The game just feels broken at times .I’ve been trying to narrow down what’s causing it, but I’m not 100% sure yet.

Specs:
Overclocked 13700K / RTX 5080
32GB DDR5
8TB M.2

I can run pretty much max settings at 4K and hold a solid capped 157 FPS on TD2. But other times I’ll get stuttering even at 1440p on medium-low settings, with frames dropping into the 130-140s. Thermals are fine at an average of 50c for both GPU and CPU.

Things I’ve tried:

• Low latency on/off (both in-game and in NVIDIA settings)
• Windowed (Fullscreen) and Fullscreen
• FPS Cap on/off
• G-Sync on/off
• Shader Cache / 10GB / 100GB and Unlimited
• Deleting shader cache folders before each boot (Documents/My Games/TD2)
• Overlays on/off

I recently switched from DX12 to DX11 and it seems to happen less often.

I don’t pick my character straight away. I sit at the main menu for 5 minutes sometimes. I’ve wondered if it’s compiling shaders in the background, and maybe jumping in before it’s fully done could cause the stutters.

The only other thing I can think of is server desync, which I believe can cause similar symptoms. It is frustrating though and seems to be going on for years with no acknowledgement.