Can Narrow down Stutters to 2, maybe 3 causes -

[Waffle]

OK - I was running stutter free using this process:

1: Uninstalled AH2 using the 'Custom' option. Wiped everything.
Did a search for "Aces High" (including Hidden folders) - deleted what I could out of there.

Deleted my HTC folder.

2. I save all my downloaded skins from HTC - these are the .res files in your skins folders.

3. I also saved all my settings, except for the .PWL files and the video8.cfg file.

4. Reinstalled AH2 v05 from fresh download.

5. Placed settings and skins folders back in to the HTC/AH2 folder.
 - Note: I made sure there were no unnapproved skins in the  skins folders. ONLY .RES FILES IN SKIN FOLDER.

6. Went to my firewall and deleted all instances of "ACES HIGH.EXE"

7. Make sure you deleted all instances of "aces high.exe" except the one that is in the AH2 folder. (including start menu, if it shows there also)****

8. Run AH2 using Aces High.exe in ah2 folder. Here, set up your video resolution / texture preferences.

Set up firewall, login.

9. NOW, go directly to hanger and click on every available plane / vehicle boat.

Also, Change skins on the planes/gv that have extra skins.


I've done this twice now, Each time it has worked to fix any and all stutters on my system.

Now, you're wondering - why twice. - I did something to cause the stutters today, which I can narrow down to 2, and an ouside 3rd cause.


****1. The first time i deleted ah2, I left an Aces High.exe file in start menu. I also used the Automatic uninstall.

So - today when I started AH2 - I used the start menu .exe for AH2. When I did this - it went through and did the "texture" thing, which it said it was only going to do once...yesterday.

I would imagine the .exe wouldn't cause this, but it is one thing that did happen.

2. I added some unnofficial Skin folders of some airplanes I was working on. I looked at them offline, then I deleted them from the skins folder before going on-line.

3. This is a possibile 3rd cause of stutters from a stutter-free game yesterday. I Calibrated joystick and set my damping / dead band on my left/right brakes and rudder.

Using CH products USB pedals / stick. no HOTAS crap - just AH2 interface.


So the only things that I noticed that could cause the stutters from before when I was runing stutter free -

An Aces High.exe. file,
Adding Non-.RES skin folders to Skins folder.
Calibration.

oh yeah - and one other thing - I turned off my computer last night

[TweetyBird]

The thing is something is causing the stutter that shouldn't be there. Usually when you start filming, there's a stutter, but it doesn't stutter everytime the program writes to the hard drive. The program is stuttering everytime it reads from the hard drive, and it shouldn't be. I don't know if an interrupt is being handled wrong (they still have interupts right?) or what. I just feel very uncomfortable tweaking the heck out of my system before the next patch , or even final patch. This problem just blossomed on the last patch, and unless someone can say why its stuttering, I'm just not gonna do a lot of tweaking. I mean the last patch states, the whole texture handling routine was redesigned. Maybe, just maybe there's a mistake.

I do appreciate the tips though. I'm just one who's going to wait a few patches or until the texture handling is *etched* () in stone before I start trying to find the optimum setup

Again, the help is much appreciated. But when you start tweaking stuff, it can have side effects in other programs and you forget what you tweaked. Not that reloading AH2 would do that - but you gota admit, having to go through such a fix means something is wrong with how the textures are being handled, and a new patch might fix it. I doubt HTC would leave it so you had to review every texture before playing. If you have to, something is very wrong.




And just a note. If you switch your map size (e.g., from 256 to 512) and back again, the next time you run AH, it will decompress the plane views and terrain objects into the cache again. But even this doesn't stop the stutters that I assume are caused by other plane skins. It will stop the stutters caused by stock objects (muzzle flashes, barns, towers  etc.). But even that fix is convoluted and means something is wrong.

[Tilt]

I have some home made skin files and I am stutter free (crosses fingers, touches wood etc etc)..........

I did have stutter but this went after I totally cleaned out and re installed my sound drivers along with a new sound card (disabling on board sound and adding a cheap SB 5.1).........also ensuring that sound, graphics and network card were on separate IRQ's.

btw in your AH sounds set up what values do you generally use for the majority of sounds and what value do you use for eg "external engine" sound.

I ask because when other planes come close they have a sound implication as well as a graphic one.

I have most sounds set to 40% and a few that I want to concentrate on set louder..........

I can see the logic of pre loading skins by perusing them in the hanger, however if skin loading is causing this on your system then I would assume its your CPU trying to cope with the graphic load either demanded by your vid card or dumped on it by your vid cards inadequacies.

Yet some low end systems seem to be stutter free.

I presume you note the same effect regardless of texture depth and detail chosen? (this would get me looking at sound again) however a glance through your system bios may be in order........look for stuff like  video ram caching, video bios caching, etc etc . I am not suggesting you change any thing in your Bios settings but by looking thru you may find stuff that gets you asking questions (re bios) here that may assist.

[Waffle]

Now, I'm most perplexed -

Stutters are back - small ones.

Today I just booted PC, abd started ah2. Noticed the small stutters with hat, near cons.

I didn't "look" at the planes / skins in hanger today.

Also, pretty sure stutters are not caused by sound - at least here on this pc - nothing noticible tying sound/stutters together.

Gonna go back in, and look  at planes / skins - see if it helps.