Warframe stuttering every few seconds with FPS drop.

[shinin-light]

As the title says, recently I've started to experience a permanent stuttering of Warframe with the screen freezing for like half a second and my FPS dropping from 60 to 42 every 5-ish seconds.

If you want to have an idea of how it felt to play, I've found a couple of pretty old videos on youtube that match what I'm talking about (not mine and probably not the same issue, but similar results) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfjEOPB8ZTk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0PlK4YlluQ

I've already fixed the problem, but I'll share my testing procedure for other to see. Scroll to the bottom if you're not interested.

1. I'm on a less than 1yo computer with RTX2080 so I was sure the problem wasn't just hardware but some software config or driver, so first thing I updated all the drivers, verified the WF files, optimized the cache and closed all the other programs in background. No improvement.
2. I've read a lot of posts talking about how it could be a VSync problem, so I played around with in-game settings and NVIDIA Control Panel. No improvement.
3. Last time I had a similar issue, it was because of stupid overlays, so I've checked
   • Steam (right click on Warframe > Properties > set both Steam Input Per-Game Setting overlays to "Forced off")
   • Windows (Settings > Gaming > Xbox Game Bar, and Settings > Gaming > Game Mode both set to off),
   • Discord (Settings > Overlay > Enable in-game overlay set to off).
4. Since there was still no improvement, I delved deeper and found out that a recent Windows security update forced an anti-exploit setting for all the applications that was causing stuttering on several different games (none of which I had installed, so I didn't know any better). To revert it back go on Windows Settings > Update & Security > Windows Security > App & browser control > Exploit protection settings > set both Force randomization for images (Mandatory ASLR) and Randomize memory allocations (Bottom-up ASLR) to "Off by default"

This step, after several hours of trials, googling and reading forum posts, finally made the stuttering go away and made the game enjoyable again.
I'm aware this is not strictly a Warframe-related issue, but this may help others in the same situation and I hope [DE] manage to replicate the issue and work on a fix that doesn't involve shutting down a security feature on Windows (regardless of how controversial its forced application is).

TL;DR
Windows forced anti-exploit settings made Warframe stutter.

[Revox79]

Thank you so much, had the exact same issues, and your fix worked for me :D 

[ShadowBibi]

I have the same problem. It happens everytime I enter a mission and when I come back to the orbiter. Gonna try your fix in a few.

[Xylena_Lazarow]

Resurrecting this to say thanks, it helped with the stuttering that appeared when I enabled DX12 in the launcher.

[ezcrowshy]

I can't solve this, i have the same problem

[C-Core]

This stuttering happens in only Warframe and Overwatch for me, and in OW it's only within the first minute or two of loading up the game. In warframe it's every single time I load into a mission or my orbiter. My PC is pretty high end, with an RTX 2070 super and ryzen 7 3800x, and it's only a few months old so ik it isn't my hardware.

I tried this windows fix and it still persists.

[White_Matter]

The said windows fix in the op didn't help with the stutter. 

Probably a different issue.

[Unholy]

So glad i found this post. As soon as i changed the exploit settings, all my problems went away.

[Cerlu]

You're a life saver, thank you so much!

[DarkWolf788]

Ive tried the exploit protection, ive tried uninstalls of games and drivers. I miss playing warframe... PLEASE HELP

[Toxys]

Am 13.2.2021 um 18:47 schrieb DarkWolf788:

Ive tried the exploit protection, ive tried uninstalls of games and drivers. I miss playing warframe... PLEASE HELP

Try this especially Step 2, it worked for me.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/kvu5je/fix_for_extreme_stutteringfreezes/

[DarkWolf788]

18 hours ago, Toxys said:

Try this especially Step 2, it worked for me.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/kvu5je/fix_for_extreme_stutteringfreezes/

OMG this worked. Thank you so much

[BOOGIESBAKED]

YES, THIS WORKS.  I tried everything from updates to where I installed it and this fixed my issue. Any others still having an issue after trying this there's a second method further down the comments.

[Sardonikk]

Apologies for the necro but this is very much still a thing, and THANK YOU for pointing me to the anti-exploit settings.  No thank you to windows for enabling it by default when I did a fresh windows install.  Seems to have fixed it right up.

[Redfeather75]

My game is stuttering a lot now. I don't know why but I'll try this.

[.GUNRIR.]

On 2020-10-14 at 8:10 PM, shinin-light said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfjEOPB8ZTk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0PlK4YlluQ

omg i keep getting this im about to throw my pc out of my F*****! window!!!

[.GUNRIR.]

did not work my game is unplayable....when will they fix this?

