'Shoelace' brush tapering in photoshop 26.3.0 on Windows 11

Hello, I'm getting the 'shoelace' tapering problem in Photoshop 26.3.0 and earlier versions that I have tried as well. I do not experience this issue in Paint Tool SAI, and I don't remember ever having this issue in photoshop Cs5/6 back in the day.

I have tried every proposed solution I could find on this forum and others, including:

-different brushes(ones that taper just fine for my friends)

-Wacom driver/tablet properties pen/pressure settings

-different file resolutions

-all different smoothing settings combinations

-spacing settings

-Using wintab instead of windows ink

-using windows ink instead of wintab

-reinstalling wacom driver

-reinstalling adobe CC + photoshop

I see that in many of the existing threads about this topic, people are suggesting Lazy Nezumi pro, but I can't even tell if that's a serious fix or just shilling of another product. Either way I can't believe that has to be the only solution. I don't know anything about software development or hardware but from my perspective as a customer using this product and just trying to do a basic function of making a tapered mark, this is a very frustrating experience to say the least, and I cannot believe Adobe would allow some third party addon to be the only fix for this.

As I said above, i do not get this problem in paint tool sai, so I assume it is a ps problem, but I'm curious if this is a photoshop issue, a wacom issue, or some compatibility issue between the two? I am also emailing wacom to ask about this, but if anybody here has insight on that, I am curious to know!

I really hope this is all just me being completely dense and I would seriously appreciate any advice or potential solutions that I may have missed. Sincere thanks in advance to anyone who spends the time to read this!

In case it's useful info, this is the desktop hardware I am using/have tried(I also have this same issue on my windows 11 laptop as well!):

Wacom Cintiq Pro 24"

Wacom Intuos big, medium & small (1 generation before latest gen)

Wacom Art Pen

Windows 11 Home 64Bit Version 10.0.22631 Build 22631

Adobe Photoshop Version: 26.3.0 20250122.r.156 bfca642 x64

AMD 5900x 4175MHz CPU

64Gb of DDR4 3600 MHz RAM

(I do not think i am lacking in hardware capability for the function of tapering a brushstroke)