Stutters since 1.6.7 update

Hi Charles,
Thanks very much again for your tips.
Unfortunately I don‘t have someone who can I test a similar graphics card and ram from. My Fps were already capped at 144.
Also I switch the game to full screen mode and installed the AMD Adrenalin software to test the Freesync and the Enhanced Syc options, but the issue persist. Not the whole time but still there.
So I don‘t have more things to try…
Best regards,
Carlos

 

I brought up Freesync as you have an AMD GPU and never mentioned the specific model of your monitor. The overwhelming majority of displays on the market are Freesync displays (with G-sync displays needing additional hardware modules to operate within spec). The VESA VRR spec is more or less the same thing as Freesync (and even NVIDIA often brands VESA VRR compatiblity as G-sync Compatible). I questioned the lack of driver software previously as I am unsure of how else a user would confirm proper operation of Freesync/G-sync/VRR without having driver software to confirm it. On my own display (LG CX OLED 48), simply enabling Freesync/VRR in the display menu is not enough to actually engage VRR, requiring me to enable variable sync within the NV control panel.

When using an AMD GPU, the Adrenaline control panel will have a similar settings screen for enabling Freesync.


Using in-game v-sync is not known to be a best practice for VRR and could possibly interrupt or prevent VRR from operating normally (which can cause microstutter). Each game implements v-sync in its own way and lots of games don't even make it clear to the end user which type of v-sync is being used (ie double or triple buffered). Sometimes, using the in-game vysnc can prevent VRR from working at all. Additionally, setting your driver framerate cap to something a few Hz lower than your panel's native refresh rate is recommended as it will prevent games from exceeding the variable sync spec window, which will cause its own stutters (this also applies to the lower range of a display's variable refresh rate range). If your display is 144Hz, then setting the driver cap around 140Hz makes sense to keep you in the proper VRR range. Again, many games have their own caps, but implementations can vary wildly so simply using a global cap is always recommended.

 

Failing all other troubleshooting steps, running the game with a performance overlay can help to pinpoint issues. Using such a monitor can provide you with a realtime frametime graph that will show hard evidence of each blip in frame delivery.

Its possible to watch the graph in the performance monitor and see if it aligns with dips in GPU utilization or CPU core usage. Sometimes the stutters have easily identifiable patterns that align with the hardware reporting if you are lucky. If the frametime graph is mostly solid but you still see stuttering, then you know the stutter is not rendering-related.

This was how I determined that AI pitcrews were wrecking performance on my own PC. Each time I circled near the pit straight when AI cars were in their window, I could observe severe imbalances in frame delivery and could confirm if on the frametime graph with certainty. Despite an average fps of 117Hz, the pitcrews caused short spikes to nearly 0 fps in between frames that were otherwise arriving ~8ms apart. These stutters weren't severe enough to alter my average fps readout, but the spikes on the graph were the proof in the pudding, so to speak. Before this, I knew my performance was wrong, but I couldn't pinpoint it exactly without help from the graph.

 

Hi Carlos,
I was thinking.... I built a PC for my son, last year because he had an old PC + a 32' 165HZ screen (freesync one). He plays Fortine, and had micro stutters bothering him. So again....here we are making tests to get rid off this micro stutt.
Computers science can be weird and unexpected . The solution i found to make micro stutt disapear, was to put the graphic whole chain (from windows 60hz to drivers and game) at 60 FPS, despite the screen was 165hz max, and it worked. (the screen reacted very well using lower hz)
Also, we tested different modes of freesync on screen settings, and I remember that it was not using freeesync option on screen and only v sync in game the result was perfect.
Not having a large amount of FPS was disturbing him, but he admitted than the sensation of fluidity was best at 60fps even if less reactive (for competitive FPS its not ideal).

Now he has a new ati graphic card and and no micro stutt (it very early in France, so i won't go in his room turnig on is PC, but i'll go take a look at his settings later)

All this for finally saying that despite it is counterintuitive, it cost you nothing to make this test...who knows.

