I noticed something when playing the "Root of all evil" level in Crysis 3. After the part where Prophet emerges from the cave after falling down the elevator shaft and out onto the cliff overlooking the scene where the Cell soldiers group up.

During the battle with these soldiers, I noticed that I would get a brief pause or stutter when shooting those skinny destructible trees in half. I wonder if it could be physics related, similar to the rope issue when the game launched.

Can one of you guys test it? You'll notice a brief pause the first time you do it, but then the more you do it, the less noticeable it becomes..

I fixed the problem. It was related to Visual C++.

EVGA Precision X had auto installed an older version of Visual C++, the 2008 version for it to function. Crysis 3 apparently requires Visual C++ 2010 for optimal performance, and for some reason, it was defaulting to the 2008 version instead of the 2010 version.

Removing Visual C++ 2008 fixed the problem completely..