Stuttering/Freezing Above 60 FPS & Sequencer Plays at Half Speed with Fixed Frame Rate

Hi everyone,

I’m running into two separate but related frame rate issues in UE5 and can’t figure out what’s causing them. Would really appreciate any help!

My current settings:

  • Fixed Frame Rate: OFF
  • Frame Rate Smoothing: ON
  • Min FPS: 22 | Max FPS: 60

Issue 1 – Editor exceeds 60 FPS and keeps freezing

Even with smoothing enabled and a max of 60 FPS set, the editor runs above 60 FPS. I assume this is by design for the editor viewport — please correct me if I’m wrong.

The real problem is that when FPS goes beyond 60, the game repeatedly freezes and resumes, freezes and resumes. It feels like the engine is constantly trying to push past its limit, which causes these stutters. Why does it behave this way instead of simply capping at 60?


Issue 2 – Sequencer movie plays at half speed with Fixed Frame Rate ON

If I turn Fixed Frame Rate ON (set to 60), the freezing stops and playback is smooth — but now my Sequencer cinematic plays at exactly half speed. The actual playback duration is doubled; it’s not a performance issue, the animation is genuinely running at half the intended speed. Turning Fixed Frame Rate back OFF fixes the Sequencer timing, but then I’m back to the stuttering problem.


General question for everyone:

For future projects, would it be better practice to enable Fixed Frame Rate from the start and build all gameplay/animation around that fixed timestep? How do you all handle frame rate settings in your UE5 projects? Any recommended workflow would be greatly appreciated!

“I am working on the same project synced across another PC, but that one runs smoothly without any stuttering. On this PC, however, the D drive usage hits around 80% when it stutters, which made me think about replacing the drive. That said, I don’t want to just rely on brute-forcing the issue with better specs. If there are any potential causes other than hardware specs, please let me know.”


When I changed the Clock Source from “Tick” to “Platform,” the playback speed stayed consistent regardless of whether Fixed Frame Rate was ON or OFF. However, the audio started crackling/stuttering, likely because it’s trying to sync with the now-constant playback speed.

This leads me to believe that the PC’s overall performance lag and the Sequencer’s slowdown are separate issues.

My current understanding (or guess) is that “Fixed Frame Rate” imposes a limit on the number of frames per second, and since the Clock Source was set to “Tick,” the Sequencer was forcing itself to sync with those constrained ticks. Is this interpretation correct?

I’d appreciate any insights into how these settings interact and how to resolve the performance drop without breaking the audio.


It turns out I’ve been running my UE5 projects from my D drive. My C drive shows almost 0% activity, and I found out my D drive is a SATA HDD with speeds only around 100–200 MB/s. It seems like my PC’s performance is being bottlenecked there. Just moving the projects to my C drive, which is a SATA SSD, might make a significant difference.