Getting frame drops on games despite the FPS counter reporting 60 FPS.

[Aikawa Kizuna]

Specs:
GTX 980
i7 4790K
8GB RAM

I've tried playing Project M, regular SSBB and Mario Kart Wii, using the suggested settings from the Wiki, and in all 3 games (on the newest stable build) the FPS counter pretty much never dropped below 60, yet I was getting very clear slowdown completely randomly. It wasn't a lot of slowdown, and it wasn't super frequently either, but it was VERY clearly going MUCH slower (I would guess around 30 FPS-ish) for a few seconds, yet the FPS counter never budged below 59/60.
 
Any idea what could be causing this? Does anyone have similar specs to mine and could give their exact settings for these games so that I could try them and report back results?

[Dolemub42]

Do you have v-sync enabled? It can cause this problem you are describing for some reason.

Option A: Disable v-sync.

Option B: You can try the experimental DirectX 12 backend. It is here:
https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-un...12-backend

Or the Ishiiruka Dolphin version which has very recently incorporated the DirectX 12 backend:
https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-un...om-version

This fixed the problem for me.

[Aikawa Kizuna]

Do you have v-sync enabled? It can cause this problem you are describing for some reason.

Option A: Disable v-sync.

Option B: You can try the experimental DirectX 12 backend. It is here:
https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-un...12-backend

Or the Ishiiruka Dolphin version which has very recently incorporated the DirectX 12 backend:
https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-un...om-version

This fixed the problem for me.

I can try disabling V-Sync. DX12 is no good since I refuse to install the malware that is Windows 10.

[Aikawa Kizuna]

Actually it looks like I had V-Sync off and turning it on fixed the issue with the slowdown, however now I'm getting these random frame skips, where the audio skips as well. Usually its just a split second, but its enough to be annoying. The FPS counter is reporting the frame drop now as well.

[JMC47]

That could be the shadercache; it should disappear as you play the game more.

[Aikawa Kizuna]

That could be the shadercache; it should disappear as you play the game more.

Is there any way to fix it beforehand?

[Helios]

Use the highly experimental, buggy, incomplete and unstable ubershader branch phire is working(ish) on. You won't get shader compilation stuttering at all.

However, your games will probably be slower, and it'll probably crash. And you will be sad.

Just play the game. The stuttering should go away over time.

[Aikawa Kizuna]

Use the highly experimental, buggy, incomplete and unstable ubershader branch phire is working(ish) on. You won't get shader compilation stuttering at all.

However, your games will probably be slower, and it'll probably crash. And you will be sad.

Just play the game. The stuttering should go away over time.

Will I have to endure the stuttering every time I start the game up or will it keep the stuff cache'd somewhere?

[JosJuice]

It will keep shaders cached between runs, but the cache will go away if you change Dolphin version, and the two graphics backends use different caches.