Read this if you have a 7950GT, dual core, or if you are plain curious

[stabiz]

:rock:I want to thank the many fine members of this board who take the time to try to help us who are in dire need of unofficial tech help.

My game-killing stutters are now gone. Hasta la vista. And I am so happy!

I did lots of stuff at once, so I cant really say what helped the most, but its fixed now, and I dont want to break it.:rotfl:

So ... just an hour ago my game was stuttering just as madly++ as it did in 1.1, even with volumetric fog turned off. The fps was in the green, say 40+ at most times, with everything cranked up. Specs in sig, by the way. Ans as some of you might have read in my countless whiner-posts, the game ran like clockwork when fraps was recording.:huh:

The stutters were as if frames were missing, the sub and world around it would jerk ahead at a steady pulse, say every second or so.

After reading advice from several members (sorry, cant remember who, I have been all over the board today, but I remember you, Kant Schwimm:up:) I reinstalled the game, shot patch 1.1 with the deck gun, and went straight for 1.2. After that I set hardware acceleration to low in the sound menu in the control panel, changed the develop-thingies in the main cfg to "No", and finally I set affinity for sh4.exe to one of the two cpu cores.

Then I put all settings at maximum (except volumetric fog), and added 2x FSAA. The game runs like a charm now, I cant believe my eyes. I mean, I got it running okayish at times with 1.1, but nothing like this. Its like SH3-smooth.

Personally I suspect it to be the soundcard, and the settings in the hardware acceleration, but I`ll leave that conclusion to someone who has a clue.

Right now my Tambor is waiting with both engines turned off, right outside Pearl Harbour, the fps a steady 40 with all eyecandy accounted for, and I am going on my first true SH4 patrol.

Thanks to all, this game was very close to the shelves earlier today, I was so sick of restarting this and that to test things.

Here we go, and thanks again!

PS: Hope this helps someone with simular problems.:sunny:

[ReallyDedPoet]

changed the develop-thingies in the main cfg to "No",

All to no Stabiz:yep: I think there are three settings, maybe two:hmm:

[Donavan]

I agree, the guys here are a great help. I'm diggin maxed setting now, what a pretty game. :up:

[stabiz]

changed the develop-thingies in the main cfg to "No",
All to no Stabiz:yep: I think there are three settings, maybe two:hmm:

Yeah, got all three of them.:up:

[IsaanRanger]

I get a nice 60FPS locked with Volumetric fog on and all sliders maxed. I have a single 7950GT and a AMD x2. never ever stuttered, only time it did was the environ effect monolith in 1.0 and 1.1, but thats all now everything is nicely 60FPS locked in 1.2

[Cakewalk]

Sometimes it dissilusions me how I get only 20 FPS with these strange stutters with Volm. Fog off, and other can get 60 FPS easy with max settings and a card only marginally better than mine, an EVGA 7900 GS KO.:cry:

[Reaves]

Sometimes it dissilusions me how I get only 20 FPS with these strange stutters with Volm. Fog off, and other can get 60 FPS easy with max settings and a card only marginally better than mine, an EVGA 7900 GS KO.:cry:

Depends on the other specs of your PC. How much RAM? What proc?

Mine runs perfect on:

Nvidia EN7600GS 512mb PCIE
Intel Core Duo 2.4 GHZ
2 gb Kingston Ram (2 sticks)
SATA HDD
XP 64 Bit Edition
Audigy 2

[NefariousKoel]

Good to hear Stabiz.

I was wondering about the odd stuttering problems and also wondered if lowering sound acceleration would help. Then again, I only have a single-core processor at the moment and didn't have them so I'd narrow it down to those two.

Also, I haven't even bothered changing the debug settings.

[dangchang]

I get a nice 60FPS locked with Volumetric fog on and all sliders maxed. I have a single 7950GT and a AMD x2. never ever stuttered, only time it did was the environ effect monolith in 1.0 and 1.1, but thats all now everything is nicely 60FPS locked in 1.2

Any AA or AF?

[FooFighters]

What do you mean by "changed the develop-thingies in the main cfg to "No"

I think I missed this conversation

:D

[MONOLITH]

My guess is the affinity on the CPU core was the biggest help, the sound card was #2.

[stabiz]

What do you mean by "changed the develop-thingies in the main cfg to "No"

I think I missed this conversation

:D

If you go to Data/Cfg/Main cfg you will find three lines under "Developing". I was told to change those to "No".

[AVGWarhawk]

AWESOME:rock: I know you were sweating the game and how it runs on your rig. I'm glad you got it going to your liking because your movies really add to the community:yep:. Now with that said....get production started on a nice new SH4 installment. I'll go make some popcorn.:D

[stabiz]

:rotfl:Thanks, AVG.

Dont worry, The Hunt for Yamato Part 2 is coming up in a few days.


Ah ...now I can finally just play.

