Having stuttering / frame rate problems on Xbox One

So I pre downloaded the game and started playing it right when it unlocked. Once I got into the open world my game suddenly started dropping frames and audio was bugging out randomly. It's not so bad that it's ruining the experience. Just seems to be happening when I'm on D-Horse or on the chopper. Anyone else having this issue??

@dakota1099: I wouldn't say it's horrible for me (X1 as well), but I've played for a couple of hours and it stuttered very noticably for me a few times.

It's bad enough that the controls seem to lag. I have it installed to an external HD, I wonder if moving it to the built in drive might help...

It's worth noting that I had dialog stuttering throughout playing the Witcher 3 on my Xbox as well.

For what it's worth the Digital Foundry report said both versions ran at a near flawless 60 the vast majority of the time during their testing, you might be experiencing some sort of glitch.

That may have something to do with it, I wouldn't run a game off an external HDD especially on a console

@oursin_360: on USB3 it should be as fast if not faster than some internal drives, especially if they are using sata2.

Exactly - the stock internal Xbox One hard drives are slow as shit. USB 3 external drives are so much faster. In fact, Digital Foundry did an article where they ran tests on a variety of external USB hard drives, and all of them, even the cheap little Passports, showed better performance than the stock HDD. It's that bad.

Unless he is using an extraordinarily slow or faulty HDD, it shouldn't be a problem. Doesn't the Xbox One do a quick performance test on external drives to make sure they're fast enough, though?

@oursin_360: I have Witcher 3 on an external HDD and it runs just fine.

playing on xbox one off an external hard drive, haven't noticed stuttering at all. Maybe try hard rebooting (hold power button for 5 seconds until it powers off) your console. Sometimes i do that when my xbox starts to hang or apps crash and it seems to help.

i'm running it off an external hard drive on Xbox One and it's been smooth as silk for me, as others has said try a hard reboot?

Thanks everyone for the replys! Hopefully it's an easy fix. Will update this if I find a way to stop it. (It seems like it's a issue only some people have so not a huge deal. Just a kinda annoying)

Works like a charm for me. Running it from a physical copy on a standard Xbox One. (I know the game is running from the HDD, but hey). :)

@dakota1099: Xbox One as well here and the few hours I've played have been flawless.

Having the same issue. Pretty bad audio and game stutter. Comes in bursts. I also had the same thing with witcher 3 audio. Running both games off a Touro 7200 HDD. Day One Xbox.

I don't have MGS5 yet but I do have all my full/retail games on my external USB3.0 drive (Western Dig) and have no issues.
Drive failing or bad quality? Dusty Xbox? I vacuum the vents on the top and sides whenever I clean.

@dakota1099: I just got Phantom Pain from Amazon last night. I've been playing for the past two evenings. Aside from the servers not functioning - which is frustrating since I have Ground Zeroes data to import - I'm totally noticing occasional, but very pronounced, frame stutters/sound cut-outs/control wonkiness.

It seems like it's a disk access stutter, like it happens if I overdrive data resident in memory and the game chugs as data's accessed from the hard drive. I was in the first mission in Afghanistan, and it would happen if I got moving with the horse. It also happened during a guard change at an outpost during a day/night cycle.

When it's loaded, the gameplay seems smooth and great. There's just this occasional stutter problem so far. It's weird, and I hope they patch it after they fix the server debacle.

For the record: I DO have a USB 3 5 TB hard drive, but Phantom Pain is loaded on the internal 500 GB drive. Do with that what you will.

It has happened once to me over about 6 or so hours of game time, I also noticed the screen door effect on foliage in the distance. Un related I know, but it still makes me sad.

I have MGS V on PS4 and it might be the most flawless running big budget game released this generation. It's a rock solid 60 or near 60 fps the entire time with no noticeable dips...much like digital foundry had said.

Weird to hear such a difference on xbone.

So I restarted the Xbox and that seemed to do the trick for a time. Still get it occasionally but it's not that big of a deal. 99% of the time the game runs perfectly at 60fps. Just a small annoyance. It does seem like it's affecting some people but the majority seem to be having no issues at all which is good

I'm having this issue something fierce. Like, it happens about every 20-30 minutes. I always force quick the game when I'm done playing. I haven't tried doing a hard reset of my console, but I don't see how that would fix the issue. I seriously hope this gets fixed ASAP.

I've also seen this hitching at a few random points with the Xbox One version. It's rare, only happens once every 3-4 hours maybe, but it is very noticeable when it does happen, primarily because it's not just visual - the audio hitches up and the input stops responding as well.

I haven't seen this happen in the Xbox One version a single time yet (been playing 20hrs).

