Source
r/Windows10•
marts_sum

Standby memory issue causing stutters on creators

Gaming

I have tested this thoroughly and it is 100% the cause of my stutters on the creators updates (especially noticeable in games like BF1).

Once the free memory is exhausted then performance takes a big hit, games with heavy caching like BF1 suffer horribly. The only way I could fix previously was restarting the computer (thus clearing the memory), which explains why it was only happening after a while and not on a fresh boot.

I have a permanent solution that keeps memory free at all times. I don't know what MS changed, but this didn't happen on 1607.

This totally fixes my system stutters on the creators.

  1. Download EmptyStandbyList and put it somewhere where you won't move it https://wj32.org/wp/software/empty-standby-list/

  2. Right click > Properties and select Run as Admin under compatibility.

  3. Open Task Scheduler > Create Task on the far right

  4. General Tab (give it a name). Under security options > Change user or group > Advanced > Find Now > go down and choose SYSTEM (important to make it run silently in the background). Tick 'Run with highest privileges' and 'Hidden' at the bottom. Pictures here https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6568736/how-do-i-set-a-windows-scheduled-task-to-run-in-the-background

  5. Triggers tab > New > On a schedule > One Time. Tick repeat task every 5 minutes (possibly excessive but it causes no issues).

  6. Actions tab > Start A program > Point to the EmptyStandbyList.exe file.

  7. Done! Standby memory is automatically cleared every 5mins.

I hope MS will come up with a fix, but if you have a similar issue/performance degradation over time - try this. Many on the nvidia forums have said it also fixes their issues.

Posted Nov 1, 2017, 12:37 AM UTC · edited

2511
Octaive•

This is the fix for my stuttering issues. I really hope the few of us who know about this would please spread this across the forums and make everyone aware it's a memory allocation issue in Windows. It seems they completely screwed up memory management...

8
marts_sumOP•

Don't worry, MS know about it and have found a bug in the memory. Possibly a fix coming soon.

3
luckerr09•

I don't think so.. just read my latest comment to this thread.

1
marts_sumOP•

They haven't fixed it yet. I have spoken to a Microsoft guy on reddit personally and he passed it onto the memory team who identified free memory being expensive that it should be. Last I heard he said it was on the list but it hasn't been fixed yet - yes I tried the latest insider too.

1
luckerr09•

hey, thanks for your feedback too. But how long is.. that you have last info from them? I don't think that this is normal tbh..

1
ritchiedrama•

I think this has fixed my stuttering.

https://youtu.be/VIDdh0y50FE?t=60

The thing that happens at 1:02 is that what you've been experiencing?

2
Octaive•

Yep, varying degrees of that sort of stutter! I haven't played much BF1 the last week but I know there's been some updates. I'll check it out!

1
DanSoull•

This solution finally fixed my stuttering with BF1! Thank you very much!

5
[deleted]•

I tried this out and I've had nothing but smooth games! The difference is night and day.

EDIT: I did eventually have to restart after 2 days because I did eventually experience some small stutter but I'm still really happy overall with this fix.

5
Orgogg•

I have experienced a very similar issue. There were a few games I play regularly that I noticed were having frame drops recently after the latest update. It would tend to happen after my computer had been running for a while and would always get fixed with a restart, before inevitably happening again.

I monitored my GPU usage and found that when my performance dipped, my usage would drop from 95-98% down to 45-60%. My FPS would drop from 120-150 to 90-95, and it would feel considerably worse than 96 FPS should feel (very stuttery).

Watching my memory usage in Resource Monitor, the drop in performance would also line up with a lack of free memory, with all of it split between "In Use" and "Standby".

After much time spent switching around NVIDIA settings, power mangement, disabling Shadowplay, etc, I finally rolled back the last update and the problem went away.

3
marts_sumOP•

Did you try this fix? It fixes it for me and plenty of others. Microsoft know about this issue and have found a bug, so hopefully we get a proper fix soon.

2
Orgogg•

I haven’t tried I‎t yet, I generally don’t download files from random sites as a general precaution. I also am not sure if there would be any downside to constantly clearing the standby so I’d rather just roll back and wait for a bug fix. Good work finding that though! Also if you have any links to the Microsoft bug report please share :)

1
marts_sumOP•

I've actually been talking to a MS rep personally about it. You could always download Microsoft program RAMmap and go Empty > Empty Standby List - does the same thing as the linked file. No downsides as far as I can see. You can also see many testimonials of people it has helped in this thread. https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/1004600/geforce-drivers/all-games-stuttering-with-fps-drops-since-windows-10-creators-update/post/5237778/#5237778

5
Anonycrom•

RAMmap

If this is the issue, should you see results immediately upon emptying the standby list? Because I do not, which makes me wonder if I have the same symptoms, but a different cause.

Example: Playing a song and I get the classic stutter/pop/scratch as seen in the videos posted here. Open a game, get the classic video stutter as seen here. Confirm that my standby list is huge. Empty it. Restart youtube, itunes, game... problem still exists.

Should you see an immediate relief when you do this? Or is it one of those things you have to proactively prevent, because once it happens it will continue to happen until you reboot?

1
Orgogg•

Thanks for the link! I got that bookmarked now.

