Why does "Ultra Low Latency" mode fix stuttering in some games? (Ryse Son of Rome for example)

Windows System Timer Tool - https://vvvv.org/contribution/windows-system-timer-tool.

 

Yeah, i was looking on the phone and couldnt remember proper name or find proper link..


EDIT:



Im using v1.2 like I mentioned before, but that link above is basically the same, although not so nice looking as this one lol

https://softradar.com/timer-resolution/download/

 

I had a similar experience after moving to X570 and a 3800X with both vega 64 and gtx titan. To my astonishment the biggest improvement resulted from turning off smt and using just the 8 physical cores. Don't necessarily understand why but you could try it easy enough.

 

It's not a big surprise. Hyper-Threading has been around in Intel Core parts for ~8 years and it's effects on the performance of consumer software in general (save for some corner cases like video encoding, synthetic benchmarks, etc.) was always somewhat random. Games in particular usually ran the same or a tiny bit slower with HT, only a few ran faster with it (and only in heavily CPU limited scenarios). It also tends to cause increased latency (at least in the magnitude of real-time tasks, like audio recording - those kinds of people who need low latency tend to disable it).

 

I wouldn't necessarily blame SMT here, e.g. the increased input lag by MT in Source Engine had nothing to do with SMT.
If games can utilize enough threads, it can boost performance enormously (e.g. +35% in Hitman D3D12 on 4C CPU).

 

I tried AC: Od. myself with ULL and recent drivers and it improved frame time consistency there as well:
https://www.forum-3dcenter.org/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=12254471&postcount=1304

 

@aufkrawall2 That's fascinating -- locally I remember trying ULLM for Assassin's Creed Odyssey since that game would micro stutter frequently seemingly at random (even with capped fps via in-game limiter or RTSS), but on my rig I don't recall ULLM fixing the stuttering issue. Still, it's been a long while since I tried.

 

@-Tj- Just a heads-up, I tested out that 1.2 windows timer tool that you provided in that link and it does not resolve the microstuttering issue I have in Crysis 3 (on up to date windows 10 and up to date nvidia drivers / up to date bios too if it matters).

What I did was set the prerender/flip queue settings back to default for Crysis 3 then I ran that timer program as administrator -- then I used the "Maximum" button. This appeared to set the timer to 0.5 if I remember correctly.

I then launched Crysis 3 and observed similar behavior to what I did previously where it would just microstutter a tons. Switched ULLM mode ON in Nvidia control panel and the stuttering disappeared again. I can't remember whether or not this was an issue on my last PC, but I dunno -- just guessing at this point but maybe it's an issue CryEngine has with Ryzen or something? Honestly no clue at this point why ULLM fixes the stuttering.

 

Ah I see, I had to instal intel TA driver back then, but from what people said it's basically this timer tool.

Guess yea it affects Ryzen or your combo differently. At least that ULLM works for you

 

Yeah apparently TA driver did some timer tweaks that then fixed the awful stuttering in Ryse.

@BlindBison
I can reinstall Ryse over the weekend and try it out for science.
Also have a Ryzen CPU.

(I own Crysis 3 too but don't want to redownload it atm. Have a local backup for Ryse).

 

@AsiJu @-Tj- Sorry, but -- what do you mean by "Intel TA driver" -- I Googled it and didn't see an obvious result. Of course this wouldn't apply to me since I'm on Ryzen, but I'm curious all the same in case I'd need to obtain such a driver down the line if I go Intel again for example. Always like to test out this sorta thing when I can. And yup, I hear you -- I'm just relieved that the ULLM mode fixes teh stuttering for these titles (for some reason). It is interesting to me that for Hunt Showdown (a more recent/newer CryEngine game) does not exhibit these issues on my rig in my tests with its default prerender settings/uncapped fps.

@AsiJu Just a heads-up, iirc Crysis 3 is like ~14 gigabytes while Ryse was larger (maybe double? I don't recall exactly) so if you're goal is just testing the file size difference does exist to some extent. Now, of course if you just want to play through Ryse again than disregard what I'm saying here, just a heads-up. Thanks! That'd be really cool if at somepoint you were able to potentially recreate what i'm seeing. No worries if not of course though, I understand people are busy and all that jazz.

 

It's intel technology access driver (ITA)
https://www.win-raid.com/t1220f42-Intel-Technology-Access.html


I googled a bit and found one of my old posts. In my case yes ITA worked and removed fps drops.


https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/r...ur-hitching-stuttering-in-games.402474/page-3


Maybe ULLM also controls this internal timer and sets everything properly. Will check Ryse again one time and see what's up now or in my case if I use that 0.500ms timer.

 

Ok so this timer doesn't work by me either, same fps drops like in that post y2015. Will try ULLM too now


EDIT: ok that didn't help either, funny thing once I disabled ingame supersampling, had it at 1.5x, gpu utilization rose, I used driver dsr 2.25x 1620p and it stayed at max fps and max gpu utilization.

 

I played through Crysis 3 recently with my Ryzen and didn't have any microstuttering at all. Or at least not regular enough to be an issue (compared to the huge CPU related performance issues I had playing Crysis1/Warhead prior to this).
But it was on my Windows 7 drive. So maybe it's only a W10 issue..

 

@MrBonk Perhaps it is a Windows thing, who knows at this point. I guess I could try with GameMode disabled or fullscreen optimizations turned off or something, but I'd be really surprised if that was it.

 

Well by me it's now all the sudden ingame supersampling fault.

Once i disabled that i got ok gpu usage again and high fps.

Windows game mode on, fs opt. On.

 

@-Tj- Yeah, for me the supersampling ON or OFF didn't change anything for the stutter/fps cap so RIP. Would love to better understand what exactly is going on -- I may try out the game mode/fullscreen optimizations later -- I doubt it'll do anything, but worth a shot I suppose to to test.

 

Gave Crysis 3 a shot: Indeed it runs very poorly in grass scenes without ULL ultra when still being GPU bound, just "on" doesn't help much (I already told you that it's not because of the chosen CPU).
I also gave DXVK a try (only works well with Crysis 3 on Linux for whatever reason, it used to work also on Windows) and funny thing is that it even seems to run slightly faster than native D3D11 when being GPU bound (again, prerenderlimit 1 via DXVK doesn't help much):


1080p CPU bound fps:


So, something seems odd, yes. Though I wouldn't bother too much, it's an old and dead game. Things break in proprietary Windows world, for reasons never to find out. What can we do...

 

@aufkrawall2 Yeah, I hear you -- I wonder if something broke in the Nvidia drivers or in Windows 10, etc.

What worries me is that seemingly all CryEngine games I've tested (other than Hunt: Showdown which uses a more modern version of the engine as I understand it) seem to exhibit this behavior for me.

So, Crysis 3, Prey 2017, Ryse: Son of Rome I've all seen this issue happen (and ULLM fix work) on my rig.

But yeah, makes me feel better knowing you were able to reproduce what I'm seeing there Thanks for trying that! Appreciate those screenshots, is helpful.

I guess for now I'm just happy that the ULLM mode enabled seems to fix the issue -- at least there's that.

 

Oh yeah Prey is also Cryengine, been meaning to reinstall it anyway so will.