Fix game stutter on Win 10 1703-1809

It will show up if you're not running in exclusive fullscreen.

 

how can you disable fullscreen optimizations or game mode globally?

 

You can't, it's always a per app toggle.

 

RS4 had a toggle for it at one point though but it's since disappeared.

EDIT: Well so much for trying to add just the image.
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/104080-enable-disable-fullscreen-optimizations-windows-10-a.html

Apparently this started from Windows 10 RS4 17101 (Current build being 17134) but it's no longer available unfortunately.

Something for RS5 perhaps, curious that a barely two month old build will add a feature and then it's just removed a short while later.

 

Is this still happening? RamMap has been updated for newer versions of Windows 10 and allows viewing specific process and files consuming standby cache.

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/sysinternals/2018/06/01/rammap-v1-51/

 

And I just got confused about FSE-V2 yet again.

That GameDVR_FSEBehavior DWORD constantly sits at a value of 2 for me.
Only the GameDVR_Enabled DWORD changes under this key when I use the "Record game clips, screenshots..." toggle on the Game bar tab of "modern UI" Settings (and that's 0=disabled and 1=enabled).

I don't remember ever changing any of these keys/DWORDs in the registry. But I actually have some more (which could change the effective behavior --- for f'sake, I hate to have masks and secondary override switches for simple on/off toggles with non-obvious name templates...):

Code:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\System\GameConfigStore]
"GameDVR_Enabled"=dword:00000001
"GameDVR_FSEBehaviorMode"=dword:00000002
"GameDVR_HonorUserFSEBehaviorMode"=dword:00000000
"GameDVR_DXGIHonorFSEWindowsCompatible"=dword:00000000
"GameDVR_FSEBehavior"=dword:00000002
"GameDVR_EFSEFeatureFlags"=dword:00000000

All in all, my current registry state (see above) with the strange information in the article (quoted link, which suggests 2=Disabled) seem to be plausible for me because I recently tried using the "compatibility settings" to disable the new FSE mode for some game .exe files (for testing, simply out of curiosity because many seem to be obsessed about it) and observed virtually zero change (not even the way I can switch window focus with ALT+TAB seemed to change and definitely wasn't any significant difference in bechmark results or "the way I felt" about the "smoothness").

Could someone on build 17134.137 show me their registry export? I am starting to feel like I need a clean install, although I also feel more and more motivated to do it with 1607-LTSB instead of the current 1803. (How long before I end up with stale registry values if MS continues to add and remove all these toggles from the GUI? --- Assuming that's the case here... I obviously could be wrong...)

Will all the valid DWORDs reappear with proper default values if I delete the whole key (and then reboot and flip the Game Bar toggles back and forth)?

 

Here what I have ( i have everything disabled in settings page >Gamebar, DVR).
W10 17134.137
"GameDVR_Enabled"=dword:00000000
"GameDVR_FSEBehaviorMode"=dword:00000002
"GameDVR_HonorUserFSEBehaviorMode"=dword:00000000
"GameDVR_DXGIHonorFSEWindowsCompatible"=dword:00000000
"GameDVR_FSEBehavior"=dword:00000002
"GameDVR_EFSEFeatureFlags"=dword:00000000
And here is VM W10, it is missing a few lines (no graphic driver, real games)
All the same as above except there no line "GameDVR_FSEBehavior", I am pretty sure this is clean, unaltered reg in this area.

 

@EdKiefer - Thanks, you saved me a clean install of 1803 in a VM just to check these.
What do you mean by the

though? Your values seem to be fully identical, save for GameDVR_Enabled 1 vs 0 (which seems to be self-explanatory, I had the GUI toggle ON, thus 1).

 

I mean in my VM that line is missing, I thought the reason was that of no vid driver installed.
But my first set of values are from my main system, I can't be 100% that the reg is clean but since it matches myVM it should be correct.
Again, I have all settings off in the game tab of settings, as I don't use any of that.

