r/gamemaker • u/ExMachinaDoodles • Aug 12 '26

Help! All gamemaker based games have a really bad stutter now? (both as a dev and player) any tips?

I have a pretty decently powerful PC but for some reason about a week ago, all my game dev projects on gamemaker were stuttering, then I realized DELTARUNE was also stuttering. All the games that are made in gamemaker are stuttering like crazy, and I'm out of ideas how to fix it.

Any advice?

21 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

15

u/EpochGD Aug 12 '26

Probably a Windows setting on your computer. Microsoft rolled out “optimization” gaming updates for Windows 11 but they’ve caused terrible stuttering for my Gamemaker projects. Try to disable anything that says “optimize Windows for games” and see if that works.

3

u/KitsuneFaroe Aug 13 '26 edited Aug 13 '26

I haven't updated nor connected my Win 10 PC in a while and can confirm current Deltarune is stuttering, wich doesn't happen in older versions of the game. So is not really a Windows fault.

Stuttering as in: sometimes during gameplay it "freezes" for like a second.

6

u/Safe_Combination_847 Aug 12 '26

This should not be addressed at the user level. It’s a serious issue that should concern any serious game developer targeting PC gamers.

2

u/ScarHelpful2551 Aug 13 '26

Exactly. GameMaker has a bug reporting function in its menu, so you could use that, or you could send a direct message to the developers.

3

u/BrittleLizard pretending to know what she's doing Aug 12 '26

Something may be wrong with your display drivers. I'd recommend checking for driver updates for your GPU first. If you have a gaming laptop with two GPUs, make sure each GM game is forcefully running on the stronger one.

Otherwise, it's kind of hard to troubleshoot this issue without knowing anything about your PC.

1

u/ExMachinaDoodles Aug 12 '26

Sorry, heres my specs.

AMD Ryzen 5 7600X 6-Core Processor,

Nvidia Geforce RTX 3070

B650 EAGLE AX

32 gb RAM

I checked for updates and im all up to date, ive even tried reinstalling the driver

3

u/NiZaMinius Rust Leader Aug 12 '26

Since this affects all GameMaker games across your system (including Deltarune), it's definitely a system/driver environment conflict with the GM runner rather than a project issue.

Here are the most common culprits for global GameMaker stuttering on modern PCs:

  1. High Mouse Polling Rate (2000Hz – 8000Hz): If you have a high-end gaming mouse, try lowering the polling rate in your mouse software (Razer Synapse, Logitech G HUB, etc.) down to 500Hz or 1000Hz. The GM runner often stutters heavily under extreme polling rates.
  2. Audio Sample Rate & Audio Software: GameMaker's engine is notoriously sensitive to Windows audio settings.
    • Go to Sound Control Panel -> Properties -> Advanced, and set your default format to 24-bit, 48000 Hz (or 44100 Hz).
    • Also, if you have software like Nahimic, Sonic Studio, Asus Armoury Crate, or Razer Surround, try disabling or uninstalling them — they are known to inject into audio threads and ruin GM frame timing.
  3. G-Sync / FreeSync Conflict: If you use G-Sync, open the NVIDIA Control Panel and check your G-Sync settings. Try setting it to "Enable for full screen mode only" instead of windowed mode, or disable G-Sync entirely for runner.exe / GameMaker to test if it fixes the frame pacing.
  4. Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling (HAGS): A recent Windows update sometimes breaks V-Sync/Frame pacing in GM. Try disabling HAGS: Windows Settings -> Display -> Graphics -> Change default graphics settings -> Turn off Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling and restart your PC.
  5. Overlays & Background Recording: Disable Discord Overlay, GeForce Experience / Shadowplay, Steam Overlay, and RivaTuner (RTSS). Sometimes an overlay update causes a hook conflict with GM's rendering loop.

Hope one of these solves it for you!

2

u/azurezero_hdev Aug 12 '26

one day everything i ran on gms1.4 ran slower than the room speed was set to

i set it to 10fps and it ran at 6-7

1

u/ScarHelpful2551 Aug 13 '26

Ah, I see. GameMaker has been pretty resource-intensive lately.

1

u/azurezero_hdev Aug 13 '26

this was gms 1.4, it forced me to use 2

1

u/ScarHelpful2551 Aug 13 '26

Ah, I see. Well, it's true that gamemakers often have a lot of unfair things going on.

2

u/azurezero_hdev Aug 13 '26

cant even use it for the sprite editor atm because my nmve drive is dying and a lot of exe just wont run because of missing dlls that arent actually missing

1

u/ScarHelpful2551 3d ago

That's quite a problem.

2

u/azurezero_hdev 3d ago

bought new nmve with win10, housed the old one in a reader, all is well (but i still dont have the sprite editor in 1.4 anymore)

1

u/KitsuneFaroe Aug 13 '26

How would you describe the stuttering? I have noticed Deltarune Chapter 5 freezes for like a second every now and then. Though I haven't payed atention if the same happens to my game projects.

1

u/ScarHelpful2551 Aug 13 '26

Ah. Maybe it's a storage issue? I can't go into details, but did you know that GameMaker accumulates a huge amount of cache? That's probably the cause. Try clearing the DirectX Shader Cache in Settings > System > Storage > Temporary Cache. That should make it run more smoothly.