I've been replaying some classics like Baldur's Gate 3 and Elden Ring, but lately I'm getting random stutters even though my system specs haven't changed. It started happening after I upgraded my monitor to 240Hz last month. Could it be a driver issue or is something else causing this?
The 240Hz monitor upgrade is likely your culprit - those games might be trying to push way more frames than your GPU can handle, causing stuttering as the frame rate fluctuates wildly. Start by capping your frame rate in-game to something your system can maintain consistently, like 60fps or 120fps depending on your hardware, which should eliminate the random dips. If that doesn't help, update your GPU drivers since that's the next most common cause, then check if background processes or driver conflicts are eating resources. One more thing to test: disable any frame-syncing options (like V-sync or G-sync) temporarily to see if those are causing the stutters rather than preventing them.
Driver updates are genuinely your first move here - manufacturers push fixes for frame pacing and stuttering all the time, so grab the latest GPU drivers before anything else. That said, if the stutters started right after the monitor swap, the other answers nailed it: those older games probably aren't designed to handle 240Hz properly, so try locking them to 60 or 144fps in-game settings or through your GPU control panel to see if that smooths things out.
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