[AVGWarhawk]

Play on man. Truly, I was feeling your pain. You pretty much got the best of the best concerning computer hardware and here I am with a off the shelve Emachine and a couple of cheap upgrades running the game with just about everything on Max. No joke man, I'm glad you got it going because I could sense your frustration in your posts:yep:

I will wait patiently until you get your crew in ship shape!

[stabiz]

:cry:

The stutters are back, although I didnt change anything. Checked that only one core was working on the game, etc. No prgrams running in the background, except fraps, and I have tried without it too.

This time I am loosing my mind.

Deja-vu, this happened in 1.1 too, thought it was fixed, and then ... CRAP!

[AVGWarhawk]

Damn it, just lost the wind in my sails:nope:. What is making it run great then for no reason at all take a crap?????:nope:

[Grothesj2]

I have that card and the game most runs pretty smoothly for me.

[AVGWarhawk]

I have that card and the game most runs pretty smoothly for me.

Get together with Stabiz and compare notes!!!:up:

[Bilge_Rat]

stabiz, have you tried turning off your sound card completely to see if it is the problem? based on the symptoms, it sounds like the most likely culprit.

I have a dual-core opteron 170, 2 gig ddr ram, 7900 GTX, audigy zx sound card, I get no stutters whatsoever in 1.1 or 1.2.

I did have problem with micro-stutters in IL-2 which was improved somewhat by turning off one core, but that has not been an issue with SH4.

[Cakewalk]

Sometimes it dissilusions me how I get only 20 FPS with these strange stutters with Volm. Fog off, and other can get 60 FPS easy with max settings and a card only marginally better than mine, an EVGA 7900 GS KO.:cry:

Depends on the other specs of your PC. How much RAM? What proc?

Mine runs perfect on:

Nvidia EN7600GS 512mb PCIE
Intel Core Duo 2.4 GHZ
2 gb Kingston Ram (2 sticks)
SATA HDD
XP 64 Bit Edition
Audigy 2

EVGA GeForce 7900 GS KO
Intel Pentium 4 3.06 Ghz CPU (533 FSB)
1 GB DDR2 RAM
SATA 250 GB HDD
Windows Vista 32 bit edition
Onbard sound (driver is terrible, audio crackles... that's what I get for getting Vista too early.)

I could run it at around 42 FPS outside, 50 inside sub pre 1.1, but now after 1.2 performance has dropped noticably to 20 fps outside, 35 inside (mind you, I am at 1400x900 res, and 4X AA and 4X AF)

I may get stutters as well, but my FPS is too low to really notice them.

Another thing I've noticed is the the FPS values "flicker"... that is, the counter seems to jump endlessly fast between values like 19 FPS and 38 FPS while outside, but the actual performance still plays like 20 FPS.

[CruiseTorpedo]

I wonder if your running any norton/symantec products or if you have in the past and just uninstalled them? I had a heck of a time with their antivirus. I uninstalled it and still something was causing my PC to go really slow anytime I ran any game, didnt matter which. I couldnt find any processes that were running from norton AV but the computer ran like crap. I eventually had to format and re-install windows xp, couldnt figure it out.

[Cakewalk]

I wonder if your running any norton/symantec products or if you have in the past and just uninstalled them? I had a heck of a time with their antivirus. I uninstalled it and still something was causing my PC to go really slow anytime I ran any game, didnt matter which. I couldnt find any processes that were running from norton AV but the computer ran like crap. I eventually had to format and re-install windows xp, couldnt figure it out.

Naw, I actually don't even have a virus scanner on the computer yet:oops: (its fairly new). I'm beginning to think it might be my CPU though, from what I've seen the Core 2 Duo gives vast improvements in performance.

[ReallyDedPoet]

changed the develop-thingies in the main cfg to "No",
All to no Stabiz:yep: I think there are three settings, maybe two:hmm:
Yeah, got all three of them.:up:

Great, appreciate it, plan to do the same for my rig:up:

[U-Bones]

Sorry to mention, but sometimes the obvious... CPU affinity can not be permanantly set that I know of. You have to set this ever time you start the app. Also the main.cfg you need to edit is the one in My Documents\SH4


FWIW, my stutters stopped when I stopped running Taskmanager ;)

AMD 4200 Dual
2GB Ram
7600 GT 256 DDR3
SB Audigy 2 SE (not good)

I get 20's with High settings and 4xAA @ 1280x960 120hz

[XanderF]

Stabiz - post your DXDIAG. (Start -> run -> dxdiag.exe. 'Save all information' and post here.)

[JuicemanJ]

Just curious, how do you turn off or set afinity to one of your cores?

[CruiseTorpedo]

I wonder if your running any norton/symantec products or if you have in the past and just uninstalled them? I had a heck of a time with their antivirus. I uninstalled it and still something was causing my PC to go really slow anytime I ran any game, didnt matter which. I couldnt find any processes that were running from norton AV but the computer ran like crap. I eventually had to format and re-install windows xp, couldnt figure it out.

