Stutters only in FF14, sometimes hours between stutters

I've been troubleshooting stutter-related issues since DT release. I never had issues before the release, but now this issue is a persistent thing for me. I was initially getting 1-2 second stutters every 30 minutes exactly. It was easily replicated, and I figured out it was due to iCue. Uninstalling iCue resolved those stutters. At this point, I can go hours without stutters, but it seems like I stutter whenever windows does an update in the background, and other times I stutter for seemingly no reason. I can't find an Event in the Event Viewer that happens at the time of the stutters consistently. This doesn't happen in any other game. I've tried Honkai: Star Rail, Skyrim, Nier: Automata, God of War and no issues at all. I can be sitting still doing absolutely nothing in FF14, and it will still stutter/freeze for about a second. The GPU usage will sometimes plummet to 0, sometimes it won't be affected. Sometimes my CPU usage will slightly dip, but it usually seems to be unaffected. Some solutions I've tried:

Reinstalling the game on my C: drive
Removing all OC's and GPU + CPU undervolt
Reducing graphics settings
Removing my Xbox controller and disabling gamepad in-game
Switching between DLSS and FSR with different thresholds and scaling options
Disabling Windows RRAS Root Enumerator
Disabling VSync
Enabling VSync
Switching between in-game frame limiter and Nvidia Control panel FPS limiter
Updating GPU drivers
Updating Chipset Drivers
Pausing Windows updates
Updating windows
Removing my headset usb connections
Disabling CPU hungry background processes
Switching between full screen and borderless windowed in game
Set FPS limit to 60
Set FPS Limit to 143
Run both monitors at the same refresh rate
Disabling discord overlay and other injections like Overwolf
Removing external drives and doing a complete fresh installation of windows

Specs:
RTX 4080
5800X3D
Samsung 980 1TB
32GB 3600MHz DDR4

This has been a pain since DT release and I'd love to be rid of it.

(I think we spoke on Reddit; hi!)

I just want to echo this sentiment. I think there are several stutter issues (the most common being from iCue and controllers), but this random, inconsistent, short stutter is something I have too.

I’ve done everything the author has. A completely clean install of Windows with nothing but 14 and a keyboard and mouse can’t fix it. I’ve also tried swapping PSUs, SSDs, and memory to no avail.

My specs are these:

AMD 7800x3D
3080 Ti
32 GB 6000MHz DDR5

My sense is it’s possibly an AMD issue. I’ve seen some people with Intel report issues, but they’re usually the controller or iCue issue.

If you have this problem and have Intel, it’d be really interesting to hear about. And if you have AMD and have this specific issue (not the framerate staying low, or a regular interval stutter but just completely random full ~1s game stops) please add to it here.

I’m bilingual and live in Japan. I have a post on the Japanese forums about this too, but the more data we can get the better. I can post to my thread there as well.

Do you have a gamepad connected into your computer? If so then disconnect it.



Cheers

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aqualenne

(I think we spoke on Reddit; hi!)

I just want to echo this sentiment. I think there are several stutter issues (the most common being from iCue and controllers), but this random, inconsistent, short stutter is something I have too.

I’ve done everything the author has. A completely clean install of Windows with nothing but 14 and a keyboard and mouse can’t fix it. I’ve also tried swapping PSUs, SSDs, and memory to no avail.

My specs are these:

AMD 7800x3D
3080 Ti
32 GB 6000MHz DDR5

My sense is it’s possibly an AMD issue. I’ve seen some people with Intel report issues, but they’re usually the controller or iCue issue.

If you have this problem and have Intel, it’d be really interesting to hear about. And if you have AMD and have this specific issue (not the framerate staying low, or a regular interval stutter but just completely random full ~1s game stops) please add to it here.

I’m bilingual and live in Japan. I have a post on the Japanese forums about this too, but the more data we can get the better. I can post to my thread there as well.

