Micro-stuttering in minimal scenes (Godot 4.4, even with only one active node)

Godot Version

Godot 4.4

Question

Body:
Hi everyone,

I’m currently working with Godot 4.4 and have been encountering a persistent micro-stuttering issue that appears even in the simplest possible scenes.

In my current project, the main player is a VehicleBody3D with a fixed camera. Occasionally, there’s an enemy or some AI logic, but even when I strip the scene down to a single player node, the stuttering still occurs.

I’ve already tried all of the following:

Disabling V-Sync.

Testing both in editor and exported builds.

Removing all raycasts, navigation agents, physics-heavy elements, and shaders.

Reducing _physics_process logic to the absolute minimum.

Monitoring CPU/GPU usage — no spikes or overloads.

Testing with different screen refresh rates.

Checking the profiler — there are no massive spikes, but some function calls change color from violet to yellow/brown, suggesting potential latency or time cost fluctuations.

Here’s the strangest part:
In debug mode, everything runs smoothly.

In launch mode (or when exporting), I get a noticeable hitch or hitch the moment the player starts moving and it lasts for the entire game.
It’s like something in the engine triggers during the first physics or movement step that causes this micro-stutter, even when there’s no visible complexity in the scene.

This makes me think there’s a subtle difference in how Godot handles resource initialization or frame timing between debug and release modes. But I haven’t found clear documentation or explanations related to this yet.

Has anyone experienced similar behavior in Godot 4.4?
Could this be tied to internal systems (like physics caching, mesh upload, or frame sync behavior) being delayed until first movement?

Any advice, workaround, or explanation would be deeply appreciated.
Thanks in advance!

1 Like

Micro-stutters may happen because a shader compilation. Does it happen all the time or just the first time? If it only happens once and does not happen again after restarting the game again then it’s probably a shader being compiled. Here’s some information about this issue Reducing stutter from shader (pipeline) compilations — Godot Engine (stable) documentation in English

If that’s not your case you could try opening an issue here GitHub · Where software is built attaching a MRP (minimum reproduction project)