[TEC] Visual Glitches on panning - please help!

[panthercules]

OK - I'm experiencing a problem with my SH4 setup that I haven't been able to track down and I'm hoping some of you folks can help me figure out what's going on and how to fix it. I first noticed it while trying to test some ROW stuff, but now that I've noticed it I've confirmed that I'm seeing it with stock SH4 1.3, so it does not seem to be ROW-related but it's getting in the way of my doing any useful testing.

Here's the problem - when I'm in normal Bridge view, if I pan the camera left/right (using the arrow keys for consistency) I get this annoying "hitch"/stutter in the view - instead of a nice smooth pan, at several points I get a momentary freeze or hitch, where the picture seems to stop at a point and then skip/jerk ahead to catch up with the panning camera view (particularly noticeable when I cross the bow of my boat). I've played with all sorts of driver settings (even rolled back to a previous driver version), and various slider and in-game video quality level settings, but I can't get rid of this. I've reinstalled SH4 1.3, and run it completely stock, and I'm still getting this.

I would really appreciate it if a few of you could try this experiment (without changing any of your own settings) and vote in the poll to say whether you see this effect at all or not: Just start a career or patrol so you're docked in port (I've been using Manila), go to the normal bridge view, and just pan the camera back and forth a few times by pressing the right/left arrow buttons. See if everything stays smooth looking, or if you get any sort of hitch/freezes as you pan back and forth (it's most noticeable by looking at the cables and staff at the bow - if you're having this effect you should be able to see them sort of jerking to catch up with your view as you pan back and forth). It would help to know what your Vid card and in-game video quality settings are, but mostly I'm just trying to figure out if anybody else is seeing this or if it's only me.

Thanks for the help.

[Peto]

I get that too--sometimes worse than others. It seems to get worse the later in a patrol I am (which may indicate a virtual memory issue (serious guess)).

Video card is EVGA 7900 KO GT: Not over-clocking and temps are fine.
Using Driver ver. 6.14.10.9371 (haven't tried any others at this point).

Note: It's more noticable since I started using the ROW mods. But those are so good there's no way I'm going back to stock visuals.

I'll be watching this post with interest. Thanks for starting it Panther!

Peto

[leovampire]

Originally Posted by panthercules

OK - I'm experiencing a problem with my SH4 setup that I haven't been able to track down and I'm hoping some of you folks can help me figure out what's going on and how to fix it. I first noticed it while trying to test some ROW stuff, but now that I've noticed it I've confirmed that I'm seeing it with stock SH4 1.3, so it does not seem to be ROW-related but it's getting in the way of my doing any useful testing.

Here's the problem - when I'm in normal Bridge view, if I pan the camera left/right (using the arrow keys for consistency) I get this annoying "hitch"/stutter in the view - instead of a nice smooth pan, at several points I get a momentary freeze or hitch, where the picture seems to stop at a point and then skip/jerk ahead to catch up with the panning camera view (particularly noticeable when I cross the bow of my boat). I've played with all sorts of driver settings (even rolled back to a previous driver version), and various slider and in-game video quality level settings, but I can't get rid of this. I've reinstalled SH4 1.3, and run it completely stock, and I'm still getting this.

I would really appreciate it if a few of you could try this experiment (without changing any of your own settings) and vote in the poll to say whether you see this effect at all or not: Just start a career or patrol so you're docked in port (I've been using Manila), go to the normal bridge view, and just pan the camera back and forth a few times by pressing the right/left arrow buttons. See if everything stays smooth looking, or if you get any sort of hitch/freezes as you pan back and forth (it's most noticeable by looking at the cables and staff at the bow - if you're having this effect you should be able to see them sort of jerking to catch up with your view as you pan back and forth). It would help to know what your Vid card and in-game video quality settings are, but mostly I'm just trying to figure out if anybody else is seeing this or if it's only me.

Thanks for the help.

Reciently MrBeast had a problem that kept him from running the game and come to find out the driver's for his video card was actualy the problem when it seemed to be an over heating problem. This is not the first case of my hearing of driver's going bad or screwing up over time.

[SubSuck]

I notice that the ocean flickers every few minutes. Is that what you're talking about? It gets pretty annoying.

[DeepIron]

Three choices guys:

1. Update your drivers...
2. Update your video card...
3. Be selective about which ROW mods you install...

The ROW mods can push the limits of video cards. I have had some issues using my 7600GS 256M card (including the one panthercules describes) when I load "the full boat"... I found by selectively choosing particular ROW mods and installing them, especially those that use "high resolution" textures, the problems I was having decreased and I still got a lot of satisfaction from the changes...

Another thing to check is make sure you don't have a bunch of other processes running, vying for CPU time. I generally turn off my virus checker and any other "auto update" processes when I play SH4. It can make a difference...

[SubSuck]

It's the game. I have this issue on both my nVidia and ATI systems. They both have the latest drivers and there are no mods installed. Also, I'm runng dual 2900XT's and 8800GTX's.

[Digital_Trucker]

I concur with SubSuck. I've had the problem in stock (all three patches), with any mod you want to name and with two vastly different video cards (ati 9600 pro 256MB and EVGA 7800GS 512MB both with at least 3 different sets of drivers). While a part of my problem may be my outdated system (AMD xp3200+ 32 bit socket A, 400MHz fsb and 1 gig memory) I think the problem is game related and may not be noticed by folks with higher end systems. I also experience frame rate twitches at times and times when every so often the sea goes blank for a split second. I recall reading somewhere in a thread ages ago (at least a month LOL) that this was a game rendering problem. Both of these problems come and go with no apparent rhyme or reason making it very difficult to troubleshoot and hard to blame on anything except some inherent game/operating system/karma incompatibilities.

P.S. I've turned off my virus checker, firewall and all unneccessary services and applications and keep my auto update and background intelligent transfer service off except on "patch tuesday" and still experience the same problems.

[kriller2]

I just tried editing all the cfg-files to this and the difference i marvelous my fps went up with 8!! in storm with volumetric clouds and the scenery and movement with the camera is much more smooth allso looking at the sub from underwater looked much more realistic, this tweak should be in the row-thread Leo! but there is two places for the cfg-files (and I tweaked both)

Sh4/data/cfg
and My documents/sh4/data/cfg/

[leovampire]

Originally Posted by kriller2

I just tried editing all the cfg-files to this and the difference i marvelous my fps went up with 8!! in storm with volumetric clouds and the scenery and movement with the camera is much more smooth allso looking at the sub from underwater looked much more realistic, this tweak should be in the row-thread Leo! but there is two places for the cfg-files (and I tweaked both)

Sh4/data/cfg
and My documents/sh4/data/cfg/

I to found an increase and steadier game after doing this to my file's that is why I posted it for everyone. But the ROW start thread is long already and it does have a limit on just how much can be applied to it in line's so I am trying to watch that for future stuff.

[kriller2]

Originally Posted by leovampire

I to found an increase and steadier game after doing this to my file's that is why I posted it for everyone. But the ROW start thread is long already and it does have a limit on just how much can be applied to it in line's so I am trying to watch that for future stuff.

Yes you are right about that Leo, but maybe we can put it in a readme beside the mod called "How to get better performance" or something, because I am stunned how much better it looks especialy the reflections on the water and the underwater effects is allmost like a new game.