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We did! Hello! There has been a small suspicion on my end that this may be an AMD issue as well, as a good amount of people I've seen having issues most similar to mine are using X3D chips. However, I also have a friend that's running a 7800X3D who has been helping me troubleshoot this who has had no issues. Have you looked in Event Viewer to see if there are any errors that happen at the time of the stutters? My findings have been inconsistent, but there are sometimes a large amount (10+) of Event ID 131 metadata staging errors that occur at the time of the stutters. Sometimes there is no clear event or error, though.

It's relieving to know that you've tried multiple different kinds of hardware and the issue persists; hopefully that means it's not an issue with my hardware lol!

I'm glad you're able to post on the JP forums as well. This is obviously a pretty minor issue, at least for me, since I can go 7+ hours without any issues or hiccups at all, but it's still disappointing that people like you and I are not having a flawless experience on higher end rigs. I'm very interested to know anything new you find!

EDIT: I've found that those Event ID 131 errors happen any time I plug in any usb connection. Unplugging/plugging in usb devices doesn't cause any frame drops in other games, but always cause my fps AND gpu usage to dip in 14. Disabling automatic driver downloading in windows makes the errors stop happening, but unplugging/plugging in usb devices still causes 14 to stutter. My current theory is that something changed with 14 with the DT update that makes 14 have to wait and think while windows is processing usb-related changes in the background. It would make sense, since the GPU usage also dips, so it would check out if it was waiting for the cpu to stop processing the usb-related background processes before it can continue to render frames. This may all be coincidence and have absolutely nothing to do with it, but I figured I'd just add this in for the sake of thoroughness.

Removing my XBox controller was a troubleshooting step I took very early on. Similar to Aqualenne, even a fresh install of Windows 11 with nothing but a keyboard and mouse did not resolve the issue; I never even gave my OS the opportunity to connect to a gamepad.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Beavertales

We did! Hello! There has been a small suspicion on my end that this may be an AMD issue as well, as a good amount of people I've seen having issues most similar to mine are using X3D chips. However, I also have a friend that's running a 7800X3D who has been helping me troubleshoot this who has had no issues. Have you looked in Event Viewer to see if there are any errors that happen at the time of the stutters? My findings have been inconsistent, but there are sometimes a large amount (10+) of Event ID 131 metadata staging errors that occur at the time of the stutters. Sometimes there is no clear event or error, though.

It's relieving to know that you've tried multiple different kinds of hardware and the issue persists; hopefully that means it's not an issue with my hardware lol!

I'm glad you're able to post on the JP forums as well. This is obviously a pretty minor issue, at least for me, since I can go 7+ hours without any issues or hiccups at all, but it's still disappointing that people like you and I are not having a flawless experience on higher end rigs. I'm very interested to know anything new you find!

EDIT: I've found that those Event ID 131 errors happen any time I plug in any usb connection. Unplugging/plugging in usb devices doesn't cause any frame drops in other games, but always cause my fps AND gpu usage to dip in 14. Disabling automatic driver downloading in windows makes the errors stop happening, but unplugging/plugging in usb devices still causes 14 to stutter. My current theory is that something changed with 14 with the DT update that makes 14 have to wait and think while windows is processing usb-related changes in the background. It would make sense, since the GPU usage also dips, so it would check out if it was waiting for the cpu to stop processing the usb-related background processes before it can continue to render frames. This may all be coincidence and have absolutely nothing to do with it, but I figured I'd just add this in for the sake of thoroughness.

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That's interesting! I don't have even a single 131 error in my event viewer Windows system logs, alas. I do see the same thing you do with plugging devices and it stuttering. Did disabling the driver downloading also stop the random stutter for you? And which method did you use to do it?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aqualenne

That's interesting! I don't have even a single 131 error in my event viewer Windows system logs, alas. I do see the same thing you do with plugging devices and it stuttering. Did disabling the driver downloading also stop the random stutter for you? And which method did you use to do it?

