Why is my game stuttering?

Rainbow Six Siege stutters every few seconds or so. My PC is definitely more than capable to run the game well but I have no idea why it still stutters. It has happened to me in other games, like CSGO. I have run virus scans and updated Windows.

In this context, stuttering is when R6S freezes for about 0.5-1 second every 5-10 seconds.

I have tried this guide to fix my issue, including some of the comments' suggestions, like uninstalling Microsoft C++ 2010 Redistributable Package. Even running Anti-Virus and Anti-Malware software does not help.

My PC's specs are as follows:

Processor: Intel i7-7700k (4.4 GHz on an EVO 212 Air Cooler)

Graphics Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FTW ACX 3.0

RAM: Corsair Vegeance LPX - 16 GB/3200 MHz

Storage: 120 GB SSD + 5 TB Western Digital Professional at 7200 RPM

Monitor: ViewSonic XG2700 - 4K @ 60 Hz with a 5ms Delay (3840x2160)

Power Supply: Corsair CX850M (850 Watts)

Operating System: Windows 10 Home Premium 64-Bit

Solution 1:

In my experience, the most common cause of this (provided the hardware is beefy enough to support the game, which seems to be the case here) is the defragmentation of the drives. I know modern Windows OS versions claim to do this automatically, but there needs to be sufficient free space on the disk in order for this to occur. Personally I find that it's not good enough, and often perform the task manually every few months or so, especially after installing and deleting large files (usually games in my case, some with several thousand files or more).

One other thing to try is to look at your paging (swap) space. Contrary to what some think, the swap space can be too large, or if the paging file is on a heavily fragmented drive, that can cause issues too (unless it was there when the disk was formatted, it shouldn't be fragmented at all).

Hope that helps.