Below are 13 steps (in order of most likely) to try and help solve any stuttering, tearing, lag and or latency:
1. If you have an Apple device, please try temporarily disabling AWDL: https://stimsocial.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/30319088604435-How-To-Fix-Stuttering-Low-FPS-on-Apple-Devices
2. Try Refreshing: Try refreshing the page to see if your stream improves. Reconnecting can select a new (random) network port which sometimes provides a cleaner connection depending on your network configuration.
3. Check Your Selected Region: Check that the region you have selected has low ping by reading the number to the right of to your selected region . In this example I have 13ms ping. Less than 30ms ping is great for competitive first person multiplayer games such as shooters. For everything else, <80ms ping is typically a good experience depending on the title. You can see your ping to the right of the selected region name.
Note: Gamepads / Controllers will typically feel better when streaming than a keyboard/mouse. This is due to their predictive nature, and most titles enable aim-assist when using a controller.
4. Check Stream Quality: Click "Stream Quality" on the bottom right of the stream and select the lowest possible stream quality to help debug video decoder and or bandwidth issues. The lowest quality setting on stim should require about 3Mbps of internet connectivity, but will be a very blurry and low FPS experience. It is however useful to help debug issues specific to bandwidth or your local devices video decoder (some devices have trouble playing high FPS video).
5. Disable any VPN/Proxy which could be blocking ports, interfering with UDP, and is adding overall latency by making your connection to our servers more of a triangle, rather than a straight line.
6. Try Google Chrome: Google Chrome has the latest implementation of the streaming protocol used by stim. While we support Edge, Safari, and Google Chrome, Chrome typically performs best for Cloud Gaming.
7. Try 5Ghz/6Ghz Wi-Fi: The number 1 cause of stuttering and tearing is something called "packet loss". This is typically unrelated to bandwidth, but is caused by Wi-Fi itself. 5Ghz and 6Ghz Wi-Fi can help lower packet loss, and is more optimized for gaming, but typically has lower range than 2.4Ghz.
8. Try Ethernet (just to debug): While nobody wants to use Ethernet, it can be helpful to rule out any Wi-Fi specific issues. Try connecting via ethernet temporarily, to see if stream issues resolve themselves. If so, the issue is likely with your Wi-Fi network. Either a poor connection or interference causing packet loss.
9. Ensure all devices on your Wi-Fi are using the same Wi-Fi standard. For example, we had a smart light bulb on our network which was causes our router to have to switch between standards every few milliseconds, causing a micro-stutter when using stim.
10. Avoid Wifi Network Extenders and Mesh Wi-Fi when possible.
11. Try creating a new Cloud PC: It is possible something installed to your Cloud PC is causing issues when streaming.
12. Try a different device: It is possible that your device has some issue decoding high FPS video.
13. Try a higher ping region: If all of the above fail, the last thing to check is a different region. It is possible that your internet provider (ISP) has better connectivity (peering) to a different (further away) region, and is having network packet loss somewhere along the route to your closest region.
We also recommend using a controller when possible. Gamepads / Controllers will typically feel better when streaming than a keyboard/mouse. This is due to their predictive nature, and most titles enable aim-assist when using a controller.
Please also see our: Performance SLA and Refund Policy