FC 26 PC – Unplayable due to persistent micro-stutters and input delay

Hi everyone,

I’ve been struggling with severe micro-stutters and controller input delay in EA Sports FC 26 on PC since launch.

I’ve now spent over 25 in-game hours testing and troubleshooting, but the problem persists — even offline. The game constantly feels slightly “uneven,” especially during long passes or camera panning, while all other games (CS2, Battlefield, Call of Duty) run perfectly smooth on the same system.

My specs:
– Ryzen 5 5600X
– RTX 3070
– 16 GB DDR4 RAM
– Windows 11 (25H2)
– Game now installed on NVMe C: drive (112GB free space before installing FC26)

Symptoms:
– Constant micro-stutters and inconsistent frame pacing (even at low settings).
– Noticeable input delay on controller (both wired front and rear USB).
- Feeling of low fps, or inconsistent fps.

LatencyMon shows DPC spikes whenever the EA App is active, CPU & GPU usage look normal; FPS is stable, but frame-time stutters are visible and felt.

Troubleshooting done:
-Full reinstall of EA App, EA AntiCheat, and the game itself
-Moved game from secondary SSD (E:) to main NVMe SSD (C:)
-Disabled Windows Defender real-time protection and OneDrive
-Disabled overlays (Discord, NVIDIA, Xbox Game Bar, etc.)
-Ran LatencyMon – DPC spikes confirmed when EA App is active
-Updated BIOS, chipset, and storage drivers
-Full DDU uninstall + rollback to NVIDIA driver 552.44 (clean install only graphics driver)
-Tried both DX11 and DX12 launch options
-Tested all in-game settings (Low / Ultra / mixed)
-V-Sync ON and OFF, frame caps at 90 / 141 / uncapped
-Windows Game Mode: ON (and FC26 added + High performance setting)
-Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling: ON
-Power plan: Ultimate Performance
-Disabled Fullscreen Optimizations via Compatibility Settings
-Registry tweak applied for GPU priority (Win32PrioritySeparation = 5)
-Tested with EA App Offline Mode (stutters slightly reduced, not gone)
-Controller tested in both front and rear USB ports (rear = severe input delay)

Even after all this, stuttering and input latency remain constant as if the game’s frame pacing or input pipeline is unstable on PC (thank you ChatGPT). LatencyMon strongly suggests EA App / background driver interference.

The game has been out for four weeks, and it's still unplayable for me. I am way past the point where I can issue a refund because of the ingame hours I spend testing etc. And honestly a refund is not what I am looking for, I am looking for a playable game.

Thank you in advance for looking into this.