Brand new PC, here are the specs:

• 7500X3D

• 9070XT

• Silicon Power 1TB UD90 NVMe 4.0 Gen4 PCIe M.2 SSD

• 16GB DDR5 CL30 6000MT/s

Installed RDR2, game runs butter smooth, then i start installing LML and as soon as vfs.asi enters my game folder, the stutters begin, they're every few seconds during traversal and are super annoying.

Here's what i've tried so far:

• https://www.nexusmods.com/reddeadredemption2/mods/1502 every possible version of this mod or any alternative that exists out there, didn't fix it, only makes it "less bad"

• Windows 11 high performance power plan

• Setting the LogLevel to 0 in lml.ini

• Emptying vfs.log and putting the file to read only

• Lowering my refresh rates or graphic settings

• Capping my framerate to 120 (or even lower)

• Only having LML, and not scripthook or anything else (scripthook by itself gives me no stutters, i can run asi mods flawlessly)

I have a decent SSD (more than good enough for something like RDR2 and some mods), a very strong GPU (can run the game on ultra settings easily at averages of 150FPS in St. Denis); yet, these micro stutters happen ALL the time, even with a completely empty mod folder. Unsure if relevant to this topic but search indexing is enabled on my SSD, and it's the only drive i have on this PC (so not "just move RDR2 to a separate drive" as a solution please)

No custom settings or anything of the sort in AMD Adrenalin Software, everything has stock settings there.

I want this to make sense, and i hope someone can help me make sense of it, because i've been looking like a degenerate all over the internet, and some people have had this fixed, but nothing seems to work for me.

Example of the stutters (towards the end of the video): https://streamable.com/imtgw3

Bumping this up because this is still happening to me and i know for a fact i'm not the only one having these horrible stutters. Since the initial post i've reset my PC and the stutters are still there and prevalent, no matter what stutter fix mod i'm using. I'm not sure if it has something to do with a scripthook/vfs compatibility issue, but this needs fixing, or i at least need help

Here's even more recent gameplay (mod list here) with an SSD task manager graph https://streamable.com/u19dee

Edited Saturday at 12:30 AM2 days by ender22WMR

(I have edited this multiple times to add suggestions, be sure to check for the edits.)

I made an account on RDR2Mods just to reply to this when I saw it at random while looking for something else because stuttering is the worst.

I don't have this issue but I can suggest some things, as I have eliminated 99.9% of stutter from my RDR2.

Your system hardware should be absolutely fine for running RDR2.

I would suggest using the 'Balanced' power plan as a daily driver. I'm guessing you mentioned using the 'High performance' plan only as a troubleshooting method.

Make sure you're using these files that facilitate RDR2 modding:

Ultimate ASI Loader X64

ScriptHookRDR2 V2

In ScriptHookConfig.ini set the [Overlay] to Enable = false

I didn't see the overlay in your video but it has been the source of issues for a fair amount of mods.

Search indexing shouldn't be a problem unless it is running across a large amount of files. You can check the status of the indexer in Windows. Once it is finished with the initial 'big indexing' operation it will remain quiet unless you add a lot of files in a short period of time.

Getting your frametime graph flat before adding LML is where I would start.

Cap your FPS. People have reported physics bugs with RDR2 above (I believe) 144 FPS. If you continue to use RDR2's 'Fullscreen' setting you can simply set the refresh rate there to 120. If you decide to use a variable refresh rate you'll need to cap it outside of RDR2 using something like RTSS and cap it slightly below the monitor's maximum refresh rate. There is a formula to follow. For 120 FPS you should cap to 116 FPS.

Personally I keep my RDR2 frametime graph locked at a flat line. I can play for hours and never see it waiver. I give myself plenty of GPU headroom and I have the graphics nearly maxed out plus I have fidelity enhancement mods like LOD increases. I do this by using RTSS and setting the limiter to 'Frametime limit' (not Framerate limit) and using a value of 11111 which is the equivalent of 90 FPS in microseconds. This has a few benefits. You're running the GPU at less utilization most of the time - less heat, power draw, and fan noise while your frame pacing is consistent. There are only a handful of odd areas in the game where I see greater than 95% GPU utilization (but maintain 90 FPS) such as on the porch of the Strawberry hotel under certain time and weather conditions. I usually hover around 60 - 70% GPU utilization.

For RDR2 I would disable any driver based low-latency features. All of the nVidia low-latency options had drawbacks for me. For AMD this should be called Anti-Lag. I have not owned an AMD card since this feature was created so who knows? Perhaps try using Anti-Lag and see if it helps.

Along those lines, try VSync on. It can be combined with FreeSync. Personally I run G-Sync without VSync, but again it doesn't hurt to try.

Triple Buffering 'On' should result in smoother frametimes especially with any 'sync' options.

