How to Fix Stuttering in PC Games: The Complete Guide

Stuttering is uneven frame delivery. Most frames arrive on time, but some take several times longer, and you see each slow frame as a hitch, even when the FPS counter looks high. It is a different problem from low FPS, and it needs different fixes.

This guide covers how to measure stutter, then each common cause with the pattern that points to it and the fix for it. It sits under our PC game troubleshooting guide, which covers crashes, launch failures and error messages.

Stutter vs low FPS: what frame times show

Frame time is how long one frame takes to draw, in milliseconds. At 60 FPS, every frame takes about 16.7ms. At 144 FPS, about 6.9ms.

Low FPS means every frame is slow: frame times are high but even. Stutter means frame times are uneven: a flat line of 7ms frames with occasional spikes to 40ms or 100ms. A single 100ms frame is a visible freeze, but an FPS counter that averages over one second barely moves.

The fixes for low FPS, such as lowering resolution, often do nothing for stutter. That is why the first step is to measure.

How do you measure stutter?

You need a frame time graph, not just an FPS number.

1. Use a frame time overlay. MSI Afterburner with RivaTuner Statistics Server can show a live frame time graph. The NVIDIA app overlay (Alt + R) and AMD Software’s metrics overlay (Ctrl + Shift + O) can show frame time or 1% low figures.
2. Watch the 1% low. The 1% low is the frame rate of the slowest 1% of frames. A big gap between average FPS and the 1% low, such as 120 average and 35 at the 1% low, confirms stutter.
3. Note when it happens. Write down whether spikes appear when you see a new effect, enter a new area, turn the camera, alt-tab, or at regular intervals. The pattern points to the cause.

Shader compilation stutter

Shaders are small programs that tell the graphics card how to draw surfaces, lighting and effects. They have to be compiled for your specific GPU and driver before they can run.

Microsoft’s Direct3D 12 documentation describes how shaders are combined into pipeline state objects that are created ahead of drawing. If a game creates those during play instead of in advance, the frame waits while the work happens, and you see a hitch the first time each new effect appears.

The pattern is distinctive: hitches the first time you see something, which disappear when you see it again.

What to do:

• Let pre-compilation finish. Many games show a “compiling shaders” or “optimizing” step at the menu. Wait for it to reach 100 percent before you start playing.
• Expect it to improve. The driver caches compiled shaders, so a level gets smoother the second time through.
• Don’t clear the shader cache without a reason. Clearing it forces everything to recompile. Clear it only if a driver or game problem is suspected.
• Keep the cache size reasonable. In the NVIDIA Control Panel, Manage 3D settings → Shader Cache Size should not be set to Disabled. AMD Software has a shader cache option under its graphics settings.
• Expect a return after updates. A new graphics driver or game patch invalidates the cache, so some stutter comes back for a session or two.

Some games handle this poorly, and the remaining stutter is a problem only the developer can fix in a patch.

Traversal and asset streaming stutter

Large open-world games don’t load the whole world at once. They stream textures, models and sound from the drive as you move, and load new areas in the background.

When that loading can’t keep up, the game waits for it, and you see a hitch at the same points in the world every time, often when moving quickly or entering a new region.

What to do:

• Install the game on an SSD. This is the most important fix. An NVMe SSD is best; a SATA SSD is a large improvement over a hard disk.
• Lower settings that increase streaming. View distance, level of detail and texture quality all increase how much data has to load.
• Keep the drive from filling up. SSDs slow down when nearly full. Leave 10 to 20 percent free.
• Check for patches. Traversal stutter is often a game issue that gets improved in updates.

VRAM and RAM limits

Video memory (VRAM) is the graphics card’s own memory, which holds textures and other data the GPU needs. When a game needs more than the card has, data has to be moved in and out of VRAM during play. Microsoft’s Direct3D 12 documentation calls this residency: what is resident in GPU memory and what has to be paged in when it is needed. Paging during a frame causes hitches.

The pattern is stutter when turning the camera in detailed scenes, or after you raise texture quality.

What to do:

1. Check VRAM use in your overlay or in Task Manager’s Performance → GPU tab, under Dedicated GPU memory.
2. If it is at or near the card’s total, lower texture quality one step. This frees the most memory with the least visual cost.
3. Lower resolution or turn on an upscaler, and reduce ray tracing, which also uses VRAM.
4. Close other GPU-heavy programs, such as browsers with video, while you play.

System RAM works the same way one level down. When Windows runs out of RAM, it moves data to the page file on the drive, which is far slower.

What to do:

1. Open Task Manager with Ctrl + Shift + Esc and watch Memory use while you play.
2. If it is near 100 percent, close browsers, launchers and other apps you don’t need.
3. Leave the Windows page file set to System managed. Disabling it can cause crashes, not just stutter.
4. If the game needs more than you have, upgrading from 8GB to 16GB, or 16GB to 32GB, is the fix.
5. Make sure your RAM runs at its rated speed. If an XMP or EXPO profile isn’t enabled in the BIOS, it runs slower than it should.