Naw, I actually don't even have a virus scanner on the computer yet:oops: (its fairly new). I'm beginning to think it might be my CPU though, from what I've seen the Core 2 Duo gives vast improvements in performance.

Not to be mean but arent we trying to help Stabiz here? He already has a c2d chip and he's getting stutters like mad. If your getting stutters too how about ya post your specs, maybe we'll figure somethin out. But I still wonder what kind of apps Stabiz's running in the background.

[AVGWarhawk]

Bump

Please men, anyone who can help Stabiz with a simular type system, please post here. Stabiz is a long standing member of this community and needs our help. Besides, I need to see the second installment of Yamato and he is the producer :smug:

[SteamWake]

I might be crazy but it surely wont hurt much.

Next time you get the stutters try shelling out (alt tab) and returning to the game.

Ive read other posts here that this helped (shrug).

[stabiz]

Thanks AVG & gang, really appreciate it.:up:

I have tried at+tab`ing, no difference. And it is true that one has to set affinity each time, and I have done that.

(Rightclick sh4.exe in task manager, juicemanj, and then choose "set affinity")

This is the first time I have had problems with a game - ever - so I guess its my turn.

I have no Norton of any kind, I use Avast, and I have tried to turn it off, but no difference. (It was running when the game worked just fine last night, so I dont think thats the problem either)


I will now try to install my old Audigy and see what happens. So long, captains!!

[CruiseTorpedo]

Good luck, hope that does the trick. Report back to us and when you get the chance run a dxdiag and post the results

[MikeJW]

Thank you Stabitz for this thread as I hadnt seen any of the advice. I have a 2.66 Core 2 Duo and my frames took a plunge after 1.2. Just editing the Developer lines in the .cfg has put me back to pre-1.2 FPS.

[Grey_Raven75]

Does changing the affinity work on the Pentium D's or only the Core 2 Duo's? And can you only do that while the game is running?

Pentium D 840 3.2 gHZ
1 Gig Dual Channel 667 mHZ
6800 XT 512 GDDR3

[AVGWarhawk]

Bump,

Where are we with this Stabiz? Making any headway?

[Kant Schwimm]

Stabiz
Just read your OP was really glad m8....:D :D

Until I scrolled down and saw that your probs are back :cry:

I still got stuttering on mine too, but I know mine is my xfi.... vista:damn: dosnt recognise the control panel, so I have no way to moderate the settings:cry:

I'm just downloading some new drivers from a guy in china:o but the word on the creative forums is that it sorts a lot of xfi sounds issues in vista and xp (its a sticky on their forums so it must be good...I hope)..

http://youppax.shcsclan.com/YouP-PAX-X-FI2007.rar (http://youppax.shcsclan.com/YouP-PAX-X-FI2007.rar) its 660mb but this is a fast link.

I'll let you know if it cures mine shortly.

[XanderF]

Only issue with the YouP drivers is that they disable all the hardware EAX effects - last I'd read, anyway. So a major reason to get the X-Fi over other cards (gaming) is moot.

Now, that said, I really don't know if Sh3/4 actually NEED anything over EAX2, so...???

[tycho102]

I can't say for certain, but I see activity on both my cores during the game. One core is maxed at 100% usage, and the other holds between 30-40%. In known serial threaded games (Doom 3, SH3, Neverwinter Nights 2, Knights of the Old Republic, Unreal Tournament 2004), I usually see 100% and 10%. In known multithreaded games (Halflife 2, Stalker, Supreme Commander), I usually see symmetry across the processors (60%/60%, 80%/80%, 95%/95%).


So, I believe SH4 has been "coarse" multithreaded. The sound and graphics may have been split off from the AI and physics, to some extent.

[hensoldt]

Stabiz, try going to your nvidia control panel and turning off "triple video buffering". That helped me with this problem and I have two of those 7950s in my system. There's also something else I turned off, but I can't remember what it is off the top of my head. When I get home I'll find out.

[stabiz]

Thanks all of you.:up:

I have now tried all the tips in here, to no avail. The stutters just dont want to go away.

I have tried uninstalling the realtek hd audio driver too, and tried the game without sound, but still stutters, so I think we can release the audio from jail.


Hensoldt, I have tried that (and many other combos in the control panel), but no luck.

:cry:

[Marko_Ramius]

Maybe this will be useless, but it does not hurt ... And i don't think it has been reported so far ( If so, forgive me please ;) )


I remember some with dual-core AMD having issue like yours, Stabiz. And it was the cool'quiet who was active on the system. ( stutters; slow-down; speed-up ..)


I think with Intel the thing is called EIST (Enhanced speed step thecnology) ( something like that ..). Checking this in the bios is the way to go.


I don't want to give false hope, but who knows ..