Stuttering? "hesitates" every 4 seconds or so ...

[Catfish]

Hello,

i usually played SH3, but decided recently to try out SHIV - so i just installed SH4 on another PC with 2 Gb Ram, and an Intel E8400 3 GHz Dual core (XP SP3). Now what is strange is that the game runs relatively smooth, but seems to "hesitate" every 4 or 5 seconds, before going on.

I have lowered resolution and all, but it does not seem to be related to the graphical detail, or settings. Ther's an old Nvidia 8400 card in it, but the game ran better with an even lesser card - has anyone an idea ?

Thanks and greetings,
Catfish

[SteamWake]

Most likely a process running in the background stealin focus from the game.

Got a virus scanner running?

[Catfish]

Hello Steamwake,

silly me, i really did not want to believe you lol.

In fact is was "SpyBot" running in the background - i do not really understand it, since sims like FSX and OFF run very well, but it seems SH4 has some more demands.

Well, that was it, now it's smooth even with higher settings ! :DL

Thanks and greetings,
Catfish

[SteamWake]

Glad we could help.

I can always tell when my virus scan decides to fire up when playing SH4.

As with you it doesent seem to conflict with most other games but SH4 demands a bit more resources and is also subceptable to having focus taken away from it. It will often flat out crash when 'shelled' out of.

Anyhow good work good luck and good hunting.

[Rockin Robbins]

SH4 is surprisingly demanding! Games rated much more difficult to render and much more responsive and have higher frame rates than SH4. There's a lot going on under the hood!

[jazman]

SH4 is surprisingly demanding! Games rated much more difficult to render and much more responsive and have higher frame rates than SH4. There's a lot going on under the hood!

Yup. For a while I was playing on an old, slow box, and I called it my hardware convoy detector. That is, when I was coming upon a convoy, the CPU requirements shot up, but my CPU was already pegged (I had just enough to run at 20-25 fps, which was acceptable, but only barely), so everything would start stuttering. When that happened, I braced myself for convoy action. Immersive, huh?

[SteamWake]

Yea another little 'cheat' is while transiting the nav map at a high rate of TC you might notice a 'stutter' espically with the watch open. A slight hesitation usually means that something is in the area.

If you catch it soon enough usually a dip for a sound check will pick up something and the hunt is on. :salute:

[Catfish]

Hi,
thanks for the input :salute:
- just for feedback i hunted it down to Spybot SD, the Antivirus program i use ("Avira") holds no perils SH4-wise.
Just ending the "Spybot-SD" resident thingie before starting SH4 did the trick. No other program i have has this effect on SH4 ...
Thanks and greetings,
Catfish

[Registered55]

i've also recently found that this game takes a hit with V-Sync (Tripple Buffering turn on)

so No V-Sync, and turn off Tripple Buffering in graphic pannel,

Geforce 9800GT 1GB

[Task Force]

Now... I havent played SH4 on my new setup (old was Vista w/ old HD)... but I dont see why SH4 being just basicly a beefed up SH3 takes so mutch power... I dont know how it went from running great to like crap... and really the only thing new I knotice it some pretty graphics and GUI...:hmmm:

What did they do to make me get 100 less FPS in 4 than 3...

i've also recently found that this game takes a hit with V-Sync (Tripple Buffering turn on)

so No V-Sync, and turn off Tripple Buffering in graphic pannel,

Geforce 9800GT 1GB

yep, V sync uses Processor power I believe... I get this feeling SH4 is more CPU/RAM demanding that GPU...

[Webster]

Hi,
thanks for the input :salute:
- just for feedback i hunted it down to Spybot SD, the Antivirus program i use ("Avira") holds no perils SH4-wise.
Just ending the "Spybot-SD" resident thingie before starting SH4 did the trick. No other program i have has this effect on SH4 ...
Thanks and greetings,
Catfish

try the ad-aware free version, it works just as well (better IMHO) than spybot and it wont interfere with your game so you can leave it running

[Registered55]

the only thing that i have noticed, and that is everything runs fine upto the point when a plane for example comes really close, then i get a constant stutter, but as soon as the plane is destroyed in the air, everything goes back to normal and i can watch the plane dive into the sea in real-time,

the other time is when a ship is just about to explode, i then take a sudden hit in FPS, but the explosion is fine, no stutter, it happens just before the explosion,

i think in both cases there's a sudden spike on the CPU, and that is what causes the hit in FPS,

i agree with what has been said, the game is very heavy on the CPU, only in my experience it is always at specific times, other then that everything is smooth. some kind of glitch with the games code that was never fixed/optimized perhaps.

Athlon Phenom x2 550 BE (also tried my CPU in 3 CORE mode (so 3x 3.1GHz processing power but did not help))

2GB DDR3 1333MHz

9800GT 1GB

[Webster]

that sounds like the event cam kicking in and it will definately tax a marginal system so turning it off will help (but i wouldnt think your system would be effected by it)

it kicks in just before the torpedo hits a ship or when a plane gets close and gives you a screen within a screen view of the action from the planes or torpedos point of view

in the options menu select game play settings and uncheck the event cam and that could cure it but i suspect you have some kind of mod soup thing going on

[Task Force]

Hmm... mod soup...:dead: Bad flavor...