Storage: HDD vs SSD

A hard disk is the single most common hardware cause of stutter in modern games. Its mechanical heads have to move to each piece of data, which makes the many small reads a game makes during play slow.

If a game is on a hard disk and you have an SSD with space, move it there using the launcher’s move or library feature. Many current games list an SSD in their minimum requirements.

If a game keeps stuttering after a crash or an interrupted update, its files may be damaged. Our guide on how to verify game files covers the repair for each launcher.

Background apps and overlays

Software running alongside a game competes for the CPU and the drive. When something wakes up and works for a moment, the game’s frame waits.

The pattern is stutter at regular intervals, every few seconds or every minute, regardless of where you are in the game.

Common causes:

• Cloud sync: OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox
• Antivirus scans and Windows Update downloads
• Browser tabs playing video
• Overlays and capture: Discord, Steam, GPU overlays, recording software
• RGB, fan and peripheral utilities that poll hardware constantly
• Hardware monitoring tools set to very fast polling

What to do:

1. Close or pause each of these and test again.
2. If you can’t find the culprit, do a clean boot. Microsoft’s instructions use System Configuration (msconfig): on the Services tab tick Hide all Microsoft services, click Disable all, then disable start-up apps in Task Manager and restart.
3. If the stutter disappears in a clean boot, re-enable services in small groups until it returns.
4. Undo the clean boot when you’ve finished testing.

VSync, frame caps and VRR

Some “stutter” is really uneven frame pacing: frames arrive at irregular intervals relative to the monitor’s refresh. It looks like judder rather than sharp hitches.

VSync makes each frame wait for the monitor’s next refresh. When FPS drops below the refresh rate, it can bounce between full and half rate, for example 60 and 30, which looks like stutter.

Variable refresh rate fixes this at the source. VESA added the Adaptive-Sync capability to the DisplayPort standard, and G-Sync and FreeSync use the same principle: the monitor refreshes when each frame is ready.

What to do:

1. Enable G-Sync or FreeSync in the GPU control panel and in the monitor’s own menu.
2. Cap the frame rate a few FPS below the refresh rate, for example 141 on a 144Hz monitor, using the game’s limiter if it has one.
3. Check that Windows is set to your monitor’s full refresh rate under Settings → System → Display → Advanced display.
4. A steady cap below your peak FPS often feels smoother than an uncapped rate that swings widely.

For borderless or windowed games, Microsoft’s Optimizations for windowed games setting, under Settings → System → Display → Graphics, moves compatible games to a newer presentation model that supports variable refresh rate.

Drivers and Windows settings

• Graphics driver. Install the current driver from NVIDIA, AMD or Intel. If stutter started right after a driver update, roll back to the previous version.
• Game Mode. Leave it on under Settings → Gaming → Game Mode. It stops Windows Update from installing drivers mid-game.
• Power mode. Set Settings → System → Power & battery → Power mode to Best performance, and keep laptops plugged in.
• GPU selection on laptops. Set the game to High performance under Settings → System → Display → Graphics so it runs on the dedicated GPU.

Hardware causes: temperatures, XMP and power

When stutter gets worse the longer you play, or appears in every game, look at hardware.

Heat. A CPU or GPU that reaches its temperature limit slows down to protect itself, which can cause stutter as well as lower FPS. Watch temperatures and clock speeds in your overlay. Clean dust from fans and filters and check case airflow.

Memory profile. An XMP or EXPO profile that isn’t fully stable can cause stutter and crashes. If problems began after enabling one, turn it off in the BIOS to test.

Power. On desktops, an ageing or undersized power supply can cause instability under load. On laptops, running on battery or a weak charger cuts performance sharply.

Per-launcher fixes

• Steam: if a game stutters after an update, verify its files. Turn off Steam → Settings → Downloads → Allow downloads during gameplay so updates don’t start mid-session.
• Epic Games Launcher: pause downloads while you play, and disable the launcher’s overlay if the game offers it.
• Battle.net and EA app: close the launcher’s in-game overlay and stop background downloads.
• Xbox app: turn off the Game Bar overlay under Settings → Gaming → Game Bar if you don’t use it.

The order to work in

1. Measure frame times and note when the spikes happen.
2. Match the pattern to a cause using the table above.
3. Fix the cheapest causes first: background apps, VSync and refresh rate, texture quality.
4. Move the game to an SSD if it’s on a hard disk.
5. Check RAM and VRAM use, and upgrade only if they’re full.
6. Check temperatures and the memory profile.
7. If a single game still stutters on a healthy system, check for a patch or a known issue on its official support site.

If the problem is a low frame rate overall rather than hitches, our PC gaming performance guide covers settings, upscaling and latency.