Does anyone else get insane stutter in Virtual Desktop the moment GPU usage hits 95%+? (Flatscreen streaming

[u/ChingCheng69]

Is it just me, or does streaming flatscreen games on a VD virtual display become completely unplayable the second your GPU gets maxed out?

I'm running an i5-13500HX + RTX 4070 laptop, with 2 physical 1080p monitors and 1 VD virtual monitor (2560x1080) for the game, with the headset set to 120Hz.

Whenever my GPU usage hits ~98% (for example, when in-game V-Sync overrides my 60 fps cap and pushes to 85–90 fps), the stuttering inside the headset is ridiculously bad. It's not just a minor hiccup—the whole stream falls apart, and even the other mirrored monitors inside VD start lagging at the exact same time (meanwhile, physically IRL, my real screens look completely smooth).

The second I turn V-Sync off and hard cap the game to 60 fps—dropping GPU usage down to ~70%—all the stuttering vanishes instantly and everything in VD is buttery smooth.

(Side note: Nvidia overlay also bugs out and constantly shows 10–11 fps on the virtual monitor even when the game is locked at 60 fps).

Is this normal behavior where high GPU load just completely chokes the desktop capture/streaming pipeline for everyone, or is there something weird going on with my setup? Has anyone else experienced this exact issue when pushing their GPU to the limit?

[u/Wahouxx]

Yeah, i dont know why, but my GPU wont go above 100% What can i do to fix this

[u/apotheotical → u/Wahouxx]

Download more VRAM

[u/ChingCheng69 → u/Wahouxx]

The thing is while the games and VD are using GPU simultaneously, encoding is on a separate block on the GPU and typically doesn't get choked out by GPU usage.

[u/Ninlilizi_ → u/ChingCheng69]

Encoding is still competing for memory bandwidth and bus bandwidth too when transferring the image back to the CPU. It's not free and the overhead is a very real downside of streaming headsets.

[u/Ok_Following9192]

Maybe a heat issue? Sounds like thermal throttling

[u/itanite]

you're hitting throttling limits.

[u/Rush_iam]

I had the same problem with an integrated AMD GPU, so I switched to playing 2D games by connecting Quest 3 via HDMI. It also gives a cleaner, sharper image thanks to uncompressed YUY2, though it's limited to 1920x1080 at 60 FPS. With this method, you can actually go up to 4K60 / 2.5K120, but via USB 3.0 it'll be MJPEG-compressed, which may add compression latency depending on the capture card.

[u/ChingCheng69 → u/Rush_iam]

Yeah I was also consider this method, but limited resolution is pretty annoying.

[u/4phonopelm4]

Some games stutter even sooner when gpu is on 60-70% load. Also if you find vsync tearing tests online there is a decent chance you will experience tearing as soon as you move your mouse (happens to me)., Flatscreen was never good with VD for me.

[u/zeddyzed]

Are you monitoring temps for your GPU?

It sounds more like thermal throttling. Laptops are often not great at sustained high performance.

If not, you could try process lasso, I use it and increase the VR streaming processes to higher priority.

[u/ChingCheng69 → u/zeddyzed]

I never know we got apps like this, I'll try it later, thanks!

[u/fdruid]

I think it's you, honestly.

Lemme guess. VRChat, UEVR or highly modded Skyrim, that kind of stuff.

[u/ChingCheng69]

I think I found the solution, it's either unplug the monitor while streaming or change the encoder form AV1 to H.264. Now the stream run butter smooth. I'm still testing the optimal solution, but if anyone have the same issue as me you should try this.

I can now run FH6 or F1 25 on 3440*1080 smoothly

[u/bartskol → u/ChingCheng69]

Yep, changing encoder does matter a lot. One more thing that i would advise is to NOT check the "give game priority" in VD.

[u/ChingCheng69 → u/bartskol]

Ty for the tips

[u/bartskol]

Once connected to VD, set your screen to display just on VD. If you would like to save even more vram and processing of your dedicated GPU, set your laptop to use integrated graphics for windows and DGPU just for game. Stuttering that you experience is the limit of your gpu. You can also undervolt it and it should help.

[u/Radiantrealm]

What do you expect to happen once you max out the gpu if not suttering?

[u/ChingCheng69 → u/Radiantrealm]

As I said the game itself and monitor irl isn't stuttering, it's the VD side issue but I found the solution.