I would like to report a strange performance and frame-pacing issue

Hello EA / Battlefield Technical Team,

I would like to report a strange performance and frame-pacing issue in Battlefield 6 that I have spent a significant amount of time testing.

My PC specifications

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
• GPU: ASUS ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5080 16GB
• RAM: 64GB DDR5-6000
• Monitor: Samsung Odyssey OLED G6, 2560×1440, 500Hz
• OS: Windows 11
• Mouse polling rate: 1000Hz

The main problem

There are two completely different behaviors depending on whether NVIDIA Frame Generation is enabled or disabled.

Frame Generation OFF

The Battlefield performance overlay normally reports around 220–240 FPS on the CPU side, with approximately:

• CPU frame time: around 3.5–4.5 ms under normal conditions
• GPU frame time: around 3.2–3.4 ms
• GPU performance appears stable and is not heavily limited

Despite reporting more than 200 FPS, the actual motion on the screen does not visually feel like 200–240 FPS.

Camera movement and general motion look and feel closer to below 120 FPS, even though the FPS counter and frame-time statistics indicate much higher performance.

This is very noticeable on my 500Hz OLED monitor.

The problem is not limited to mouse movement. I also tested movement using the keyboard while observing the environment without moving the mouse, and the same lack of smoothness is visible.

Frame Generation ON

The moment I enable NVIDIA Frame Generation / Multi Frame Generation, motion becomes dramatically smoother.

The displayed frame rate can reach approximately 500–600 FPS, and the game finally looks and feels appropriately smooth on the 500Hz display.

However, a second problem immediately appears.

There are noticeable short stutters/hitches whenever the scene changes suddenly.

Examples include:

• Entering a vehicle
• Entering or switching to an aircraft
• Getting close to fire
• Explosions appearing suddenly
• Heavy visual effects
• Rapid changes in the rendered scene

The game can be extremely smooth before and after these events, but there is a very noticeable hitch exactly when the sudden scene change occurs.

If I disable Frame Generation, these sudden stutters disappear or are greatly reduced.

Therefore:

Frame Generation OFF:
The sudden stutters are mostly gone, but 220–240 FPS visually feels much less smooth than it should.

Frame Generation ON:
The game becomes extremely smooth and finally looks appropriate for a 500Hz monitor, but sudden scene changes cause noticeable stutters.

Frame-time observations

I also monitored Battlefield's advanced performance graph.

During normal gameplay I have seen approximately:

• CPU: 3.5–4.5 ms
• GPU: 3.2–3.4 ms

However, occasional CPU/frame-time spikes can reach approximately:

• CPU: 11–14 ms
• Frame: approximately 11–14 ms

Meanwhile, the GPU frame time remains relatively stable around 3.2–3.4 ms.

I tested limiting the game to both 180 FPS and 240 FPS.

Lowering the FPS limit did not eliminate the behavior.

I also tested a custom User.cfg that changes Frostbite CPU thread parameters. It significantly reduces CPU utilization and temperatures, but the smoothness problem and occasional spikes remain similar with or without the file, so it does not appear to be the root cause.

Troubleshooting already performed

I have tested:

• Frame Generation ON and OFF
• Different Frame Generation modes
• NVIDIA Reflex ON and ON + Boost
• G-SYNC ON and OFF
• V-Sync configurations
• 500Hz refresh rate confirmed in Windows
• Fullscreen and Borderless modes
• FPS caps including 180 and 240 FPS
• High, Medium, Low and custom graphics settings
• Reduced shadows
• Reduced effects
• Reduced volumetric effects
• Reduced reflections
• Reduced object/detail settings
• DirectX shader cache reset
• NVIDIA shader cache reset
• Mouse polling rate at 1000Hz
• Motion Sync ON and OFF
• Keyboard-only movement tests
• CPU thread configuration testing
• Monitoring CPU, GPU, SIM and frame-time graphs

G-SYNC provides only a small improvement in perceived smoothness, but does not solve the issue.

Reducing graphical quality also does not solve it, and GPU frame time remains consistently low.

Why I believe this may be a Battlefield engine issue

The most unusual part is that the game can report more than 200 real FPS, while the actual visual motion feels significantly less smooth than expected.

Frame Generation immediately restores the expected high-refresh-rate smoothness, which indicates that the monitor itself is capable of displaying the motion correctly.

However, Frame Generation then introduces noticeable hitches specifically during sudden scene changes.

This makes me suspect there may be an issue involving:

• Frame pacing
• Frame presentation
• CPU render-thread scheduling
• Interaction between Frostbite and NVIDIA Frame Generation
• Frame Generation handling during sudden scene transitions or asset/effect loading

I have tested several other games on the same PC and monitor and they provide noticeably more consistent motion smoothness at high frame rates.

Call of Duty, for example, feels significantly smoother and more consistent at comparable frame rates on the same hardware.

I would greatly appreciate it if this report could be forwarded to the Battlefield rendering/performance engineering team for investigation.

I can provide photos or videos of the Battlefield performance graphs showing CPU, GPU, SIM and frame-time behavior, including comparisons with Frame Generation enabled and disabled.

Thank you.