Charles

 

Thank you Charles, I'll try this test and will tell you how it's going.
Best,
Carlos

 

Thank you very much for your recomendations.
I did install the AMD Adrenalin software and switched on Free Sync (Also my Asus screens are AMD Free Sync Premium compatible and now is activated on them). I´ve capped my FPS to 140 and switched V-Sync off in game and still with pit crew visible only for me, not the AI
Well, the results are quite better. Just have micro-stutters when dusk comes.

Strange is why in this year before since I have this computer and all my in-game graphics settings on "high" it never happened.

 

Hello, I'm worried that you are wasting time. It's like you said, after the patch it changed, there is a bug, many people have this problem, I see it even on the servers that complain about it, but it seems they are afraid to say it here. I also made a post about it, and only Marius responds, other people don't exist. A guy, if you search on Reddit, even said that there was some self-sabotage to later make the corrective patch... haha. Anyway, I'll tell you what I notice. I always play everything at maximum, I use VR. In the race, even if the weather changes and there are 32 cars, everything is fine. In multiplayer, if there are also 32 cars during qualifying, everything is fine. But then the race starts in multiplayer, and if there are 22-24 cars or more, it's the end. It's not just micro-stuttering; the game completely freezes and then restarts. I've lost several races like this lately. ...

 

The best course of action is to post video capture of the game while it's doing this with a frametime graph being displayed. This way the folks at Reiza can get a better idea of possible causes and the extent of the stuttering can be quantifiable. Anyone can post and claim frame drops or similar, but not everyone uses the same terminology and not everyone is as sensitive to stutters as some may be. This is why the frametime graph is key as its takes subjectivity out of the equation.

I've tried to recreate the stutter on my own machine in an attempt to help out earlier in this thread, but I haven't been able to record the graph proof that it's actually happening constantly on either 1.6.7.1 or 1.6.7.2 across a couple of different NVIDIA drivers.

This doesn't mean the game isn't stuttering on some configurations, just that it isn't a mission critical bug that is easily reproducible on most setups.

 

Hi,

I have the exact same issue as you since the update.
I'm happy that I found this topic but I'm sad that there is still no real solution.

I'm also using an AMD graphic cards and I've capped my FPS to 156 (monitor 160).

Before the update AMS2 was running smooth but since the update the stuttering is really disturbing. I hope there will be a long-term solution as the issue is linked to the update.

Other games like LMU are still working fine.

Kr,
Fes

 

I had same issue and it wasn't until this W11 update came through did it resolve itself.
W11 Pro
Ver 24H2
OS build 26100.6725
Win features Exp Pack 1000.26100.253.0

I believe that W11 ver 25H2 also does the same thing.

 

Thx for the hint and good that it solved the issue for you!
I’ve installed it today but sadly it doesn’t work out for me.

 

yeah, that was just one thing, there are many other things as noted above. Probably the most effective is faster RAM.

 

I was having stuttering since the last update as well. Verifying the game files through Steam fixed it for me

 

Thx fir the hint.
Just dit that and it repaired 3 files.
However stuttering for me is still there while my fps keeps on being steady high at max 156 fps.

 

Only other thing I can think of trying is deleting the AMS2 documents folder and creating a new one. I would back up any setups and profiles before doing this though

 

I'm all pissed off following the end of a 4-hour endurance run where I have a stutter bug that I keep encountering and it literally sent me from a front row finish to a DNF. I notice this in every race I do, but this time, the timing of it had me wanting to throw my gamepad into my monitor.

In every extended race I run (ie anything with a pitstop), the game has a hard freeze whenever the pitboard popup display is shown on the screen when your pitcrew calls you in. The whole game comes to a stop for almost a full second and then resumes back to a deadlocked 120Hz immediately after. In the race I just lost, this happened at Oulton Park when I was wheel to wheel mid-corner, fighting for the lead with less than 3 minutes to go. I was so locked into driving and not wrecking that I was not anticipating the freeze and naturally, when the game resumes running normally, my inputs sent me directly into a wall for a full mechanical DNF while the AI skeets along like nothing happened. There are some circuits where the track layout mostly prevents any wrecking issues due to long straights (like the Nords or Spa), but this stuff is driving me nuts.

Light Googling says this is caused by AI pitcrews being spawned but I have that disabled. Each time this happens I can pull up the Steam recording and see the freeze but I am unable to link it to any corresponding issue with CPU or GPU utilization (as the hitch in the game also freezes the performance overlay - though the drop to 0fps is correctly displayed in the frametime graph once the freeze passes). Is this an issue that others have run into or do I need to be nuking my Windows install and starting over on my own setup?

