Performance & sound problem

[Henry_pl]

My specs are:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo e6300
MB: Asus P5B Deluxe
RAM: 2 Gb pc5300 (2 x Patriot 667Mhz)
GPU: Radeon x1800xt 256mb

I haven't done any overclocking yet.
All temperatures are ok.

3d mark 2005 (1024x768) score: 8760

The problem is when there is an explosion (or many explosions) game has chopiness, freezes (not significant- less than ~0.5 seconds), the same freezes I've seen in those SH3 videos from youtube.

When I launch Bismarck single mission the same thing happens- but i observed that those freezes happen when shells hit (especially when a large salvo hits Bismarck).

The same thing (in Bismarck mission) happens even when I set graphic details to 0% and disable the "High Quality Textures" option
- so clearly this is not a graphic card problem.

Do you guys have the same "problem" ?
And- do you know how to fix it ?

(it's not really that bad, the game is still well playable, but I thought that with such hardware specs it will run without any suprises like this one)


2.
I have stock local (Polish) version (1.4).
But I don't have that fantastic sound when there is an emergency dive :cry:
I have german sounds enabled, but when I order emergency dive I don't have that
"alaaaaaaaaaaaarm ding-ding-ding-ding alarm" (you know what I mean)

Instead of that the officer says "JAwohl herr kaleun" and shouts "Alaaaarm"- but it sounds like he was trying to attract waiters attention :rotfl: .

Also I dont have that "wir haben ihn" sound after torpedo hit.

I suppose that those sound are included in some mods- which ones ? GW ?

[Redwine]

I have same problem... P IV 3.4, ATI X800 XT PE 256mb, 3GB RAM, specially when lot of propellers sounds are around, or when you put the camera around a tanker in fire, fire sound eats the FPS, somo similar when there is a naval battle, in example in bismarck mission.

You can try using the windows sound recorder utility and reduce the quality of some problematic sounds from 44khz down to 22 or 16 Khz.

Do you use an onboard sound card ?

I do, may be the onboard sound card takes too much resources from the CPU ?

:up:

[stabiz]

The sounds you are after are included in the GW-mod, yes. Your system should have no problems with this game, unless you are running full antialiasing and other stuff you can force through within the graphics adapter itself.

If not, try some different drivers, like the omega ones. (Didn`t work for me, but I have nVidia)

Besides, I have a way slower system than you, and no choppiness unless I record at the same time.

[Henry_pl]

Stabitz could you tell us about your specification ?

Do you have an integrated or PCI sound card ?

I looked at the game files- and now I see that each sond like a fire or shell explosion is represented by a single .wav file...
Could this be a problem ?
Many explosions = file opened many times (in the same time).

And still- is there any way to fix it ?

I find no option to change sound quality in SH3- only sound levels.

[redleaf]

Stabitz could you tell us about your specification ?

Do you have an integrated or PCI sound card ?

I looked at the game files- and now I see that each sond like a fire or shell explosion is represented by a single .wav file...
Could this be a problem ?
Many explosions = file opened many times (in the same time).

And still- is there any way to fix it ?

I find no option to change sound quality in SH3- only sound levels.
Sounds like it could be a particle problem? I run gw1.1a on a P4 2.4, 1GB RAM creative Live! value soundcard at 80% particle (high res textures also). I have no pausing (I also run enditall before playing, and have reduced desktop to 1024*768 to match SH3).

Might be worth checking?

*edit*
d'oh :damn: must read post properly before responding. Sorry, I didn't spot the graphics settings in the first post.
I have had problems with soundcard, it "screeched" at me when the particle density was set too high - game didn't pause, but a horrible screeching noise came out of my speakers. I put this down to pushing my system too hard, and the soundcard being the weak link gave up. I've not had any since reducing the load (i.e. particles to 80%).

I'll leave my original post as a "check this also", please ignore if not relevant
*end edit*

red

[Finnbat]

I had this small few nanoseconds errors before I defrag my harddisk.
Try to run a cleanup and then ask windoes to go thru all files and place them in order.

That helped me.

[Jusa_Finn]

I think that problem no. 1 is clearly a sound problem.

I use Terratec DMX6 sound card and the symptoms are the same. What kind of sound card do you use or do you use on-board sound?

