My initial observation regarding BlackCipherNGS causing issues in audio stutter and frame rate drop/downspikes has given me a preliminary result after about 6 hours of testing. The downspikes are relieved as soon as both program are terminated so definitively, either one or both of them are the cause of audio/video stutter. I will exert no further effort in diagnosing other areas of concern other than the game itself as this is definitively an isolated incident involving Dirty Bomb / NGS.
Apparently, either BlackCipher/Shootergame.exe is causing excessive Delayed Procedure Calls to stack up progressively and as game time progresses, CPU utilisation increases. The likelihood of BlackCipher causing excessive calls to System Interrupts is low at the moment, however, I cannot confirm that neither BlackCipher nor ShooterGame.exe is the entire culprit of the audio/video stutter.
Splash Damage developers need to have a look at the audio processing code to see if any unattended audio garbage collection processes are recursively over stacking or have been left for too long in the process queue. Further any garbage collection video calls that have mismatching execution priorities (or whose execution priority changes as the game progresses) should be looked.
Nexon should look at the code of BlackCipher to check if video calls are likewise serviced appropriately.
I will need better diagnostic tools get deeper into the problem.
