Weird FPS Stuttering during Video Games

armeddonut

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Apr 28, 2013
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Hey guys, I'm usually pretty familiar with fixing problems on computers on a basic level but this one has me stumped. Any game I play( Arma 3, Starcraft, Company of Heroes 2 Beta, Far Cry 3) I am experiencing a stuttering lag. Basically it's running at full 60 frames per second or sometimes more, but when I run or move around it has this weird stutter to the frame rate. Like when I sprint it stops, then goes then stops and goes, but very quick and sometimes very small.

-I've put everything on the lowest setting. Game runs at 100 FPS but still stutters

-Made sure there was no dust in the fan.

-It was still very cool to touch on the laptop so temperature is not an issue.

-Display Driver is compeltely up to date by Vaio Care standards ( since I can't update it though ATI's website.

I have a new sony vaio laptop with a Radeon 7650M and here are my full specs. One thing I am concerned is Vaio Care has this performance enhancer option, but I have to pay 9.99 per year to use it. I am hoping Sony is not that corrupted where I need to be micro transacted to make my computer work better, but I can see that happening now a days.

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3632QM CPU @ 2.20GHz (8 CPUs), ~2.2GHz
Memory: 8192MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 8140MB RAM
Page File: 2107MB used, 7311MB available
DirectX Version: DirectX 11

AMD Radeon HD 7650M
Manufacturer: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Chip type: AMD Radeon Graphics Processor (0x6841)
DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
Display Memory: 5839 MB
Dedicated Memory: 2025 MB
Shared Memory: 3813 MB
 

bryonhowley

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Oct 24, 2011
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Try going into your BIOS and then disable Hyper Threading from what I have read games and Hyper Threading do not play nice together. That is the main reason most recommend i5's for gaming rigs instead of a i7.

Have you tried to use the AMD Catalyst™ Notebook Display Driver Verification Tool from AMD's Web site? Manufactures do not always have the latest AMD or Nvidia drives on there own sites.

It is also worth noting that not all games play nice on laptops simply because they are optimized to run on desktop PC and not laptops.
 

bryonhowley

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Oct 24, 2011
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OK well that sounds more like your network connection then. Are you on a wired or wireless connection? Beyond that I can't say for sure since I have never played any multiplayier game ever but I am sure some one else will help.
 

armeddonut

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Apr 28, 2013
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Hey guys, thanks for responding so fast. No this is offline and online I made sure to check on that if it was my network.

Can you tell me how to disable Hyper Threading from my BIOS? Windows 8 is still tricking me out if you can, or I can try to search it.

Now here comes my next question in regard to the updating of the display driver. I would like to use the new drivers from the actual AMD website, but they say they are not compatable with Sony Vaio laptops. Now I would like to try out the new Beta 13.5 drivers that supposedly help with stuttering, can I force it on this laptop some how? or was Sony really mean and corrupted when they made this so I cant?
 

GavinLeigh

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Jun 30, 2006
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You should try turning your game video settings to the lowest settings (like 800x600) and low detail. It will look terrible, but watch for stuttering at those settings. If it plays smoothly at low settings then it's possible the machine just doesn't have good enough video to play those games at decent frame rates. Try downloading "Fraps" and use it to see what the real frame rate is. It may not be stuttering, it's more likely a very low frame rate (10 to 15 fps).
 

armeddonut

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Apr 28, 2013
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Thank you for your reply and help Gavin, though in my original post I said that I have put it into the lowest setting and it runs amazing. The stuttering is very quick, it's not usual FPS lag. It's like sprinting, then a millisecond stop. This wouldn't be a problem if it didn't happen so often ( like every 5 secs it seems like)
 

GavinLeigh

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Jun 30, 2006
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Not sure but it could be a background process taking up CPU resources. I've had issues where a stupid piece of "bloatware" is checking for updates all the time and caused issues. It can also happen with antivirus software too. Sometimes a background process with pull data from the hard drive and because notebook hard drives can be slow there can be a whole system stutter. Not so noticeable with an SSD installed. I'd look to see if you have anything running in the background you don't need and uninstall them. You should be able to disable hyperthreading from the notebook BIOS or UEFI settings by initiating a complete notebook shutdown.
 

armeddonut

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Apr 28, 2013
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Ok, I'll be sure to check that too. I had Kaspersky internet running consistently in the background and disabled that and went to Windows firewall instead (since I heard it's just as fine). Right now I am googling like crazy on how to disable hyper threading since I went to the UEFI settings and there wasn't an option. Turns out, I can't from a sony vaio! Wow, not having a fun experience with this.
 

GavinLeigh

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Jun 30, 2006
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I'm out of good ideas but it sounds driver related, but I appreciate you don't have any options to upgrade that. Stupid Sony for using non-reference drivers, I truly hate that you have to wait for the hardware vendor to upgrade drivers (maybe sometimes... maybe never). I recommend you report the issue to Sony support... maybe if enough people suffer and report issues they'll update the drivers.