Until you achieve a flat frametime graph I would disable FSR. You can add it later. However, the FSR2 that RDR2 ships with is quite old and doesn't look great.

You're better off using a mod like Renewal that greatly improves the quality of TAA.

You should be able to override the default FSR2 to FSR4 with Vulkan by using OptiScaler - I have not done this exact override personally but I tested OptiScaler with my RTX. OptiScaler adds a lot of complexity and variables so I would only look into this after you have absolutely everything else sorted. The OptiScaler method does still rely on DirectX12 at some point in the pipeline so it may limit your modding options, as many RDR2 graphics mods are Vulkan only and Vulkan is usually better for performance in RDR2.

Vulkan is typically the best choice for RDR2, but you may want to give DirectX12 a try. (You'll be able to easily override FSR2 to FSR4 with DX12.)

If you stick with Vulkan, set this line in your RDR2 system.xml to 'true':

<asyncComputeEnabled value="true" />

You may also try setting:

<transferQueuesEnabled value="true" />

I know the asyncComputeEnabled option helps to stabilize frametimes. For AMD GPUs I'm not certain about the transferQueuesEnabled setting. Do not set these to true for DirectX12, asyncComputeEnabled for sure will result in glitches. (Experienced this myself when testing OptiScaler using DX12.)

Sidenotes:

Enable Full Resolution Screen Space Ambient Occlusion. Your GPU is powerful enough and enabling it eliminates the 'fizzling' effect shadows have on grass and foliage.

I set Grass Level of Detail to 6 of 10. 10 of 10 has very little visual difference but the performance cost is huge in certain wide open areas.

Parallax Occlusion Mapping Quality on Ultra introduces very noticeable visual artifacts (voids on the ground) in certain areas. High looks nearly as good and doesn't have visual glitches.

Give RDR2 Performance Booster V2 a try. It works wonders for me using Vulkan.

Try running RDR2 as administrator.

Try clearing your RDR2 and AMD shader cache. You'll have to search how to do this depending on where your RDR2 is installed and for instructions on how to clear the AMD driver shader cache. You're basically just deleting some files that will be rebuilt the next time RDR2 is launched.

Finally and maybe most obviously, try only one mod at a time. Start with the .asi mods and add them in one by one. I have some of the mods you have and many more. Catalogue Improvements for example is a very large and ambitious mod that uses multiple scripts and LML, I would add that one last. Ped Damage Overhaul Reloaded is a rock-solid mod, as is Legal and Main Menu Skip. Start with those. RDR2 modding is extremely fickle unfortunately. The game is huge and mods that you may think are 'safe' might not show undesirable behavior until you reach a new scenario / area / time and weather condition / add a new mod etc.

If none of that helps, dive a bit deeper into your system.

Try completely removing your GPU drivers and 'Vulkan Runtime' with DDU. Do some research and find the most stable / bug-free AMD drivers and install those, they will include the 'Vulkan Runtime'. Look up some tutorial videos. You'll need to disable your network interface to prevent Windows from attempting to install drivers automatically, reboot into 'safe mode' and run DDU, reboot normally and install the drivers then re-enable your network interface. Reboot once more for good measure. This will also clear your AMD driver shader cache but not the RDR2 game shader cache. If you clear one type of shader cache it is best practice to clear the other as well.

Look into your AMD Smart Access Memory (SAM) and Hardware Accelerated Graphics Scheduling (HAGS) settings. Having these enabled should result in better performance but you never know - maybe disabling them is your answer.

Unpark all of your cores. Download the 1.0.1.0 version, it is incredibly simple to use.

https://coderbag.com/programming-c/disable-cpu-core-parking-utility

Give LatencyMon a try. It isn't the end-all for latency troubleshooting but it's a start. This can help to spot misbehaving applications and drivers.

If you have high latency that isn't obviously caused by a driver or application try these quick settings: (Use the 'Balanced' plan though, 'High performance' will never allow your CPU to throttle down when doing mundane tasks.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFH8u_283mM

Make sure all your MSI capable devices are in MSI mode, especially your GPU. Download the MSI_util_v3 linked in mbk1969's post:

https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/windows-line-based-vs-message-signaled-based-interrupts-msi-tool.378044/

Or use GoInterruptPolicy.

If you have devices in 'LineBased' mode that are capable of MSI mode change them one at a time rebooting between each change and make sure everything works.

Double check your RAM integrity with Memtest86+

Make sure your BIOS and all firmware is up to date - motherboard, GPU, and NVMe especially.

Good luck, let us know if you figure it out.

Edited yesterday at 04:48 PM1 day by episiotomy

I would suggest using the 'Balanced' power plan as a daily driver. I'm guessing you mentioned using the 'High performance' plan only as a troubleshooting method.

Correct.

Make sure you're using these files that facilitate RDR2 modding:

Ultimate ASI Loader X64

ScriptHookRDR2 V2

In ScriptHookConfig.ini set the [Overlay] to Enable = false

I didn't see the overlay in your video but it has been the source of issues for a fair amount of mods.