[Henry_pl]

I've got Asus P5B Deluxe and it has integrated HD sound card (7.1) - from Soundmax.
I've read that that they make the best integrated sound cards available in the market.
(All major mobo-producers buy their soundcards)

Also they mention at their page that integrated sc use may use a lot of CPU (of course their cards don't :ping:- hmmm it seems they are not telling us the whole truth :roll:)


I enabled one of Asus overclocikng tools (AI NOS) and it looks like the performance is better- so clearly it's a CPU problem. (Yeah but temperature rises to ~53 degrees so if I wated more- I will have to rethink cooling)


Anyone- any ideas how to deal with this problem (WITHOT having to buy x6800 :88) or having to cool CPU with liquid nitrogen :oops:)

[elite_hunter_sh3]

sometimes even if you have the best computer in the world the game engine has to calculate the physics effects and calculations and the game engine lags, ive seen this happen in other games also.

[Redwine]

Well.... i made a Test.

Finally i decide to make a Test, i uninstall all my software from Sound Max onboard sound card, and i disable it from the mother bios.

I remove my old Sound Blaster Live Gamer from my old computer and i installed it.

My first problem was W XP recognize it as a Sound Blaster Live Value instead a Gamer, this card was sold in europe as gamer, and in USA as Player.

I fond some sound bugs, so i decide to download the latest drivers, it is a change because in the Sound Baster site you found the driver update only in a easy way.... i cant believe.

Finally after become a Sherlock holmes i found the complete Sond Balster Uni driver and downloasd it, later i apply the driver patch.

Finally the sound "glitches" some kind of noisy bugs are off.

WHAT A DIFERENCE !!

I have a lot of more FPS !!!

In control room i was having 60/70 FPS with all backgrund programs closed, now i have 100/110 FPS with all programs running into the background, even the antivirus.

At periscope view i was having 30/50 FPS, now i have 60/80 FPS.

In Bisckmark mission, in the intense sound battle moments my FPS drops down to 7 FPS and some times below.

Now in the "Bottle neck" moments y never had under 30/40 FPS.

For you guys with an onboard sound card..... just remove it and replace it with a PCI one with hardware acceleration wich not use your CPU resources.....

Hope this can help some body.... :up:

[stabiz]

Stabitz could you tell us about your specification ?

Do you have an integrated or PCI sound card ?

I looked at the game files- and now I see that each sond like a fire or shell explosion is represented by a single .wav file...
Could this be a problem ?
Many explosions = file opened many times (in the same time).

And still- is there any way to fix it ?

I find no option to change sound quality in SH3- only sound levels.

I have an AMD Athlon 64 3000+ , 1.5 gig RAM and an 6600GT 256 MB (AGP). I use the onboard sound card (Realtek 97?), and with GW I have 70-100 fps in open sea with external cam, and never below 18-20 when recording with fraps in harbours.

Have you updated your drivers? There are drivers for motherboards, graphic cards and cpu`s.

[Henry_pl]

I installed latest soundmax drivers (which are supposed to use less CPU)- it helped a bit.

I enabled Asus AI NOS (program which automatically overclocks CPU when needed)- it also helped.

Now those 2 above work together- and freezes during explosions reduced to 1/3 or even 1/4 of their previous time (now they are hardly noticeable).

I'm not going to buy a sound card only to improve SH3 performance :lol:
The one on the motherboard is OK- works fine in other applications, the chopiness comes rather from not-too-smart sound system made for the game which makes a soundcard work hard (I guess that making all those sunds .wav files was not the best possible solution :shifty:)

I'd rather buy a faster CPU (or overclock the one I have).

And I'll still be looking for a software solution for this problem- i'll ask some geeks...

[Henry_pl]

I have just found a fix for our integrated-sound-card problem !

Basically you've got to modify some sound files (ex. explosions) with a program which allows you to change them- lower their quality

I'll write a new thread (dedicated for anyone with integrated sound card problem in the future) in ~8hours (im sooooooo sleepy, it wasn't easy to find an appropriate program)

I've just finished testing and it works really fantastic- Bismarck mission on external camera with not even one freeze (100% details and all IQ options ON) :up::up::up:
Also- all explosions without freezeng- yeaaaaaaah now I see they look really fantastic :rock:

And sound quality difference is hardly noticeable- after few minutes you forget that these are low-quality sounds.