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The errors don't show up in my System logs, I have to look under Custom Views -> Administrative Events. I only turned off the automatic download to see if there was any relationship between having that setting on/off and the production of the 131 errors/stuttering when plugging/unplugging usb connections, so I'm not sure. It really is a pain that this is an issue that can not appear for and entire play session for me, makes it difficult to continue to troubleshoot. :(
If you want to try disabling the auto updates, you can type in "Change Device Installation Settings" in windows, and select the "No" option. Microsoft states that this "may leave your device vulnerable," though, so do with that what you will.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aqualenne

(I think we spoke on Reddit; hi!)

I just want to echo this sentiment. I think there are several stutter issues (the most common being from iCue and controllers), but this random, inconsistent, short stutter is something I have too.

I’ve done everything the author has. A completely clean install of Windows with nothing but 14 and a keyboard and mouse can’t fix it. I’ve also tried swapping PSUs, SSDs, and memory to no avail.

My specs are these:

AMD 7800x3D
3080 Ti
32 GB 6000MHz DDR5

My sense is it’s possibly an AMD issue. I’ve seen some people with Intel report issues, but they’re usually the controller or iCue issue.

If you have this problem and have Intel, it’d be really interesting to hear about. And if you have AMD and have this specific issue (not the framerate staying low, or a regular interval stutter but just completely random full ~1s game stops) please add to it here.

I’m bilingual and live in Japan. I have a post on the Japanese forums about this too, but the more data we can get the better. I can post to my thread there as well.

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It's not an AMD issue. I have an Intel 13600K that's not OCed and runs at the base Intel specs.

I have the exact same stuttering issues. There's no real reason as to why they happen. I do not own a corsair keyboard and I do not have any weird third party RGB software installed on my PC. My PC is basically pretty clean and plain for the most part.

Now I do have a Xbox Series X controller plugged in...Sadly I can't disconnect it. I do not know how to even begin to play without a controller.

If I have to disconnect my Xbox controller I may as well just quit the game at that point cuz that would be game breaking for me.

The stutters happen randomly as far as I can tell. My game is locked to 60fps and it runs at 60fps pretty much at all times, but randomly out of the blue the game will just stutter/hitch for a second or so. This can literally happen anywhere. In dungeons during trash pulls, or even when everything is dead, during bosses, or even in areas where I am pretty much completely alone the game will just hitch/stutter randomly.

I can be in unpopulated areas and I will still get the hitches/stutters. There's no real way to know for sure what's causing them as they seem to be completely random.

I have a 13600k and a Nvidia 4080 and I also have the latest driver 560.70. Something odd that I did notice was that with my old Nvidia driver the game had less stutters. That driver was 537.58. I only recently updated to the newest drivers to see if it would fix the stutter but it didn't it made it a lil worse IMO.

I could go back to the old driver, but that 537.58 driver is like from October 2023. I do not want to be stuck on a super old driver just cuz DT runs a lil better on it.

It's also worth noting that before DT was released my game (EW) ran perfectly smooth with zero performance issues. Always locked at 60 fps with zero hitches/stutters. I hope SE can fix these stutters, cuz they are super annoying. It may not be game breaking, but the hitches are very annoying when they happen especially since Endwalker played so perfectly and smooth.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DiasFlacOg

It's not an AMD issue. I have an Intel 13600K that's not OCed and runs at the base Intel specs.

I have the exact same stuttering issues. There's no real reason as to why they happen. I do not own a corsair keyboard and I do not have any weird third party RGB software installed on my PC. My PC is basically pretty clean and plain for the most part.

Now I do have a Xbox Series X controller plugged in...Sadly I can't disconnect it. I do not know how to even begin to play without a controller.

If I have to disconnect my Xbox controller I may as well just quit the game at that point cuz that would be game breaking for me.

