How Can You Find the Functions That Cause the Most Game Stuttering in Unity?
Game stuttering is one of the most noticeable performance issues in modern games. Even occasional frame spikes can interrupt gameplay, reduce responsiveness, and negatively affect player experience.
To make stutter investigation more efficient, GameOptim GOT Online now introduces Stutter Frame Summary, a new feature that aggregates every detected stutter frame across a profiling session and performs root-cause analysis automatically.
Instead of inspecting isolated frame spikes one by one, developers can now identify the functions that contribute most frequently to stuttering, understand their call relationships, simulate optimization impact, and determine optimization priorities with greater confidence.
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 Find Every Stutter Frame in One Place Summary The new Stutter Analysis page provides a complete overview of all detected stutter frames throughout the profiling session. Developers can quickly understand: CPU time distribution Frequency of stutter events Overall stutter patterns Locations of severe frame spikes The CPU timeline displays the maximum CPU time sampled every 10 frames, while each stutter marker represents the actual CPU time of an individual frame. Note: Since the CPU curve uses one maximum value every 10 frames while stutter markers represent individual frames, slight visual offsets between the curve and markers are expected. Which Types of Stutters Are Happening? Summary GameOptim now categorizes additional stutter types to simplify diagnosis. The latest version introduces dedicated statistics for: Animation stutters Physics stutters These categories can be analyzed directly in the Key Function Analysis page, where developers can filter and locate different kinds of stutter frames independently. This makes it easier to distinguish gameplay logic issues from rendering or physics bottlenecks. Which Functions Contribute Most to Stuttering? Summary The new Flame Icicle Chart visualizes every function involved in stutter frames and highlights their relative performance cost. Developers can immediately understand: CPU time consumed by each function Percentage of total stutter time Complete call hierarchy Parent child relationships Performance hotspots Combined with the function list below the chart, this provides a much clearer picture of which functions deserve optimization first. How Does the Interactive Flame Icicle Chart Work? Summary The chart supports interactive exploration for large call stacks. Single click a function Selecting a function highlights every occurrence of that function across all stutter frames. This allows developers to immediately see: How often the function appears Its contribution across multiple call stacks Which parent functions invoke it most frequently Double click a function Double clicking zooms into that function's call hierarchy. The function stack list expands automatically, allowing developers to inspect: Parent callers Child calls Detailed execution paths This helps identify whether optimizing the selected function will have a significant impact on overall frame stability. Which Metrics Should You Focus On? Summary Besides traditional CPU metrics, GameOptim introduces additional indicators that better reflect optimization priority. The function list includes: Total CPU Time Total CPU Time Percentage Self CPU Time Self CPU Time Percentage Number of Stutter Frames Number of Critical Stutter Frames Among these metrics, the last two deserve particular attention. Number of Stutter Frames Indicates how many stutter frames contain this function. Number of Critical Stutter Frames Indicates how many stutter frames exceed 41.67 ms because of this function's accumulated execution time. Functions with a high number of critical stutter frames affect gameplay more frequently and should generally receive higher optimization priority. What Happens If This Function Is Optimized? Summary One of the most powerful additions is Function Exclusion Simulation . Developers can temporarily exclude a function from the analysis. GameOptim automatically recalculates every affected stutter frame as if the function's execution time were removed. If a stutter frame drops below 83.33 ms , it is marked as an Improved Stutter Frame and highlighted in green. This feature allows developers to estimate optimization impact before making any code changes, making optimization planning much more data driven. Can You Continue Investigating Important Functions? Summary Yes. For functions that require deeper investigation, developers can: Open detailed function statistics Review CPU execution time Check invocation counts Add functions into custom Function Groups for further analysis This enables long term tracking of critical performance hotspots across profiling sessions. Key Takeaways The new Stutter Frame Summary transforms stutter analysis from frame by frame investigation into project wide hotspot analysis. With aggregated stutter statistics, interactive flame charts, optimization simulation, and richer function metrics, developers can: Locate the functions responsible for the most stutters Understand why they occur Estimate optimization benefits before implementation Prioritize engineering effort more effectively GameOptim will continue improving GOT Online with deeper performance diagnostics and more intelligent analysis tools to help developers build smoother, higher quality games. FAQ What is Stutter Frame Summary? It is a new GOT Online feature that aggregates all detected stutter frames and automatically identifies the functions contributing most to frame spikes. Why is aggregated stutter analysis useful? Analyzing individual frame spikes is time consuming. Aggregated analysis highlights recurring hotspots across an entire profiling session, making optimization priorities much clearer. What is a Critical Stutter Frame? A critical stutter frame is one in which a function contributes more than 41.67 ms of accumulated CPU execution time. What does Function Exclusion Simulation do? It recalculates stutter frames as if a selected function were optimized or removed, helping estimate optimization impact before modifying code. Who should use this feature? Unity developers, technical artists, engine programmers, and performance engineers investigating CPU bottlenecks and gameplay stutters.