 

I have this after disabling this annoying FSE piece of crap --

Code:

"GameDVR_Enabled"=dword:00000000
"GameDVR_FSEBehavior"=dword:00000002
"GameDVR_FSEBehaviorMode"=dword:00000002
"GameDVR_HonorUserFSEBehaviorMode"=dword:00000000
"GameDVR_DXGIHonorFSEWindowsCompatible"=dword:00000000
"GameDVR_EFSEFeatureFlags"=dword:00000000
"Win32_AutoGameModeDefaultProfile"=hex:02,00,01,00,00,00,c4,20,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00
"Win32_GameModeRelatedProcesses"=hex:01,00,01,00,01,00,c0,00,c6,02,50,54,c7,02,\
  70,00,61,00,6e,00,65,00,6c,00,2e,00,65,00,78,00,65,00,00,00,8c,00,4e,8d,e1,\
  74,b8,ed,d2,02,18,4c,c7,02,1e,00,00,00,b8,ed,d2,02,1e,00,00,00,0f,00,00,00,\
  30,e7,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00

Those last two entries weren't there last time I looked at this some months ago... Yay Microsoft, more random changes to f.u.c.k up games.
Edit: Dear Guru3D boards, I will swear if I want to. Especially when it's deserved.

 

Well, Win 10 LTSB 1607 proved to be a snake oil for me but I think I got a bit closer to diagnosing the problem I see from time to time (the game stutters a bit while the fps counter shows 60 with Vsync at 60Hz) and I think it's purely V-sync related and could be a driver(/branch) specific thing (not Windows, or at least not Win10 1703+). In scenes where I have >60 fps with Vsync OFF (almost 120 or so) and I turn Vsync ON, the perf-graph occasionally starts to do this (not always, it depends where I stand and look in the game) and I guess these are the moments of the mild stutter (this is with LTSB and "free of crap" 398.36 driver):


Edit: May be it's easier to see the point with full frames:

Spoiler: screenshots (3 big images)

The only difference is the small change to the camera angle, nothing else.

 

Still no way to kill fullscreen optimization?

I tried many things and only checking "Disable fullscreen optimization" in compability works for me... maybe somebody knows how to set Disable by default for all applications?

I find only one .bat on reddit to disable it "pseudo-globally", it's check this option for all previously runned apps (to Disable for new apps you nedd firsly to run app, and secondly run .bat again) and have one problem - it's don't work because it's add to regedit only file name, but Windows want a full path: https://pastebin.com/1twn8geB
"%%~s" returns full path, but it also incompatible - windows want drive letter, but it returns \device\harddiskvolume*.

Also with this bat algorithm i make regedit key to set Disable by context menu of exefile, it's more comfortable for me... but this way also have one problem - to disable optimization for steam games you still need goto game install path.

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\compability]
"MUIVerb"="Disable fullscreen optimization"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\compability\command]
@="reg add \"HKCU\\Software\\Microsoft\\Windows NT\\CurrentVersion\\AppCompatFlags\\Layers\" /v \"%1\" /t REG_SZ /d \"~ DISABLEDXMAXIMIZEDWINDOWEDMODE\" /f\"

It would be cool if somebody will make this ways is better

 

I made utility for that
https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/compatibility-flags-utility.417743/

 

Thanks! This is looks as better way for now Design isn't cool, but comfortable... I would just add openFolderDialog

More interesting how to disable this globally... i have seen some screensots where you can Disable it from Windows Graphic Settings, if it works, it should be some kind of registry value

Spoiler

 

What OS is this, I don't have that option in 17134.137.

 

Also don't have it, but all says this is 17101...

 

I wish I was cool UI designer... Theoretically speaking utility can be re-worked to use WPF in conjunction with MVVM so that all UI can be placed in XAML-file so that users could attach their own UI presentation. But that would be a fight against laziness.

 

I have similar problems...