The stutters happen randomly as far as I can tell. My game is locked to 60fps and it runs at 60fps pretty much at all times, but randomly out of the blue the game will just stutter/hitch for a second or so. This can literally happen anywhere. In dungeons during trash pulls, or even when everything is dead, during bosses, or even in areas where I am pretty much completely alone the game will just hitch/stutter randomly.

I can be in unpopulated areas and I will still get the hitches/stutters. There's no real way to know for sure what's causing them as they seem to be completely random.

I have a 13600k and a Nvidia 4080 and I also have the latest driver 560.70. Something odd that I did notice was that with my old Nvidia driver the game had less stutters. That driver was 537.58. I only recently updated to the newest drivers to see if it would fix the stutter but it didn't it made it a lil worse IMO.

I could go back to the old driver, but that 537.58 driver is like from October 2023. I do not want to be stuck on a super old driver just cuz DT runs a lil better on it.

It's also worth noting that before DT was released my game (EW) ran perfectly smooth with zero performance issues. Always locked at 60 fps with zero hitches/stutters. I hope SE can fix these stutters, cuz they are super annoying. It may not be game breaking, but the hitches are very annoying when they happen especially since Endwalker played so perfectly and smooth.

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Welcome to the club! Out of curiosity, does your game stutter when unplugging or plugging in usb devices? Are there any events you can see in the event viewer that coincide with the time of the stutters?

Update: I had another stutter this evening, and had no event viewer errors that correlated with the time of the stutters. This may suggest that either those errors coinciding with the stutters were completely coincidental, or those stutters are just one of several things that *may* be a trigger. The only events that happened around the time of the stutters (there was two, the second followed about a minute after the first) were event ID's 5, 2 and 7040, but they seem like normal windows operations.

Have you tried using PBO/overclock?

I have stuttering issues on my desktop that has a Ryzen 5 5600X, 16 GB of RAM, and Radeon RX 7900 XT. The stuttering did not exist before 7.0 patch. I do not have a gamepad attached to my computer. The game is installed on an SSD. It is not over/under-clocked, just stock settings. This same computer scored ~21,000 "Extremely High" on the benchmark on maximum graphic settings.

However, my much weaker laptop that has a Ryzen 9 4900HS, 16 GB of RAM, and GeForce RTX 2060 does not get any stuttering issues whatsoever.

It's very frustrating because my desktop's specs are so far above the recommended specs... It should have absolutely no issue running the game smoothly at a capped 60 FPS. Since the 7.0 patch this game is the only game that I play which has any issues on my computer, and it totally shouldn't.

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Originally Posted by FriendlyPerson

Have you tried using PBO/overclock?

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I have PBO set to Auto, but the 5800X3D is not overclockable from what I know.

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Originally Posted by gilmorej

I have stuttering issues on my desktop that has a Ryzen 5 5600X, 16 GB of RAM, and Radeon RX 7900 XT. The stuttering did not exist before 7.0 patch. I do not have a gamepad attached to my computer. The game is installed on an SSD. It is not over/under-clocked, just stock settings. This same computer scored ~21,000 "Extremely High" on the benchmark on maximum graphic settings.

However, my much weaker laptop that has a Ryzen 9 4900HS, 16 GB of RAM, and GeForce RTX 2060 does not get any stuttering issues whatsoever.

It's very frustrating because my desktop's specs are so far above the recommended specs... It should have absolutely no issue running the game smoothly at a capped 60 FPS. Since the 7.0 patch this game is the only game that I play which has any issues on my computer, and it totally shouldn't.

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Are your stuttering issues unpredictable like the rest of us here? It seems like we can go hours without any issues, so it's not a consistent thing.

I have stuttering when i watch youtube videos on my secound monitor. This was not a problem before Dawntrail. But iam not sure if its because of ff14. Currently AMD GPU Driver 24.5.1 to 24.7.1 is not that great. Suggest downgrade to 24.4.1

Iam using windows 10, game is running in borderless mode, i have 3 144hz monitors and a ryzen 7900x + 7900XT CPU/GPU combo. No OC.