(This is not the race I lost, but I jumped back in to test with an empty tank to try and trigger the pitboard for video evidence of how the freeze presents itself.)

For reference the PC in question:
12900K stock
64GB DDR5 at 6400Mhz w/XMP 30cas
RTX 3080 stock
MSI Z690 w July 2025 BIOS
Game installed on a Samsung 990 Pro 2TB (drive used only for Steam Library)
NV driver 576.80
LG CX OLED at 120Hz w 125% DPI scaling
Game run in Borderless Mode w/vsync disabled
G-sync enabled in NV control panel w/driver fps cap of 117Hz
Windows 11 24H2

 

The latest Intel Present Mon has an added feature called Animation Error. I ran test on several SIM titles and I could see small to medium to large spikes in the Animation Error display graph.
I was looking at a scene, just sitting still on track with about 10 animations happening, and the errors were a very minimum. But, as you drive around a track you see some minimum spikes which don,t appear to cause any hitching, tears, or micro stuttering.
I went through a variety of tracks in AMS2 that I thought would possibly cause errors, but what I saw was that some errors that were high did not actually cause any visual issues.
So, I remembered that some comments from a few drivers that the corners 4 and 5 at Mosport had FPS drops and micro stutters into and out of turn 5.
So, I then checked that whole track for animation errors and saw the larger errors and FPS drops in those two areas of the track.
I don’t know how all the graphics work, but I’m speculating that it has something to do with how many trees, and shadows are present and how the transition from one sector to another sector of the track might not be optimized.
I checked a few other tracks that had a lot of trees, and tracks that had a lot of animations , and a lot of trackside objects, but there was no clear correlation to be found.
The only thing I could find that had any correlation was that whenever I saw any kind of visual issue, it was tied to an animation error spike of medium to high value.
Repeating track runs showed that the animation errors did occur at the same locations, but did not always result in a visual issue.
So, it appears that the tracks all have some sort of errors, but how your pc reacts and handles them can vary, and that may be why graphical issues are so hard to repeat.
Some good info about this can be found at Gamers Nexus YT channel, The problems with GPU benchmarking.

 

All games have errors, some more than others, and all pc configurations react to the errors, some better or worst than others.

I think that if you are still on Windows 23 H2, you are at risk of having random performance.
Probably a good idea to clear out all your shader cache files too, and then run each SIM title until they are regenerated before you try to do any sort of testing.

 

I don't think AMS 2 is gonna generate any shader cache upon startup on account of it not being DX12 or Vulkan.

I have noted framerate drops on certain tracks that always happen in the same spot, though it's different from a stutter in that the avg fps drops altogether rather than fast blips to 0fps and back to 120fps. At Jerez Vanilla/Moto/88, I can reliably drop from 120 to 25-ish fps through turns 4 and 5, but this only occurs during the dawn/dusk transition periods, never at night or day. I re-ran that track with private hotlap practice and was able to recreate the frame drops, so I don't think the field of AI cars has any direct correlation to it.

In the case of these hard frame drops, I see both my CPU and GPU usage (via RTSS and Steam) take dips that directly line up with the frame dropping (at least until I get through to turns 6/7). I've seen several users mention gnarly fps dips on each of the IMSA Track Pack circuits, but I've yet to encounter them on my own systems. I have noticed the dawn/dusk framerate drops at Spa 1993, Donington GP, Watkins Glen (only Inner Loop variants), Laguna Seca, and Silvertsone 1991/2001. Outside of that time change, all of these circuits stay at a deadlocked 120Hz for me (except when pitboards are shown and my whole system freezes for a second - but that is every circuit in the game).

 

Some of the comments on Gamer Nexus YT channel are alternately calling the "Animation Error" as "Simulation Timing Error", which probably more accurately describes what it is actually measuring.

Some also pointed out that latency "shifts" and high jitter are what probably upset the simulation timing the most. So, it would seem that the more stable your whole system is the better it will adapt to in game scene variations, especially when moving fast between scenes with high details, and/or day to night transitions.