I haven't experienced anything like that on the Xbox One version and I've played for like 50 hours soon, sounds like it is kinda rare, which is good but still sucks for those afflicted by it.

I have not played MGS 5 on anything, but I would definitely try a hard reset. I was having audio stuttering on the Mega Man Legacy collection (which the Xbox One should be powerful enough to run, all PS4 fanboy jokes aside) and a true power cycle cleared it right up. The XBONE is like any Microsoft machine, it needs a true powercycle reset every now and again. I've definitely noticed that it helps with a variety of issues that crop up if I just use standby mode to turn it off.

@bigsocrates: I actually just did a hard reset for other reasons (trying to get something to sync), so we'll see if it helped.

@falconer:

So did it?

@emjaylawthertin: UPDATE: after a long holiday weekend and a few dozen hours, I can say that the disk access thing feels like the most likely problem. When the game wants to load large amounts of stuff, like new weather patterns, enemy AI alert behaviors or even just mission sections, all of the symptoms mentioned come out. In fact, I've had spots where I totally lose either player motion control (i.e. walk right out somewhere when I didn't want to) or camera control (i.e. nonstop camera circle-strafing on Snake).

I doubt this is really news by this point, but it's worth noting. I reeeeaaally like this game, but I'm very hard-pressed to give it the effusive praise it's been getting in review coverage - and I LOVE Metal Gear. I temporarily put down Witcher 3 on PC after 50-ish hours to play MGSV:PP, and I probably won't go back until I knock this out. That said, the technical wonkiness, plus the broken promise of getting cool stuff by importing my Ground Zeroes save (since I'll have unlocked stuff anyway by the time the servers get running on XONE) force me to temper my enthusiasm.

But only just a little. I busted through a door and Six Million Dollar Man-punched a dude during Reflex Mode to the soundtrack of "Take On Me."

'nuff said.

@bigsocrates: NOPE

I had the sound issue with The Witcher 3 getting supper choppy. Now with Metal Gear I am having the sound and loss of control of Snake for a few seconds. Usually happens when I am just running around but it has happened at some pretty stealthy points and got me spotted. Day One Xbone, Preview Program, and External Hard drive, though game is installed on Internal drive.

My game on Xbox one has a stutiring problems and had the audio bug a lot. It evens stuttered on the first level. In the one of the first person moments, the screen dropped frames and stutured.Im in Africa right now and it's getting worse with the audio bugs. Can someone please help me?

I'm in this game over 150 hrs now, currently at mission 35, side mission 146 (others are open up to main 40, side 157). I had this stuttering problem pop up about every 30-40 minutes for about 3-4 seconds at a time, losing control (keeps sprinting unstoppably sometimes running way too far, right in front of enemies), sound stutters, and only dying 10-15 times in the game so far, a good 7 or 8 of them was from running in front of enemies or APC's. Not fun. Now, this deep into the game, it's getting much worse. I'm having trouble getting through a mission that is not too difficult, (145 Save the Escaped Children) but I've died twice in the same area from this bug when sprinting to a tranq'd enemy to fulton him, instead I run right past the corner of the mansion where the mortar team is causing the whole place to go on alert. In the early part of the game, it would last 3-4 secs, now it's more like 7-10secs, sometimes doing the whole thing again right after, total of around 17-20 secs. This will definitely put a hurt on your efforts. It's absolutely getting worse as the game goes on. I'm running out of guesses, but I think it's when the game is saving or loading data. I could ignore it in the early parts, but it's getting annoying when half of my deaths are from this bug. Hope they fix it soon, until then though, I have to drop my personal rating to a 9.5 from a stellar 10. But I'm still addicted!

I wonder if it has something to do with the TB internal hard drive. I have the 500 gig model and experience absolutely no stuttering at all; went to my buddy's house and MGS stutters like crazy every 30-45 minutes on his 1 TB xbox. We are both playing without a disc

Edit: We are both installed on the internal drive.

@therikerlean: I have a launch xbox one and this issue is happening to me so its not a 1tb hard drive thing, though it could still be a hard drive issue.

Also i have seen this issue when playing the borderlands handsome jack collection so its more than just this one game.

something very weird is happening here. I've experienced absolutely zero problems in over 70 hours of play. However, just like @therikerlean I've seen it being played on another xbox where the problem was really quite pronounced... super weird

Xbox One user reporting in... Had this bug since day one and I'm 80+ hours deep and with the latest update its happening a lot more frequently now. I've tried moving it from external to internal and back and nothing. Hard resetting it doesn't really help either. Its almost enough for me to get rid of it and pick up a PS4 copy.