Yes, it happens randomly at any time.
I can go minutes or hours between the appearance of any stuttering.
There can be 100 people around, or zero people, or even a cutscene panning across a scene with no characters visible at all.

It will just randomly stutter like it dropped two or three frames, and then go back to being normal for a random period of time.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gilmorej

Yes, it happens randomly at any time.
I can go minutes or hours between the appearance of any stuttering.
There can be 100 people around, or zero people, or even a cutscene panning across a scene with no characters visible at all.

It will just randomly stutter like it dropped two or three frames, and then go back to being normal for a random period of time.

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How long are your stutters in terms of time? My game freezes for about half a second or so, but it seems like the length can vary.

Mine are microstutters... Like, fractions of a second. They can vary in length, but 1/2 a second is a very long time and they very rarely pause for that long. Also, when it does happen it's usually several quick stutters in a row.

https://i.imgur.com/G9B2kba.png

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gilmorej

Mine are microstutters... Like, fractions of a second. They can vary in length, but 1/2 a second is a very long time and they very rarely pause for that long. Also, when it does happen it's usually several quick stutters in a row.

https://i.imgur.com/G9B2kba.png

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What hardware are you running?

Ryzen 5 5600x
16 GB DDR 4 3200
Radeon RX 7900 XT
Corsair Force MP600 PCI-e Gen 4 M.2 NVMe SSD

This computer is leagues above the recommended spec. My benchmark score was over 21,000 and "extremely high"

Our stutters seem to be different in terms of length, but similar in that they can happen anywhere under any circumstances, and can go hours between them. Maybe we're having the exact same issue, maybe not. :shrug:

How about setting character and object quantity to minimum? Stutters can still happen but hopefully can make the game a bit more playable.

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Originally Posted by FriendlyPerson

How about setting character and object quantity to minimum? Stutters can still happen but hopefully can make the game a bit more playable.

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It seems like the issue we're dealing with happens regardless of what's on screen. It's happened while I was standing in a zone with 0 other players and all that was displaying was trees. I've done hunt trains with 150+ people all being rendered and my fps go down, but there are no stutters. Either way, we all seem to be running rigs that are way above the recommended specs, so it would be strange for our issues to be being caused by too many objects or players being rendered, y'know?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gilmorej

Yes, it happens randomly at any time.
I can go minutes or hours between the appearance of any stuttering.
There can be 100 people around, or zero people, or even a cutscene panning across a scene with no characters visible at all.

It will just randomly stutter like it dropped two or three frames, and then go back to being normal for a random period of time.

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This is exactly what my stuttering looks like. It doesn't matter if it's Limsa at peak times, or just soloing a dungeon, or just being in some randomly lonely place with zero players around. It's frustrating because as far as I can tell these lil stutters come completely randomly.

I tried playing the game on low settings (on a 4080) to see if this would fix the lil micro stutters that randomly pop up and it doesn't. I don't think it's a graphical settings issue.

During my time with EW using the same 4080 and driver version 537.58 (from October 2023) the game ran perfectly smooth with no issues or any micro stutters from 60fps to 58fps randomly. The game just played perfectly. Like I said in my previous post. I even went ahead and tested DT with these old drivers (537.58) and the game runs mostly fine, but now even with that old driver I still get those lil random stutters.

Funnily enough I feel like I get the "random" stutters a bit more with the newest Nvidia driver. However I don't want to keep using such an old driver on a new expansion.

I have to wonder if DiasFlacOg and gilmorej are having a slightly different issue than aqualenne and I. We seem to be having complete freezes for half a second to a second, whereas you guys seem to be having a much smaller stutter. Maybe it's the same fundamental issue, which seems to be something up with 14 that doesn't like background processes that it didn't have issues with before, but aqualenne and I are experiencing a different conflict and therefore longer stutters? Intel, AMD and Nvidia are all presented in this thread, though, so maybe that rules out the issue being specific to a certain brand of hardware.