In my imagination your tool will be more interesting and user-friendly if you replace data table by exe names list with parsed .ico in left side of window, and by clicking some item you will get all options on right side (file exist label, file path label, runas checkbox, fullscreen optimization checkbox, compability modes combobox, apply button e.t.c). When no item choosed, on right side you have buttons to scan folder, scan registry... and maybe multi-choice, to set options for several objects

But it's only your decide what will you do (or not do)... now it's working and it's enough

 

So, I reapplied the "low latency Vsync" tweak (https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/the-truth-about-pre-rendering-0.365860/page-12#post-5380262) for the games I use to test Win 1607 LTSB and 60fps @ 60Hz Vsync is butter smooth while the RTSS limiter is active. The saw-tooths are fully gone from the AB+RTSS frame-time graph (and mostly absent from the built-in Frostbite3 perfgraph or at least significantly reduced in their numbers and magnitudes on the cherry-picked problematic scenes) and I don't see the occasional hiccups anymore (even if a few are still there, I don't really notice them, not bad enough to bother me).

So, I have two theories now:

1:
Vsync was never "perfect" at the first place but I got accustomed to the "good stuff" lately (the low-latency Vsync mode, that is), until something broke the RTSS limiter (good question what but let's keep that for later) and then I started searching for the problem everywhere and eventually got convinced it's Windows (main builds or updates or spectre fixes, or whatever... something felt wrong, so I had to start guessing and the internet is full of "stutter after creators update" stuff, so it was easy to fall for it).

2:
Something really changed in Windows 10 (even in 1607 LTSB if you apply the last official updates offered for that build) what severely affected regular Vsync (which may or may not used to be smooth before, or at least smoother to the point that some rare hiccups didn't bother me in the past) and possibly the no-sync scenario (or FastSync) as well.

I wouldn't rule out either at this point.

If I now upgrade to 1803 (should be possible to go from Enterprise LTSB to simple Enterprise while picking up all the bloat -- preferably after a full backup), I will see if the RTSS or it's limiter stops working and/or if the limiter will still be enough to provide a smooth experience with Vsync.

The other part (getting accustomed to something better and then inadvertently going back to the old and realizing it was worse) is practically impossible to rule out.


Another datapoint is that I used to play some games with FastSync and ~45fps (fairly demanding games in 4k or even 4k HDR) late last year or early this year and I was satisfied. I actually preferred that over "low latency Vsync @ 30Hz". But now FastSync kills me even when the game is running significantly above 60fps. This points to the theories that "something changed" (although the relativity is still in play here as well, it's easy to get accustomed to certain things).
Another notable observation is that no-sync mode feels more erratic than I remember from the past (and that can logically play together with FastSync changes because FastSync just picks frames from the no-sync mode, thus it's less probable to pick frames with ideal timings if the unrestricted stream of frames is "badly timed").


Edit: Hmm. Looks like even setting the RTSS framerate limit slightly above the display refresh (instead of below as the "low latency Vsync" goes) seems to smooth things out with Vsync.
I found this out by accident: on older Windows (like this 1607) some games don't list the 60.00Hz mode but offer the 59.94Hz mode only (HDTV resolution) in FSE. On recent Windows 10 builds (like 1803), these games offer 60.00Hz instead (or both). So I set up the RTSS limiter to 59.99, thinking I will use 60.00Hz (but I didn't, I should have used 59.93 as a limit). Correcting this error makes the built-in prefrgraph of Frostbite3 prettier.

I don't know if this means some Windows update broke the DirectX Vsync function or Vsync remained the same and it's just that it's usual buffering and "back-pressure" is no longer enough to smooth things out in some cases (because something is more "jittery" than it used to be and Vsync can't make miracles).

 

I ended up doing a clean install. This DWORD is now absent from my registry and the new FSE mode is working again. And probably few people will believe it but it actually works much better for me (games run smoother with Vsync ON while the new FSE mode is active).
So, I guess I started noticing stuttering issues when this key got stuck and the new FSE mode stopped working.
I failed to realize I am not using the new mode, though I didn't expect the old mode to be any worse in this regard. If anything, 99.9% of people believe the old mode is far superior, so I didn't suspect the solution would be to use the new mode (and it got broke on it's own, I don't remember disabling it manually).