@xx_kells: Ive been suffering from this "bug" I'm really hoping that it can be patched but Microsoft nor Konami have been any help so far nor has either party acknowledged the problem so I'm hoping its not because the Xbox One simply can't handle the game in its present state. The problem occurs quite frequently to me.

I'm using an external hard drive (which I was led to believe was quicker) and I'm also on the preview program although I've seen posts on various forums saying that the problem is common among non preview program members and also players using the Internal Hard drive.

Such a shame because despite this potentially game breaking bug the game is one of the all time best I've ever played.

@lordcvandingo: I don't think the Xbox One has a problem running it at all, since there are a ton of people who don't seem to be having any issues. Drew seems perfectly fine on Metal Gear Scanlon.

I've contacted Kojima and Konami via Twitter and haven't got any info about it either.

I ended up breaking down and getting on PS4.

You're posting in a thread full of people having problems of various kinds with the Xbox One version. I think that is a pretty good indication that there is a problem.

I'm a little curious about the build dates for the XBOX Ones that have this problem. I have the problem and I have a "Day 1" console. No idea how to find out the exact build date. Maybe there was a batch of memory or something that came from a different supplier that has slightly different performance specs. Just speculating.

Every other game is just fine, so this is odd

Did they run tests on the HDDs themself or did they test the Xbox ones performance with the different HDDs hooked up?

@Mike: I meant that the Xbox One can handle running MGS is what I was saying. Based on there are plenty out there who are not running into this issue. There is a problem but we don't know how wide spread it is.

Same thing still happening with me, happens pretty often.

So I was having this issue pretty consistently, maybe once an hour or so. Cold-booting the XBone didn't seem to really help. What has seemed to help, provisionally, is unplugging my Kinect. I got a good hour of play with no issues. I plan on playing more tonight and will update if the stuttering starts again, but for now I would say if you've got a Kinect, unplug it.

UPDATE: Nevermind, got stuttering about an hour and a half in.

yesterday during mission 12 i found my way into a base unseen and the game stuttered to a halt and then crashed out. At times its basically a game breaking bug/performance issue. What worries me is that Konami have been so vocal about other issues but are yet to discuss this major one, is this because its purely an Xbox One issue that spotlights its slight lack of power compared with the PS4? (this isn't platform war BS although i have all consoles i consider myself an Xbox player)

@lordcvandingo: One would think that the Xbox One version having it's resolution reduced to 1600x900 from 1920x1080 would have accounted for the performance difference between that console and the PS4. That's almost a 30% reduction in rendered resolution.

@Mike: I would hope so , I have no problem in playing a game at at lower res , but this stuttering issue can make the game unplayable at times

Anecdotally I'd say there might be something in this (generally speaking) because I've never had a kinect plugged in and I've experienced no problems at all whereas my friend's console has one plugged in and is experiencing the stutter.

@extintor: I turned off my kinect, still immediately got the issue.

Interestingly enough I found an area where it reproduced for a good 3-4 minutes straight while looking at a distant base. After that time period the stuttering in that area stopped which suggest to me some sort of caching issue. This would also be why it varies drastically from person to person, not because of a hardware failure but its unlikely that microsoft used the exact same drive in every console.

On the xbox 360 there were a wide varieties of hard drives used even just in the first year or two. I would be curious if someone who is having this issue on their internal drive moves to an external drive and still has the issue, or vice versa. Just a shot in the dark, I will be doing this test myself but not until Wednesday (9/30).

When I first downloaded the game, I had the stuttering problem on my external. I almost immediately moved it to my internal drive and it didn't fix my problems. I'm on a Day 1 Xbox One, in the preview program, and I have a Kinect hooked up. If I do a hard reset on the Xbox One, I still get the issue but it is less frequent and the duration of the stuttering an controller lag is heavily reduced (down to like 0.5 seconds instead of 5 seconds). I'm curious if the New Xbox One Experience OS will alleviate this problem (or possibly make it worse). Just makes no sense what is causing this issue and why not everyone is having problems.

Hey guys.

I just wanted to add my frustrations to the pile. I am having the exact same problem. It was particularly bad last night happening very often and almost immediately upon load. Frankly until I have heard this game is fixed I wont be carrying on which is a real shame as I am only 4% in and it's clearly awesome.

I have tried removing Kinect, switching where it's installed from EHDD to IHDD, but nothing has worked. Shocking stuff really.

One further difference between the two xbox ones in question is that the one where the game is working without stutter was purchased in July 2014 and the one where it is stuttering was a launch console. I don't know what specific difference there might be between the two models though.