Maybe Fullscreen vs borderless improves the stutter?

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Originally Posted by Clawhammer

Maybe Fullscreen vs borderless improves the stutter?

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I can't speak for anyone else, but fullscreen vs borderless windowed makes no difference for me in terms of the stutters.

Same.. No difference.

Borderless vs. Fullscreen
FPS capped vs. no FPS cap
vsync on vs. vsync off
FreeSync on vs. FreeSync off
minimum settings vs. maximum settings
gamepad plugged vs. gamepad unplugged

None of it makes a difference... It's frustrating.

Good morning! Thank you for posting in the Final Fantasy XIV Technical Support Forums.

Please try the following:
- Please try adjusting/lowering the resolution.
- If you have multiple peripherals (such as multiple monitors) please try removing them to only the necessary components to see if it helps.
- Please try running the game as an administrator.
- Perform a clean boot by opening the task manager and select the 'Start up' Tab. Disable everything.
- Please be sure that Final Fantasy XIV is installed to the C: Drive. (If Steam version, make sure both the game and Steam are installed on same drive)
- Verify installation files (Steam)
- Reinstall game (If steam version, try uninstalling and reinstalling both the game and Steam)

If you had attempted any of the above, did any other the steps help or perhaps even made the issue worse?
When the issue occurs, is your system overheating at all?
Were there any recent changes around the time of the issues began?

Thank you once again for visiting the Final Fantasy XIV Technical Support Forums!

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Originally Posted by Votraftur

- Please be sure that Final Fantasy XIV is installed to the C: Drive. (If Steam version, make sure both the game and Steam are installed on same drive)

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Why does it need to be on c: drive? I have the m2 ssd just for the OS and 3 1TB SSDs for games in my system, so ff14 is on drive H: (Steam Version)

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Originally Posted by Clawhammer

Why does it need to be on c: drive? I have the m2 ssd just for the OS and 3 1TB SSDs for games in my system, so ff14 is on drive H: (Steam Version)

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I'm not sure as far as technical reasons, but SE recommends having the game on your c: drive. Customer Support I've talked to in the past just said "it may cause issues".

I disabled the fps limit (it was to set to match monitor). It seems like (for at least 1-2 hours) my stutter are gone. I will continue testing.

This is the evolution of the ongoing PC controller issues that SE has been aware of but not fixing for over 10 years. First if was continued input on the controller. Then it was no input. Now it's a stutter. Basically it will happen whenever your system scans for new hardware or creates a virtual disk. SE doesn't seem to want to fix it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Clawhammer

Why does it need to be on c: drive? I have the m2 ssd just for the OS and 3 1TB SSDs for games in my system, so ff14 is on drive H: (Steam Version)

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I have the game installed on my C: drive, and have been considering moving it to the SSD since DT release. I can hear my hard drive spin up while in congested areas, and sometimes in non-congested areas. It never did that before 7.0, and doesn't do it with anything else.

Dropping back in here to give an update. For my specific case, turning of HVCI/Core Isolation in Windows resolved the remaining stutters. There were events 2 and 5 in my event viewer that correlated with each stutter from "IsolatedUserMode". iCue was the first issue when I started troubleshooting this at the release of DT, and I had Core Isolation disabled on that installation of windows, so I'm assuming that since fresh install of Windows 11 leave Core Isolation turned on by default, that was the source of my stutters post-fresh install. I disabled it and I haven't had that event show up in 11 days, and have had no stutters since then as well.

Good morning! Thank you for posting in the Final Fantasy XIV Technical Support Forums.

We are glad to hear that you are no longer experiencing this issue. If you have any more questions or concerns, please make a new thread in the technical support forums.

This thread will be moved to "Closed Concerns”. Thank you once more for visiting the Final Fantasy XIV Technical Support Forums!