Frame pacing/ stutter issue since update 1.0.6.2
Hi there, so currently have 410 hours of almost flawless Marathon performance - there were a handful crash-to-desktop instances in the first week but nothing since then. I'm on a desktop Windows 11 PC with a foundation 5080 and have experienced this new issue on both Nvidia's previous driver and the newest one they released yesterday (596.36). CPU is a Ryzen 7 5800 and 32gb of DDR4 Corsair ram.
It's an odd issue in that it's very uniform in sequence when it happens, but not repeatable in any way nor do any graphics settings either in game or at a system level seem to increase/decrease the frequency of occurrences. In a nutshell, it's a 3 phase frame drop that can occur in both menus and in game. It's always 3 drops in quick succession where the screen goes black and and audio drops for maybe 0.5~ seconds then comes back, drops again, back, drops a final time before returning to normal. Bizarre observation: if this happens in a game and my character is crouched, this issue will cancel the crouch toggle.
Steam overlay (which I have tried both on and disabled with no luck in eliminating the issue) suggests the frames drop from circa 90-120 down to 20-40 during the stutter process - possibly more, it's hard to say because when the screen goes completely black I lose the frame count.
In terms of frequency, what tends to happen is about a minute or so after I enter the main menu (but not strictly a specific time) the first stuttering happens. Then perhaps 2-3x more within a 5-10 minute period, whether I'm in menus or in a game. After this I may experience the issue once or twice more or not at all, and I can play the game for hours more with no more occurrences or any issues at all.
I can confirm I don't appear to experience anything like this issue in any of the other games I've tried, including Destiny 2. I'm in the UK so I was playing before server maintenance yesterday (28th April) with no issues at all, left my PC running until the servers came back online and changed absolutely nothing during the interim period. Obviously looking at the forum and the discord this thankfully does not appear to be a widespread issue, and I can still play fine for 99% of the time, but it is annoying and perplexing enough that I thought it worth flagging.
Comments
Hi there,
Thank you for your report.
To help narrow this down, when you have a moment, could you please try the following and let us know what changes, if anything:
Display / frame settings
Try switching between Fullscreen and Borderless/Windowed.
Temporarily set an in-game FPS cap slightly below your monitor’s refresh rate (for example, cap at 120 if you’re on 144 Hz, or 60 if you’re on 60 Hz).
Toggle V-Sync off/on and see if the stutters still appear with each configuration.
Overlays and background apps
Fully disable any overlays and performance tools beyond just the Steam overlay (Discord overlay, GeForce Experience overlay, Xbox Game Bar, MSI Afterburner / RTSS, Razer / Corsair utilities, etc.).
Close non-essential background apps to rule out something briefly stealing focus.
Game files and drivers
Run a Verify integrity of game files from your Steam library for Marathon.
You’ve already tried different NVIDIA driver versions, which is great; if you haven’t yet, a clean install via NVIDIA’s installer (with only the driver + PhysX selected) can sometimes clear out oddities.
Extra info that would help us a lot
Your monitor model and refresh rate, and whether G-Sync/FreeSync is enabled.
Whether this happens only in the first 5–10 minutes after launch (as you described) or can ever start later into a long session.
If possible, a short video clip of the issue, and a screenshot of your in-game graphics settings.
If you can reply with that information and any findings from the tests above, we can use your report as a strong repro case for further investigation.
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