[8r8kSpider]

I'm back here again. Nothing I do seems to fix it. I've deleted caches, updated drivers, adjusted security settings. Nothing is consistently fixing my 'stutter' issue. I don't actually see a loss in FPS in-game, the counter stays at a flat 120, the hitching is very real, however, and it's exactly bad enough to make the game feel awful. About 5 seconds of buttery smooth gameplay interrupted by 1 solid second of hangtime.

I think the worst part is that patches have fixed and broken it on and off for months now, this started for me with New War, and every time I think it's fixed, the next patch invariably breaks it again. I've been really trying to get back into WF with the new content we've finally been getting, but this kills my enthusiasm every time.

[creepshow1334]

On 2022-05-01 at 2:55 AM, 8r8kSpider said:

I'm back here again. Nothing I do seems to fix it. I've deleted caches, updated drivers, adjusted security settings. Nothing is consistently fixing my 'stutter' issue. I don't actually see a loss in FPS in-game, the counter stays at a flat 120, the hitching is very real, however, and it's exactly bad enough to make the game feel awful. About 5 seconds of buttery smooth gameplay interrupted by 1 solid second of hangtime.

I think the worst part is that patches have fixed and broken it on and off for months now, this started for me with New War, and every time I think it's fixed, the next patch invariably breaks it again. I've been really trying to get back into WF with the new content we've finally been getting, but this kills my enthusiasm every time.

My problem wasn't quite as bad as some people are having it on here, and I mostly got it while aiming with ranged weapons, or by looking around too fast. I got mine to stop by changing my Display Mode setting under graphics from "Fullscreen" to "Borderless Fullscreen". Hope this can help at least one person here.

[mikogarker]

Hi and thanks for this advice but i would like to add thet you can add a custom setting in the "Program Settings" in the Windows Settings > Update & Security > Windows Security > App & browser control > Exploit protection settings. I think it workes i tried it 10 times and the bug did not apear(I think this is the equivalent but just for warframe, though I am not sure because I did not do a lot of test just a couple relaunches and restarts) but this is to somone that is worried with the "Security" so just warframe will have this disabled. And thanks again for this.

sorry for bad spelling or the lack of composition

[Uhkretor]

... Or just use Debian and be free of all stutters for life... 👍

[-Tilter-]

As unbelievable as I thought it was, it genuinely worked  ..for about a day and then it started stuttering like crazy once again, all background apps turned off, disabled literally everything I could in Windows Services as well, nada it all amount to absolutely nothing. I used to be able to watch anything on my second monitor and still have more or less stable 100+ fps in warframe, now I can't even do that with just my main monitor on and everything else turned off. CPU usage goes to 100% all the time in DX11 mode, freezes and stuttering happen even in the orbiter, continuing to play for longer periods does actually improve the performance as if it's loaded into ram/vram, but every time you get into a new type of tileset or tile itself, every time anything new needs to be loaded, it causes a stutter and/or a freeze and it feels AWFUL. I didn't have these kinds of issues prior to AoZ update which progressively got worse and worse with every hotfix/update since. And I'm fully confident it's not my PC since every other game I play still runs the same as it always has, even better now that I disabled all unnecessary services and background apps in attempts to fix warframe..

Edited June 25, 2022 by -Tilter-
Update to current state

[C3dric85]

works for me too

😀 thank you

[Gregnoth]

TLDR: For all those that didn't have any luck with the above solutions and use Citrix Workspace - the newer versions of Citrix absolutely obliterate Warframe performance. Get rid of them or downgrade.

 

More deets: After my recent system reinstall I noticed that Warframe is chugging as if it was constantly loading bits of data every few seconds. I scoured the internet for solutions, even went through this thread a few times, but no luck. Once I got really desperate I decided to uninstall Citrix.

 

Guess what. It fixed it.

 

Turned out version 21.9.1.4048 does not like any 3d rendering applications. Went back to my trusty 19.12.5000 without the unnecessary virtual display component* and everything is back to normal.

Oh, be sure to use DX11. For some reason DX12 worked better with that newer Citrix version (but far from perfect), but chugs with the older one. At least for me.

 

Good luck!

 

*PS. For those of you who are wondering how to install Citrix without virtual display, here's an tip I pilfered from some forum a while back:

1. Open cmd.exe

2. Punch in the following command (replace the first bit with the actual folder you have that file in):

[CitrixLocationFolder]\CitrixWorkspaceApp.exe ADDLOCAL=ReceiverInside,ICA_Client,AM,SELFSERVICE,DesktopViewer,Flash,Vd3d,WebHelper,BrowserEngine)

[Tahroon]

Thanks for step 4.

After everything else failed step 4 resolved the stuttering ...

 

In our exampe it was the spectrals from Gara moving in stuttering motion while the FPS was stable.

Step 4 was able to resolve it.

 

Maybe someday DE will provide feedback of what it actually is that is causing it, or will fix it...