Windows Stuttering/low fps after gpu change

[Matias]

Hi! I'm new here, sorry to bother you guys with technical problems but I need some help.

I started playing Stardew Valley this year, with this pc:

Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
Intel Core i7 6700K @ 4.00GHz
Asus Z170 pro gaming aura
32GB ram 2400 mhz
monitor LG 23MP55 (1080p@60hz)
gpu sapphire nitro rx480 8gb

I had no problem game was smooth as butter, 60 fps all times. But then mi gpu died, so for a month I played with the onboard graphics.

Intel HD Graphics 530

Again no problems at all, gameplay smooth as butter, 60 fps. I played this way for 3 weeks approximately, then I got some money for a new graphics card.

Asus GTX 1650 4gb

This is when the problems started, now the game stutters all the time. The first thing that happens when I open the game is this sudden drop in frames at the logo, then it goes up to 60 and goes up and down between 40-60 fps, with sudden drops. It's really annoying and I was enjoying the game so much and I really want to continue playing. It's not unplayable but it's really killing the fun, I have to say that I'm not enjoying the game anymore, this is my first playthrough btw so I'm discovering everything for the first time and I was having a blast.

I've tried several things now:
- uninstaling and reinstalling the game (several times)
- cleaning drivers with Display Driver Uninstaller and clean nvidia drivers install
- uninstaling nvidia experience
- disabling vsync
- changing from window to borderless to fullscreen
- changing graphic settings (flash effects, transparency, lightning)
- set priority to high on task manager
- disable "cpu 0" on task manager
- setting on "Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling" on windows graphic settings

Nothing worked, I'm running out of ideas I've been searching for the last couple of days for solutions. I'll try to record a video of the problem. Anyways I hope someone has a solution for this, because it looks like SV really hates my graphics card.

Sorry for my bad english and thanks in advance!

 

[Lew Zealand]

Hi Matias and Welcome to the Forums! First off, you've done all the things I'd try on your computer (especially DDU) and even some I've heard of but haven't needed to try yet.

If you bought the game from Steam, you could try Compatibility/Legacy Mode as that's fixed some issues for people. In Steam:

Gear Icon --> Properties --> Betas --> Select compatibility - For 32-bit systems. The legacy, XNA version of Stardew Valley.

 

[Matias]

Hi @Lew Zealand ! thank you very much for your reply. So, I tried your solution and it helped a little, the game stutters less frequently (let's say instead of every minute, it's now stuttering every 2-3 minutes) and the frame drop is not as bad (50-60). The game crashed a few times tho.

After that I tried some new things and I think I've found a solution. I turned on "Image Scaling" (NIS) in the nvidia panel at 50% sharpen. And that finally "fixed" the frame dropping. Now it stutters a little bit at the beginning but after a few minutes it locks at 60 fps. The game also "feels" much better, without image scaling there's a weird delay all the time, even when the game is not dropping frames.

Now the game feels quick and responsive, it's the same experience that I had playing with the amd card and with onboard graphics. The bad thing now is the severe vertical desynchronization, even with vsync on ingame and in the nvidia panel. I will be playing the game this way because the vsync doesn't bother me as much as the stuttering. At least the gameplay is smooth this way, ingame text and some sprites looks a little weird too (due to the sharpening in the image scaling).

I'll try tinkering with the options and I'll report back if I find new things, hopefully this will help people with the same problem.

 

[Lew Zealand]

Wow, that's an interesting fix (or big improvement as it seems it's not 100% fixed) I wouldn't have thought of. What I really don't get is that I play on Nvidia, AMD, and integrated Intel graphics on various PCs as well as Intel iGPUs on Macs and don't see these weird graphical problems that you and many other people have described. And they're not consistent, either. Some things work for some people, others for different people and unfortunately no fix or improvement at all for some. Very frustrating.

 

[fraiselle]

Hello! So I tried both solutions described above as I have the same issue. I still see some heavy frame dropping but then I changes the beta to none and it triggered an update. This seems to have improved the issue considerably

 

[Matias]

Hi! thanks for the replies, like you said it's very frustrating.

So, I've been playing a lot last week and I've been testing and tweaking the graphics card configuration. I pretty much narrowed the solution to turning on NIS in the control panel, the weird thing is I play the game in 1080p so the scaling is actually disabled while playing. I turned the overlay indicator on and I can see the NIS logo in blue (meaning scaling is disabled)... so NIS is disabled but fixes the game anyways.

The other thing is some stuff looks a little bit wonky. Like some pixels wobble a bit when there's movement on screen or some sprites have a tiny super small white border, nothing too bad just weird but maybe that's just the way this card renders the game. The good news is the solution is consistent, and I've been playing for hours and hours and after a few minutes the game is absolutely fine. The vsync problem pretty much solved itself after changing from windowed to fullscreen a few times.