Weird stutter on my new laptop

[BaksteenNL]

Hi smashboards,

So a few days ago i bought a new latop (model and specs below), I was mainly looking for a solid laptop for my work/school, on which I could also play netplay. I know this laptop isn't a gaming laptop, but I didnt think I needed one because I could play netplay on my random 8 year old desktop (specs below), which I didn't modify whatsoever, without any problem. Till now this laptop has been really smooth but when I play melee it stutters eventhough the in game fps meter doesnt go below 60 (it does go to 61 a lot). This mainly occurs when someone/shield is hit with a move and is worse when I actually play against someone online. Due to the fact that this laptop is an upgrade to my desktop I find this hard to understand. I've already tried closing my virus scanner, putting the priority on high, set the power settings to high performance, tweaking some nvidia settings and closing all other programs. Can anyone explain why it stutters so much? Are there settings in nvidia programs or in dolphin itself that can help?

note* I have about 600 online games experience on smashladder and offline so i do know that my desktop couls actually run it smoothly. Haven't overclocked anything and on my desktop i also closed all programs, set the priority on high and could have spotify and smashladder open for it to run fine. I don't know a lot about computers and dont't play any other games, cuz melee is the only game u need.

Help is much appreciated boys!

New laptop (LENOVO IDEAPAD 510-15ISK 80SR00FCMH): Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6200U CPU @ 2.30GHz Video Card: Intel(R) HD Graphics 520 Video Card #2: NVIDIA GeForce 940MX RAM: 8.0 GB Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 (build 14393), 64-bit

Old desktop: Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3 CPU 530 @ 2.93GHz Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GT 320 RAM: 4.0 GB Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Edition Service Pack 1 (build 7601), 64-bit

 

[Pauer]

First, I would download a fresh version of FM. Then I would reinstall Visual C++ Redistributable 2015 (first uninstall it, check that FM doesnt work and install it again). If that doesn't fix it, maybe there is an issue with some drivers. I would first check for driver updates and see if that solves anything. I can recommend the free version of driver booster for updating drivers. If updating doesn't help, I would reinstall the display driver and see if that does anything.
If all of that fails, it might be your operating system. Had a similar problem once and I had the same kind of mini-stutters but with every game. My issue was probably a virus/trojan/malware or some issues with windows, drivers or runtimes, probably windows. After reinstalling Windows, I had no more problems.

I've reinstalled Windows a bunch of times so if you consider doing so, I can probably help you make it less difficult than it has to be.

 

[BaksteenNL]

Turns out my laptop had an older version of Visual C++ installed, after installing the 2015 one it seemed to be working really good. FM is still rendering in everything so is still a little slow, but it all seems good. Thanks a lot man. U dah man!

 

[BaksteenNL]

Owke.. So after a few hours of testing i've come to the conclusion that dolphin/FM still stutters/is really jittery. I've also updated all drivers. Do you know if my laptop should be able to run it? And do you think reinstalling windows will have any effect as my laptop is brand new? If yes please help me.

 

[Pauer]

Yes your laptop should be able to run FM just fine. You sent me this video of your issue in a private message:

In the video I cannot make out any jitter or stutters, it looks like there are some weird artifacts produced. This issue might be easily solved by messing with some dolphin settings. Most of the settings come with a description that states how likely issues are to happen. It can also make sense to optimize your settings according to the official performance guide.

If that doesn't help, you might have some sort of issue with the driver/registry/etc. and reinstalling windows might help. If you have a genuine copy of Windows, I would simply do as the following video instructs and see whether you get any improvements afterwards:

I've never reinstalled Windows that way myself and I am not sure what exactly gets replaced/updated that way. It might be an easy fix. After you reinstalled Windows, make sure to use Windows update and see whether there are any improvements.

 

[BaksteenNL]

Oke, I was changing some settings and found out that if you set 'render to main menu' makes the 'weird artifacts' or jitter go away. After that I reinstalled windows and turned out that after doing that I didn't even need to set 'render to main menu' for there to appear no jitter. However my laptop still slows down on netplay, especially on fod and doesn't slow down on yoshi's. On a dolphin hardware forum (https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-planning-on-getting-this-laptop-how-well-can-it-run-dolphin) I read that an ultra low voltage cpu, which i have, isn't great to have on a laptop for dolphin. This might be the reason why it slows down. Do you know if this is true?

Note: I can still return this laptop, so if i can't fix this problem will just return it and make a new thread asking about which model i should get.

 

[Pauer]

They're talking about those kind of cpus having a tendency to throttle themselves. I don't know whether this is that much of an issue. Like one of the replies mentioned, you should be able to use all of your laptop's available performance by using ThrottleStop or a similar program. Be aware that your laptop might get really hot using it. Use some sort of monitoring program like OpenHardwareMonitor to check that your cpu and gpu stay below 75°C.

