Is Star Wars Jedi: Survivor finally playable without stuttering?

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A few days ago, Respawn released Title Update 9 for the PC version of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. This patch attempted to fix the stuttering issues that plagued the PC version. So can you finally experience this Star Wars game without stuttering? It's time to find out.

For our tests, we used an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D, 32 GB DDR5 at 6000 MHz, and NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4090. I also used Windows 10 64-bit and the GeForce 560.94 WHQL driver. In addition, I disabled the second CCD on our 7950X3D.

Let's start without ray tracing effects. At 4K with DLSS 3 frame generation, a pretty smooth gaming experience is possible. There will still be some minor stuttering, but as you'll see in the video below, the game is finally fun to play on a high-end CPU.

Now what's interesting is what happens when you lower the resolution to 1440p or 1080p. There's more stuttering at 1080p/Maximum Settings/No Ray Tracing than at 4K/Maximum Settings/No RT. This is to be expected, so let me explain what happens.

At 4K resolution, the game runs at around 110 frames per second, meaning the GPU is sending a new frame every 9ms. This gives the 7950X3D's CPU plenty of time to process the majority of the game's data streaming (though not all the time). At 1080p, however, the game jumps to 255 frames per second, meaning the GPU is sending a new frame every 4ms. That's less than half the time it had before. As a result, the CPU has to work much harder, using almost all of its cores, which you can see in the screenshot below. Since 4ms isn't enough time for the 7950X3D to process all of the streaming data while it explores the game world, stuttering occurs.

SW Jedi Survivor CPU bottleneckSW Jedi Survivor CPU bottleneck

One solution to this problem is a framerate lock. I tried Rivatunner and it seems that you can get pretty good results with it. I could notice some “jerky” frames when I had the framerate locked at 120fps, but the overall experience was much better than with an unlocked framerate.

So without ray tracing, the game currently seems to stutter less. However, as I said, there is still some stuttering during traversal. These are nowhere near as severe as before. Still, don't expect a 100% stutter-free experience. The game is now similar to the consoles, as both PS5 and Xbox Series X have very little stuttering. So no. There is currently no platform that can offer a 100% stutter-free experience. Again, both PS5 and Xbox Series X still have stuttering during traversal.

Unfortunately, things get even worse when you enable Ray Tracing. As we've seen in many games, Ray Tracing can also put a lot of strain on the CPU. And that's exactly what's happening here. Even at 4K with DLSS 3 quality and Frame Generation, we weren't able to get acceptable frametimes. Without DLSS 3 Frame Generation, there are numerous stutters in various places. DLSS 3 FG can help minimize some of these, but there are still various stutters that are easy to spot (without even looking at the frametime graph).

To sum up, you can finally enjoy Star Wars Jedi: Survivor at 4K with DLSS 3 Frame Generation on a high-end PC with an NVIDIA RTX 4090. That is, if you don't use the ray tracing effects. Without RT, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor can run smoothly most of the time. Owners of weaker RTX GPUs will be fine with 1440p, as it is GPU limited and not CPU limited. Things get a bit messier in this game as you approach CPU-bound situations. Still, the overall experience is much better right now than it was before. And while the game isn't completely fixed, it's at least in a much better state. There's no more stuttering, and that's the most important thing in my opinion. Respawn HAS improved things, and that's not a placebo effect!

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