Potential fix for stuttering (Nvidia cards)

[BabaG]

I tried so many options but i still get Lag Spikes every few seconds or so. My Fps are constant and then for no reason it drops down to 8fps for one frame or so. 

My Specs:

Ryzen 9800X3D

RTX 4080

32GB RAM

Nothing i tried on here is working for me. I'm playing on 1.20.12 and on a server so my Pc isnt really doing much here.

[Mrozak]

10 hours ago, BabaG said:

playing on 1.20.12 and on a server so my Pc isnt really doing much

What is your view distance and what is the server view distance?
Your machine may not be generating new chunks, but it needs to receive that data from the server (amongst other things).
Maybe the server is where the bottleneck is, or maybe the network.

What happens if you run the game locally (without separate server)?
(best to try with the same world settings including seed)

Also, if you are using mods, maybe some mod could be responsible.

[Mrozak]

10 hours ago, BabaG said:

32GB RAM

That should be enough RAM to try disabling the "RAM Optimization" setting, and see if that changes anything.
Look up "OptimizeRamMode" on this wiki page and follow the instructions.I am not saying it will help, but it is one thing to try.

EDIT: also, reading that whole wiki page is a very good idea too.

Edited August 11, 2025 by Mrozak

[BabaG]

I think i found the issue for me. I just disabled the dynamic color grading option and it stopped. Had nothing to do with Ram or anything 

[Krougal]

3 hours ago, BabaG said:

I think i found the issue for me. I just disabled the dynamic color grading option and it stopped. Had nothing to do with Ram or anything 

Y'know, now that you mention it. I have been playing with that on lately and I seem to see some stuttering.

I also for the life of me can't even see any visual difference between on and off.

[ijkdenem]

i may try this when get the time.

[Taragashi]

In my case, the worst offender for stuttering was Discord. Even turning off hardware acceleration or disabling overlays didn’t help. The only thing that worked was to not keep the Discord window open while playing. As soon as I minimized or closed it, the constant stutter I had was completely gone.

Specs:

CPU: AMD 7800X3D

GPU: NVIDIA 4070 Ti Super (driver 580.88)

RAM: 64 GB

Storage: SSD

OS: WIN 11

[DarkInferno]

Besides the stuttering problem, I was also getting flickering issues issues. First it only happened when I played in full screen but then I reinstalled by drivers and it also happened on windowed.

The solution to my flickering was going to nvidia control panel switch the "Vulkan/OpenGL present method" to native. It also improved by performance and reduced my stuttering. I also left v-sync on from nvidia control panel though I don't think that's relevant.

 

Edit: Another setting that fixes the issue is OpenGL GDI Compability from nvidia control panel. Switching to Prefer compatible also fixes the issue but performance worsens and stutters increase. I don't recommend switching this setting.

Edited August 29, 2025 by DarkInferno

[vollukas]

Hell yeah! I also had to leave thread optimization ON, and now I can enjoy even 100% resolution on my 4k 144hz screen, thank you!

Fast VSync mode seems to really help and allows me to cap to 72fps 

Update: Still got random lag spikes  I only managed to run my game smoother by tweaking nvidia settings, but lag spikes to 0 FPS remain no matter what. I bet it's some bug since people experienced the same issue when going from a lower version to 1.21.1 and said it didn't happen before.. some said even after v1.8.

Here is video how it looks. At the beginning of the video I get those spikes and then for a while everything is perfect.. and then random spikes again

Another update: it seems to be mostly affected by max FPS limit. If I limit my fps in game options to anything lower than 144 then those lags are spiking to 0FPS more often. Interestingly Fast Vsync + Ultra NVidia low latency + 72 FPS limit in nvidia control panel seems to also run smoother, so I will experiment further to pinpoint the problem.

Edited September 19, 2025 by vollukas
somehow better

[vollukas]

Guys I made a serious mistake the whole time I had Dev mode turned on in settings and since I turned it off I didnt get a single studder I hope it will stay this way, it makes sense that I had studders when Dev mode was scanning for extra stuff at some places at some times  gl to others on optimizing your game 

 

[subninja]

I fixed this on my end 100% - after travelling through a translocator (or running a distance), I would get constant spikes of 0fps every few seconds. I used the instructions from the wiki about framerate and performance to diagnose, particularly the following:
Tip: You can troubleshoot the possible causes of lag spikes yourself by running the command .debug logticks 40 and then afterwards examining the `client-main.txt` log file in VintagestoryData/Logs.
For me - it was the Cave Symphony mod, and this was really easy to see in the logs. I disabled the "wind howl" system (as recommended by the mod author) and my problems went completely away.

Highly recommend that debug command - for me it fully explained the causes of my hitching.

Edited September 24, 2025 by subninja

[DUCATISLO]

cool

[Ruggy]

Just wanted to confirm that this still works, as I followed OP's steps (the Nvidia control panel max FPS was set to 288 since I have a 144hz monitor) and I'm no longer getting the stuttering ever 10 seconds in my modded singleplayer game.

Specs: 9800x3d CPU, 4080 super GPU, 32GB 6000mhz ddr5 cl30 RAM.

In game settings:

Basically everything set to max/enabled with my view distance being 768 blocks.

[Mr Friendly]

Thank You! This helped so much.

[Modehunter]

Thanks! This fixed a lot of the really bad stuttering I was having.

Edit: As someone said earlier, Dynamic Color Grading seems to cause a good chunk of stuttering. If anyone is having issues with suttering, try the settings in the original post and then turn off dynamic color grading.
Also, setting "Vulkan/OpenGL present method" to "Prefer Native" helps with performance a lot.
Another edit: Edited a few settings and Dynamic Color Grading no longer seems to be an issue?
Anyways, just tweak and experiment with the game and Nvidia Control Panel settings while running back and forth to see if the stutters disappeared/lessened.

Edited November 6, 2025 by Modehunter

[polskiwygibus]

This may not be helpful, but I tried all of the above suggestions and none of them worked.

The only way to get smooth gameplay was to downgrade the client to version 1.20.12. 

All stuttering issues disappeared. 

[BauNik]

On 9/24/2025 at 1:53 PM, subninja said:

I fixed this on my end 100% - after travelling through a translocator (or running a distance), I would get constant spikes of 0fps every few seconds. I used the instructions from the wiki about framerate and performance to diagnose, particularly the following:
Tip: You can troubleshoot the possible causes of lag spikes yourself by running the command .debug logticks 40 and then afterwards examining the `client-main.txt` log file in VintagestoryData/Logs.
For me - it was the Cave Symphony mod, and this was really easy to see in the logs. I disabled the "wind howl" system (as recommended by the mod author) and my problems went completely away.

Highly recommend that debug command - for me it fully explained the causes of my hitching.

When you say looking through the logs, what exactly do we look out for? I'm not all that tech savey so I'm not entirely sure what to search for...