 

[BaksteenNL]

Hi again,
Soo the issue was never fixed. I decided to upgrade my laptop a few months ago, but I didn't really have the these months to test it. Even though this laptop has a far better CPU and a better graphics card i'm still having the same issues. It feels like my laptop doesn't get 60 fps consistently and a lot of inputs are lost. I've reinstalled windows, reinstalled visual C++, updated my driver, tried tweaking a lot of settings in dolphin itself and also some nvidia settings. When I play on the standard settings, I see a lot of "weird artifacts" around some textures. I'm able to remove these, but the lag doesn't go away. The lag is most noticeable on stages like battlefield/fod/FD and the least on yoshi's story. Because of this I thought that upgrading my laptop might help, but it didn't . The CPU is a quad core and when I use dolpin the CPU usage is around 20%. I really don't know what the problem is . Has anyone had the same problem? Does anyone know how to fix it (can also be an option in dolphin or nvidia, have tried a lot but not all of them)? When I asked around on reddit someone told me that laptops normally aren't good to run melee on. What have your experiences been like using a laptop for melee?


New pc specs:
Processor
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz
Video Card
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M
Video Card #2
Intel(R) HD Graphics 530
RAM
8.0 GB
Operating System
Microsoft Windows 10 (build 14393), 64-bit

 

[Pauer]

are you using an external monitor or your laptop's screen?

 

[BaksteenNL]

I'm using my laptop's screen with the refresh rate set at 60 Hz.

 

[Pauer]

Do you have an external monitor? Try connecting it to that and see how it runs then.

 

[BaksteenNL]

So I connected my laptop to the screen of my old desktop and it worked perfectly. Steady 60fps and no hiccups. Gonna be looking for a new monitor . I saw you responded on a thread giving advice on monitors so i'm gonna be looking there. Thank you man!

 

[Pauer]

So I connected my laptop to the screen of my old desktop and it worked perfectly. Steady 60fps and no hiccups. Gonna be looking for a new monitor . I saw you responded on a thread giving advice on monitors so i'm gonna be looking there. Thank you man!

It probably isn't the monitor. What I suspect is that the laptop is using the integrated graphics (intel HD graphics) when you play on your laptop screen (perhaps only when playing dolphin), which might just not be enough to handle melee. Since the integrated graphics(Intel HD) are enough to do most everyday tasks and drains much less power, laptops will prefer to only use the integrated graphics over the dedicated graphics card (GTX 950M) for normal use. I am not sure exactly when the laptop changes from one to the other but the dedicated graphics are usually used when an external monitor is connected, which is why I asked you to try.
In this thread on tomsguide, people mention a couple ways of making sure that you are utilizing the dedicated graphics (GTX 950M) even with your laptop's screen. Try things out from top to bottom, including the things that the OP had already tried. Maybe that wil solve your problem. Long term, it might be smart to get an external Monitor anyways, since Laptop screens tend to have 16ms+ (1frame) of input lag.

 

[BaksteenNL]

I've tried a lot of things mentioned in this thread. The only thing I haven't done is reinstalling windows to roll back my nvidia driver to the default driver. I've checked if my nvidia GPU is active when playing melee and it is, Here are 2 screenshots to show that the GPU is active. http://imgur.com/a/03YRp http://imgur.com/a/3yOrr
It's in Dutch but the text translates to "Applications that are being run on this GPU" I will still reinstall windows when I'm done with my exams tho , but not really hopeful that it will work.

 

[BaksteenNL]

So I've tried playing on an external monitor again today. Turned out that I still had some nvidia settings set on something other than default that caused some input but seemed to help the lag a bit on my laptop. This caused crazy input lag online and it also kinda lagged. I thought it helped because the fps was always 60 instead of the sudden bumps to 61 (these are the moments that I notice the lag), but it still lagged and when I returned these settings to the default exactly it was exactly the same as playing on my laptop. I don't think it's my integrated graphics card . Please help.

 

[Pauer]

Well, can you specify how the issues look/feel or maybe make a video again? I guess you don't have exactly the same issue as before, right?

I just realized that I never asked you but have you tried different combinations of settings in the graphics settings?

 

[BaksteenNL]

It's exactly the same issue that's what I find weird. The graphics feel glitchy and I don't seem to get 60 fps, because I fullhop a lot when I know I input a SH and my wavesashes are messed up when I know I got the timing right. I notice it when a character dies and you see that beam of light or when I get shield pressured by a falco/fox and then my inputs go absolutely nowhere. When I toggled on my NVIDIA fps counter I saw that the counter kept dropping to 59 whereas the ingame fps counter kept going to 61. I've messed around with the backend settings, render to main menu and v-sync, but some of theses had massive amounts of input lag. Do you know of any other settings that might help?