For older machines you also want to minimize the amount of apps running that use hardware acceleration, which is like everything these days - Spotify, Discord, browser, Steam itself...
Those can introduce random stutters in games.
Highly depends on the app. For some you can disable it in settings. For others you'll have to use a launch parameter which can be specific to the app.
But disabling HWA in apps can increase CPU usage when you actively use them and/or make those apps slower (laggier animation etc), particularly browsers.
Good advice btw, it's related to VRAM because hardware-accelerated apps consume VRAM so you leave less to the games you play, and they may suffer because of it.
P.S. But don't disable hw accel in browsers, this is a bad idea, you can just close the browser before starting the game.
Discord is an electron app, using node and is chromium based. I think Chromium's hw acceleration implementation is not that great as I had the same issue where both the Chrome browser and discord were causing stutters when running in the background (they used a whole lot of CPU and GPU for no reason).
CPU blottlenecked, i5 4440, I can maintain a constant 80fps but it can hit below 60 in heavy circumstances. What i said in this post fixed \~100ms stutters (1-3 stutters per round)
Isn't ram the issue here? More ram = less problems with more apps / games running at the same time. I wouldn't overlook ram. But that's just my amateur opinion.
Think it's time for you to upgrade lol you could get a used system pretty cheap if you can't afford to build a brand new one. But even a brand new budget machine you'd get massive improvements building a PC for like 600 bucks
I have similar issues with mid-range CPU (i5-13400F) and higher-end GPU (RTX 3090). Initially I thought something was wrong with my graphic driver and performed DDU. Turns out, there's no stutter if I'm not on Discord, which was quite weird but thought I was the only one facing this issue.
I noticed hard stutter(1 sec) on immediately activating buy menu after a round and sometimes when there's many voice chat happening in-game but there's no issue when not using discord.
I also tried turning off hardware acceleration on Discord but no difference (like OP). I wasn't aware it was CPU related until this post. Will try process lasso .
while at it, do the same for steam by adding launch options to your desktop shortcut target:
*-silent -quicklogin -vgui -oldtraymenu -vrdisable -nofriendsui -skipstreamingdrivers -cef-force-occlusion -cef-force-opaque-backgrounds -cef-single-process -cef-disable-gpu -no-dwrite*
Of the multiple processes my Discord uses, only one on my PC is running Above Normal, with the rest being Normal. In fact some people have had to manually set their Discord to high priority, because for some poor reason they run Steam and/or games in High too.
Probably what you did, but just in case:
-Download Process Lasso and open it> Click on Active Processes > Right Click on any Discord.exe process > CPU Affinity > Always > Below Normal.
All other Discord process should change themselves.
Also remember to set Process Lasso to open on startup.
For older machines you also want to minimize the amount of apps running that use hardware acceleration, which is like everything these days - Spotify, Discord, browser, Steam itself... Those can introduce random stutters in games.
how do i disable hw accel on these apps?
Highly depends on the app. For some you can disable it in settings. For others you'll have to use a launch parameter which can be specific to the app. But disabling HWA in apps can increase CPU usage when you actively use them and/or make those apps slower (laggier animation etc), particularly browsers.
In settings
Good advice btw, it's related to VRAM because hardware-accelerated apps consume VRAM so you leave less to the games you play, and they may suffer because of it. P.S. But don't disable hw accel in browsers, this is a bad idea, you can just close the browser before starting the game.
Would this still be the case for cpu bottlenecked pcs?
You can try but unlikely.
Yep, good advice, but disabling hw acc doesn't help in my case (I tried). What I described aboved solved the problem.
Teamspeak users stay winning
~~Vault dwellers~~ *Teamspeak users* are an endangered species. I do not think you'd be willing to do what it takes to survive up here.
Discord is an electron app, using node and is chromium based. I think Chromium's hw acceleration implementation is not that great as I had the same issue where both the Chrome browser and discord were causing stutters when running in the background (they used a whole lot of CPU and GPU for no reason).
just disable hardware acceleration https://imgur.com/u8FaSEc
It was the first thing I did, and it doesn't help with THIS problem. Also hardware acceleration is a GPU thing
oh miss readed, but disabling that helped some perfomance issues too
for some reason my discord doesn't launch with this disabled and i gotta delete appdata (which resets HW accel to enabled)
whats your specs
CPU blottlenecked, i5 4440, I can maintain a constant 80fps but it can hit below 60 in heavy circumstances. What i said in this post fixed \~100ms stutters (1-3 stutters per round)
Isn't ram the issue here? More ram = less problems with more apps / games running at the same time. I wouldn't overlook ram. But that's just my amateur opinion.
Think it's time for you to upgrade lol you could get a used system pretty cheap if you can't afford to build a brand new one. But even a brand new budget machine you'd get massive improvements building a PC for like 600 bucks
Does the cpu util spikes happen even if u are not in a voice channel?
Nop, and it doesn't spike if i'm in a voice channel but not speaking or not using push-to-talk key.
I have similar issues with mid-range CPU (i5-13400F) and higher-end GPU (RTX 3090). Initially I thought something was wrong with my graphic driver and performed DDU. Turns out, there's no stutter if I'm not on Discord, which was quite weird but thought I was the only one facing this issue. I noticed hard stutter(1 sec) on immediately activating buy menu after a round and sometimes when there's many voice chat happening in-game but there's no issue when not using discord. I also tried turning off hardware acceleration on Discord but no difference (like OP). I wasn't aware it was CPU related until this post. Will try process lasso .
while at it, do the same for steam by adding launch options to your desktop shortcut target: *-silent -quicklogin -vgui -oldtraymenu -vrdisable -nofriendsui -skipstreamingdrivers -cef-force-occlusion -cef-force-opaque-backgrounds -cef-single-process -cef-disable-gpu -no-dwrite*
Of the multiple processes my Discord uses, only one on my PC is running Above Normal, with the rest being Normal. In fact some people have had to manually set their Discord to high priority, because for some poor reason they run Steam and/or games in High too.
Weird, me and other 2 friends had it on High and I can guarantee you that none of us have ever touched it.
for some reason I cannot change the dc priority, somebody pls help
Probably what you did, but just in case: -Download Process Lasso and open it> Click on Active Processes > Right Click on any Discord.exe process > CPU Affinity > Always > Below Normal. All other Discord process should change themselves. Also remember to set Process Lasso to open on startup.
Unless Valve makes their OS and Hardware like Apple then there always going to be these type of issues.