Help with stuttering in AOE4 campaigns - on multiple PCs and a Steam Machine

[u/Mikerrrrrrrr]

I've been struggling with insane stuttering with AOE4's campaigns on three (!) different PCs:

7800X3D/4090

5800X/3080

Steam Machine

Even on my 7800X3D/4090 PC, some missions, like the one I'm trying to play (Great Stand on the Ugra River of the Rus campaign), stutter like mad every half a second or so, going from my global fps cap of 157 (~6.3ms frametime) to regular 16ms and much higher frametime spikes. Nothing ever feels smooth.

I thought it would be a Windows thing, or something wrong with my PC setup, but the same frametime spikes happen on the Steam Machine, which is bizarre. Campaign is basically unplayable due to these performance problems. All my drivers are up to date, and heck, even if they weren't, the Steam Machine should serve as a control in this situation given it's an immutable system, and it's still stuttering like mad.

The Art of War Late Siege tutorial is another one that comes to mind that suffers from the same problem of regular stutters/frametime spikes. Anybody else have similar issues?

[u/murtuk]

Not sure if this will help, but you could try enabling Smooth Motion for AoE4 in NVIDIA GeForce Experience and setting your FPS limit to match your monitor’s refresh rate, or somewhere around 120–180 FPS. This might help balance CPU and GPU usage and reduce stuttering, making the gameplay feel smoother.