How Can You Quickly Identify and Diagnose Stutter Frames in Unity?
Performance issues are often easy to notice but difficult to diagnose. A game may feel stuttery even when average FPS looks acceptable, making individual frame spikes especially important to investigate. GameOptim's GOT Online now adds Stutter Analysis to its Overview mode, helping developers quickly identify abnormal frames, inspect their call stacks, and trace frame-time spikes back to the functions responsible.
About GameOptim GameOptim helps Unity developers identify memory issues, rendering bottlenecks, and performance regressions through automated profiling and cloud based performance analysis. Explore more: 🌐 Website: www.gameoptim.com https://www.gameoptim.com/?fopt=blog 📘 Blog: www.gameoptim.com/blog/ https://www.gameoptim.com/blog/ 💼 LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/gameoptim/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/gameoptim/ 🎥 YouTube: GO.PerformanceLab https://www.youtube.com/@GO.PerformanceLab 💬 Discord: GameOptim https://discord.gg/4Jh6hj9gRw ⭐ GitHub: GameOptim https://github.com/GameOptim/unity mobile performance guide 💻 Dev: GameOptim https://dev.to/gameoptim What Is a Stutter Frame in GOT Online? GOT Online's Stutter Analysis identifies frames that meet both of the following conditions: The frame time is greater than 83.33 ms . The frame time is more than 2× the average frame time of the previous three frames . https://uwa overseas public.oss us east 1.aliyuncs.com/uploads/markdown/b0006614 3ecb 4ee5 a2d2 12b10a42dd78.png These conditions are designed to identify significant frame time spikes rather than simply flagging every relatively slow frame. In the latest Overview report, all detected stutter frames are listed under the Stutter Analysis section. This gives developers a focused view of abnormal frames without having to manually scan the entire performance timeline. What Information Is Available for Each Stutter Frame? Each detected stutter point includes detailed function call stack information. Developers can inspect key metrics such as: Time percentage — the proportion of the frame's execution time spent in a function. Execution time — the actual time consumed by the function. Call count — how many times the function was called during the analyzed frame. https://uwa overseas public.oss us east 1.aliyuncs.com/uploads/markdown/a07cbe24 b24f 4cc4 bbea 3d6649b691f1.png This makes it possible to move from simply identifying a frame time spike to understanding where the time was actually spent . How Can You Find the Cause of a Frame Stutter? The analysis workflow is straightforward: 1. Identify a stutter frame Open the Stutter Analysis section in the Overview report and select one of the detected stutter points. 2. Inspect the call stack Review the function stack associated with that frame to understand which parts of the code consumed the most time. 3. Check execution metrics Compare execution time, time percentage, and call count to determine which functions contributed most to the spike. 4. Switch between stutter points You can quickly move between different detected stutter frames and compare their call stacks. This makes it easier to determine whether multiple stutters are caused by the same function or by different parts of the game. Why Is Stutter Analysis Useful? Average FPS can hide short but noticeable performance spikes. For example, a game may maintain a relatively high average frame rate while occasionally producing frames that take significantly longer to complete. These isolated spikes can still result in visible stuttering and a poor gameplay experience. Instead of analyzing every frame manually, Stutter Analysis focuses the investigation on abnormal frame time events and provides the call stack information needed to continue the diagnosis. This helps development teams move more quickly from: Frame time spike → Stutter frame → Call stack → Expensive function → Root cause Key Takeaways GOT Online's Stutter Analysis provides a focused way to investigate frame time spikes in Unity projects. Stutter frames are automatically identified based on frame time thresholds. A stutter frame must exceed 83.33 ms and be more than 2× the average of the previous three frames . Each stutter point includes detailed function stack information. Developers can inspect time percentage, execution time, and call count. Different stutter points can be switched and analyzed quickly. Call stack analysis helps narrow down the functions responsible for abnormal frame times. By focusing optimization efforts on the frames that actually cause visible stuttering, teams can spend less time searching through performance data and more time addressing the underlying bottlenecks.