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
theninjaguy21•

This actually worked for me, thank you! I feel like more people should know about this. My FPS have been higher on Battlefield 1 ever since i tried this fix and the frames haven't dipped randomly since.

3
itsarepeat•

I used process hacker 2 because of that YouTube video. COMPLETELY SOLVED MY LAG FOR A WHILE, Jesus it was like a new PC! But then it started lagging again. I’ll try this

2
PeaceOut_TimeOut•

Is there an official fix for this yet?

2
SturmButcher•

Is this fixed now in Redstone 5?

2
DeadMan3000•

This just causes my games to jump out of fullscreen mode every 5 minutes.

2
marts_sumOP•

Then you didn't follow my instructions. Please read step 4 carefully.

2
DeadMan3000•

Thanks. Missed that bit.

1
SpiKe_One•

I have this issue since I update to Fall creators https://i.imgur.com/PsDQb7s.jpg Any help

1
falconepl•

Check if you've got Pre-Loading Map option in Gameplay settings set to Off.

1
lemurstep•

I wonder if this will fix my issues with intermittent 5-10 sec duration fps drops down to 30 with PUBG if I play more than 2 games without restarting.

1
azwolf44•

this helped me , thanks !

1
ritchiedrama•

I think this has fixed my stuttering.

https://youtu.be/VIDdh0y50FE?t=60

The thing that happens at 1:02 is that what you've been experiencing?

1
Reudaisu•

This is exactly what I have on PUBG - CSGO - Subnautica.

Rig: 7700k, 1080ti, 32GB RAM, Windows 10-1709 on NVME & games on SSD Monitor: PG348Q Asus Ultrawide

1
marts_sumOP•

Indeed. Yup, fixed it for me.

1
ritchiedrama•

I think I might have a stroke, It's actually fixed, holy fucking shit, 2 months of searching, lol.

I even replaced my 1080Ti incase, lmao (I ended up with a hybrid AIO one which i wanted anyway but yeah).

Fuck, I'm so happy, it was infuriating. Was close to upgrading from 7700K to 8700K - its weird though.

Are only some PC's affected? Pretty sure my 4790k+1070ti doesn't do this stutter at all.

1
marts_sumOP•

Not sure. A lot of people say this fixed their issue on creators update so I think it's widespread since it's a system fault.

1
ritchiedrama•

It still happens a bit to be fair.

1
jaju123•

I wasted so many hours of my life trying to fix this issue. Thank you so much for posting this.

1
Anonycrom•

Question for you... did the stuttering stop as soon as your emptied the Standby List? In other words, if you are actively experiencing the stuttering and you run the StandBy emptier, does the stuttering go away that instant?

Because mine doesn't, so I am wondering if this only works if you prevent the Standby List from filling up in the first place... or if I have an unrelated problem.

1
m1msy•

from the research I've done in the last few days, the standby emptier will work immediately. If it doesn't, there were a few other culprits that were revealed, most of them being related to the Killer Wifi card/drivers. Any resolution for you in the last couple months?

1
Anonycrom•

In my case it ended up being the NVidia drivers. The new drivers (390 and above) introduced a power sensor related stutter regression. Some people, and I was unlucky enough to be one of them, noticed this as stutters and audio popping after hours of computer uptime.

388 has no such problems, so that I what I'm rolling with and they completely resolved the issue.

1
Battlefield1TankKing•

hello thanks so much that fixed my issue. my question for you now is how can I configure this in task manager to auto run ONLY when a specific program/game of my choice is running ?? like for example I want it to start running in task only when I play bf1...

1
marts_sumOP•

Don't know how to do that sorry. I'd recommend just leaving it running all the time, if you're using an SSD as your system drive then you're not going to notice any difference in performance by not having things in the standby memory. I run it every 5mins until there is a fix, and I have noticed zero difference in performance.

1
Battlefield1TankKing•

Im running on ssd, and yes it is a difference when standby memory gets full game starts stuttering and freezing untill i empty standby

1
marts_sumOP•

Yes, I mean - why do you only want this to empty only when you're playing BF1? It makes no difference if it continually empties it automatically. You do this once and forget about it. You can delete the task any time.

1
no_spoon•

This is pathetic

1
monkeypack•

So is Not having a spoon 🥄

1
Samo_Adams•

RemindMe! 8 hours.

1
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1
luckerr09•

Btw.. I've just tested the latest Win10 insider version (build 17074). And the problem still persists there. So this is how gaming should looks like on Win 10 forever? Gtfo Microsoft.. (btw i7 8700k + 1080ti)

1
marts_sumOP•

They haven't fixed it yet to my knowledge, but it's on the list.

1
VonDinky•

Damn I hope this fixes my issue. :) Thanks for the detailed guide!

I think this might be the issue. But I think it needs to run more often in my case, would that cause any issues?

1
Anonycrom•

Clearing Standby Memory didn't do the trick for me. However, I noticed in the GeForce Forum thread you linked to that you mentioned rolling back to 388.00.

I tried that and it immediately solved the issue for me. No more DPC latency, no more stuttering (in audio or video or mouse).

Clearly, the problem for me was the latest 390ish driver.

1