Already been doing this from the start, doesn't seem to be making much of a difference if any.

Getting your frametime graph flat before adding LML is where I would start.

Cap your FPS. People have reported physics bugs with RDR2 above (I believe) 144 FPS.

For the frametimes, I've mentioned in the original message that they're pretty much flawless on the vanilla build of the game as can be seen here (TAA, 120FPS cap via RTSS) and here (FSR2 Quality, 120FPS cap via RTSS)

And here is modded, as you can see, it's much, MUCH worse, borderline unplayable, although it "stabilizes" a bit after some play time, they still occur very frequently, night and day compared to vanilla

For RDR2 I would disable any driver based low-latency features. All of the nVidia low-latency options had drawbacks for me. For AMD this should be called Anti-Lag. I have not owned an AMD card since this feature was created so who knows? Perhaps try using Anti-Lag and see if it helps.

My AMD adrenalin settings (clock speed, any option like Anti-Lag) are all default, meaning everything is turned off except for FSR

Along those lines, try VSync on. It can be combined with FreeSync. Personally I run G-Sync without VSync, but again it doesn't hurt to try.

Triple Buffering 'On' should result in smoother frametimes especially with any 'sync' options.

I use freesync already, same thing with triple buffering.

You should be able to override the default FSR2 to FSR4 with Vulkan by using OptiScaler - I have not done this exact override personally but I tested OptiScaler with my RTX. OptiScaler adds a lot of complexity and variables so I would only look into this after you have absolutely everything else sorted. The OptiScaler method does still rely on DirectX12 at some point in the pipeline so it may limit your modding options, as many RDR2 graphics mods are Vulkan only and Vulkan is usually better for performance in RDR2.

Tried optiscaler but an updated version of FSR isn't what's gonna fix my modded RDR2 stutters (and it didn't when i tried)

Try completely removing your GPU drivers and 'Vulkan Runtime' with DDU.

First thing i did when i reset my PC, DDU into latest drivers

Give RDR2 Performance Booster V2 a try. It works wonders for me using Vulkan.

Try running RDR2 as administrator.

Try clearing your RDR2 and AMD shader cache. You'll have to search how to do this depending on where your RDR2 is installed and for instructions on how to clear the AMD driver shader cache. You're basically just deleting some files that will be rebuilt the next time RDR2 is launched.

Finally and maybe most obviously, try only one mod at a time

I've tried every single stutter fix mod out there, none worked, same with clearing shader cache and same with emptying my mod folder, scripthook mods do not cause any stutter when playing, which means it has to be vfs.asi aka LML's file required to load mods

As for every other suggestion, my PC doesn't show any signs of issue; everything's updated to the latest version, my memory test was flawless (albeit i only have one stick of DDR5 RAM currently) and same with latency tests.

Something that's worth noting however, is that whenever i reinstall RDR2, no matter what mod i decide to use, the stutters are completely gone for an entire session, sometimes even 2 sessions, but whenever i load back into my PC another day, it starts stuttering again, and from that point onward it's unfixable and the only way to run the game stutter-free with mods is to uninstall/reinstall, which REALLY confuses me

Edited yesterday at 07:12 PM1 day by ender22WMR
im a dumbass

So, painfully obviously not everything I posted was directly related to fixing stutters. I mentioned removing FSR because guess what? The more you can remove from the process the less complexity you have to deal with. I didn't suggest that a newer version of FSR would help to alleviate the stutters, simply that the option is out there once you get the stutters resolved because FSR2 is less than spectacular. I specifically mentioned that you could try OptiScaler "after you have absolutely everything else sorted".

There has never been a game that stuttered on me that I haven't been able to tame. Stutters can come from anywhere. Nothing should be taken for granted when dealing with stutters, even if you are "sure" that there isn't an issue. I've seen PCs that stuttered and the fix was unplugging the front panel USB interface. I've seen LED controller software as the culprit. Moving the RAM to different slots... then when moved back to the original slots it never happened again. Any single seemingly innocuous thing or combination of things may be the fix.

If you're 100% certain the stutters occur when vfs.asi is loaded then my final suggestion is to look at how vfs.asi is being hooked into memory and what's happening with the display subsystem at that time.

You can use tools like Process Monitor, Process Explorer, Windows Performance Toolkit (follow the instructions by mbk1969), GPUView (uses the same ETL files that WPT uses), PresentMon, and CapFrameX. Windows Performance Toolkit and PresentMon / CapFrameX can log to capture files. Run RDR2 while they are tracing and note exactly when stutters occur then look through the recorded sessions for... whatever the problem is.

If you have other applications that are 'hooked' like .asi files or inject themselves into other processes they can fumble over each other if they are trying to hook into or access the same process.

Good luck.