Quick answer: Unity Time.deltaTime spiking to 33ms intermittently after a GPU driver update? Triple-buffered VSync stretches frames - clamp via Application.targetFrameRate or use Time.smoothDeltaTime.

Player movement jitters in a profiler-clean scene. Time.deltaTime oscillates 16-33-16-33ms even at sustained 60fps.

Use smoothDeltaTime for visuals

For camera lerps and FX, use Time.smoothDeltaTime. It's a moving average; spikes don't propagate to motion. Keep Time.deltaTime for physics-coupled logic.

Lock the frame rate

Application.targetFrameRate = 60; QualitySettings.vSyncCount = 0; on PC. Manual cap is more stable than VSync's triple-buffer drift on some drivers.

Profile with FrameTimingManager

Unity 2022+: FrameTimingManager.CaptureFrameTimings() exposes CPU/GPU/present times separately. The spike shows up as a present-time stretch, confirming VSync as the cause.

“Time.deltaTime is the present delta - which means it's whatever the swap chain says.”

Mobile drivers compose differently from desktop. Test the fix on both targets; what stabilizes one can destabilize the other.