interacting with specific objects.

[GrizzlyManBear]

On 12/21/2025 at 1:55 PM, Venusgate said:

I am also getting micro stuttering recently without upgrading from 1.21.5, and am also moderately modded. Have you tried clearing mod cache?

I have, unfortunately there was no change.

8 hours ago, sushieater said:

Your PC was high-end a long, long time ago. Today, the cheapest CPUs available will outperform your 5930K quite a bit.

Your freezing sounds like a garbage collection/memory leak issue. As far as I can tell, 1.21.6 has no significant memory leaks on my system. I do get very rare freezes (maybe every couple of hours) for maybe 0.5 to 1s.

With your system, I would probably limit the view distance to something like 192 or even less.

While very true, this exact set up seemingly had no issues running up to 100+ mods at 600+ render distance for up to 140 hours of game play before this issue occurred. Id be willing to bet its a memory leak, but as to whether it is the vanilla game or any one of the mods I have installed is anyone's guess. Interestingly enough I still have the stutter even when my render distance is set to the absolute minimum, so I really doubt its anything to do with my specs not being up to snuff.

5 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Welcome to the forums! I am no tech guru, but here are a couple of things you might check:

You might check your mouse polling rate and mouse software, especially if you use a gaming mouse. I use a Corsair Harpoon and ran into a similar issue a while back. Setting the mouse to a lower polling rate and disabling the software while playing VS solved the issue, though I will also note that the software also seems to have updated and is no longer causing problems while running. Still, it's something to check, just in case.

You might also try turning VSync off, as I've found that playing with it turned on can produce some microstutters occasionally.

 

If you are running mods, it could easily be a mod problem, and the more mods you try to run at once the beefier hardware you'll need. Mods that add loads of items, or otherwise heavily modify gameplay by adding new systems, are prime suspects. You might try starting over with a fresh install of the game and ensure vanilla is working properly(to be fair, it sounds like you've tried this), and then add your mods back one by one and test as you go to see if/when the issue reappears. It's tedious work, but generally the most effective way to root out problem mods.

Otherwise, you might try paring down your modlist a bit, or look into hosting a private server to play on in order to take some of the load off your gaming rig. Adjusting graphics might help as well.

If the GPU isn't having problems though then it's probably an issue unrelated to the graphics. Maybe a memory leak? Check your log files to see if there's anything weird going on; if there's a memory leak it should be noted. If you enable the Dev settings tab, there are some options there that you can turn on prior to a play session to record more data to the logs when certain issues occur, that will help narrow down exactly what's causing the issue.

The only other thing I can think of to try is try to see if there's anything specific that triggers the stuttering, such as entering certain areas of the map or interacting with specific objects.

Thanks for taking the time to write this all out!
I do have a gaming mouse, however it is just a Steel Series that I did not install any extra software for as it worked fine out of the box. 
I have attempted turning off VSync as well, along side turning it to "On-Sleep", and setting my FPS to unlimited; unfortunately none of the suggestions for toggling graphical settings worked for me, even working in increments down. The freeze appears regardless if I set to 'Pathetic' graphical settings, though it does appear slightly less abrupt. 

The mods are where I am the most stumped; I have done almost everything you've suggested, even going so far as to whittle the entire list down to vanilla, and was still experiencing the same stutter to a degree. Even after a complete reinstall on an entirely different drive, making sure to delete as much of the already existing files as I could find, I still had the stutter. Its starting to become my White Whale, I'm afraid.

Though I have looked into private servers, I am not in the place where I can readily pay a monthly subscription service for stable solo game play.

Ultimately I am leaning towards the possibility of it being a memory leak. Unfortunately I am not very well versed in the business of using dev tools to log files. @LadyWYT Would you happen to know of any easy to follow lists somewhere on another forum post or wiki page perhaps that outlines how to go about doing this in a way that doesn't just generate a bunch of useless information? 

Edited December 22, 2025 by GrizzlyManBear

[LadyWYT]

18 minutes ago, GrizzlyManBear said:

Ultimately I am leaning towards the possibility of it being a memory leak. Unfortunately I am not very well versed in the business of using dev tools to log files. @LadyWYT Would you happen to know of any easy to follow lists somewhere on another forum post or wiki page perhaps that outlines how to go about doing this in a way that doesn't just generate a bunch of useless information? 

Unfortunately I'm not going to be of much help here, however, you might consider submitting a bug report describing the issue, as well as including your log files, over on the bug tracker. 

As far as using the dev tools to track down issues, it kind of depends on what sort of issue you're chasing. When it comes to hunting memory leaks, the VAO Dispose Debug was the option I was using. You might try that one if you're seeing messages in your logs related to some sort of item id missing vertices(or something to that effect, I forget the exact message). It spits out a LOT of information that can be difficult to read, but there should be at least something listed that can help you figure out the cause.

24 minutes ago, GrizzlyManBear said:

I do have a gaming mouse, however it is just a Steel Series that I did not install any extra software for as it worked fine out of the box.

You might try adjusting mouse sensitivity in the game settings or windows settings, in that case. Or if you can, try a different mouse entirely, in case the game is throwing fit about that specific mouse for some reason. It's a bit of a longshot, but worth checking. Any cheap mouse should do, and worst case scenario is you end up with a backup mouse in case your current one fails.

 

26 minutes ago, GrizzlyManBear said:

The mods are where I am the most stumped; I have done almost everything you've suggested, even going so far as to whittle the entire list down to vanilla, and was still experiencing the same stutter to a degree. Even after a complete reinstall on an entirely different drive, making sure to delete as much of the already existing files as I could find, I still had the stutter. Its starting to become my White Whale, I'm afraid.

When the fresh game copy was installed on a different drive, did you use the desktop shortcut to launch, or did you open the file on the drive and launch from there? If you launched via the desktop shortcut, you might check and make sure that it's pointing to the correct installation.

Otherwise, the only other thing I can think of at the moment is to keep trying to narrow down the circumstances the issue occurs in. What you've described sounds an awful lot like a memory leak, but there should be some condition that triggers it, aside from playing the game for an extended period without rebooting your PC. I ran across a memory leak in an unstable release once, and the cause turned out to be a problem with item piles(my performance got worse as I made more piles, to the extent that the game was locking up whenever I looked toward my base).

If you're on the VS Discord, you might try asking about the issue there as well.