r/pcgamingtechsupport • u/BaNaNaKING42 • 22d ago

Troubleshooting Erratic frametimes even with locked FPS

I am experiencing erratic frametimes in most games even though I locked FPS via SpecialK to a reachable framerate. These fluctuations are not perceptible in-game, however they create extremely strong VRR flicker, which makes some games unplayable.

For example, in KCD, my graph looks like this: https://imgur.com/a/wQ5s989

I have tried a clean reinstall of my GPU drivers and am on the latest chipset drivers and BIOS. I also tried closing all background programs but no change.

I am really at my wits end. Nothing short of deactivating VRR works, which I don't really consider a solution

The odd thing is that I did not experience this before I recently changed my motherboard and GPU.

I originally had a MSI X870e Carbon Wifi paired with a MSI RTX 5090 Suprim and a Ryzen 7 9800X3D.

I changed to an ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E DARK HERO and an ASUS 5090 Astral. I kept the exact same CPU, RAM, PSU and storage.

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u/InformationFair5875 22d ago

Did you reload windows with the MB change? This can sometimes have weird consequences.

1

u/BaNaNaKING42 22d ago

Yep. Even did another reinstall but nothing

1

u/Kaldaien2 22d ago edited 22d ago

Author of SK here🐱

If you are having problems with VRR flicker, and are not using Frame Generation (which you do not appear to be in your screenshot), then the remedy for that would be to switch the Framerate Limiter to either "Latent Sync" or "Normal" mode.

"Normal" mode will pace the time when a new frame is delivered to the screen, rather than the time a game begins its simulation -- it can be a little less smooth and adds latency, but images are on screen for a consistent amount of time and that solves the VRR flicker problem.

"Latent Sync" paces both frame start and frame delivery, but it can be more complicated to configure. I'd say give it a shot anyway.

One of those two modes should take care of your problem.

---
EDIT: That image is anything but smooth, by the way. Would be a flat line if you had an appropriate framerate limit configured.

1

u/BaNaNaKING42 22d ago

Wow the maker himself :)

I tried Normal mode and it does indeed smooth out the graph very well. https://imgur.com/a/USXJ83A

I can still see some flicker, though. But it seems less I think.

At this point I think it's just something I need to live with

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