Low FPS in Film Viewer

[Fulmar]

I've had this problem every since I did a reformat about 2 months ago.  Prior to this I had no issues.  I'd like start my next Aces High movie project, but I'm getting low FPS issues when playing back film and I do not want to have the movie have a lower quality due to this.

In game flying online I achieve a constant 60 FPS at 1600x1050 4x AA high texture pack etc etc.  System specs are an E6400 at 2.66ghz, 4gb DDR2, 8800 GTS 640mb, 2 250gb HD's in Raid 0.  XP Pro SP3.  It only affects the film viewer.

During film playback, I'm only getting about 35 FPS (what fraps says) with frequent jitters.  I've waited for all the textures to load etc..  There doesn't even have to be a lot of detail in the area.  High altitude alone I maybe peak at 45 FPS.  I'm not sure where to go from here.  I have not tried reinstalling Aces High.

Here are the things I have tried, but to no avail:
- Clock my CPU back to stock
- Defrag my HD
- Transfer the AH films to my 500gb drive not on the raid array and tried playback
- Updated whatever drivers that needed.
- Lowered textures to 512
- Turned off AA/AF
- Reset video card settings to default - plain Jane
- Turned off Anti-virus/Anti-spyware
- Closed down non-essential applications
- Tried small or large AH films
None of these worked or solved the issue to the slightest degree.

Suggestions?

[Skuzzy]

Anti-virus?  Check the CPU usage when the system is supposed to be idle as well.  How many objects are in view in the film?  Are you running FRAPS?

[Fulmar]

I'm using NOD32 with it completely disabled.  CPU usage during idle was 0-1%.  Total processes running was 39.  I cannot recall what it was during film playback (at work).  Objects in view varies.  I've tried an empty arena a short flight from the field or snippets from FSO (20-30 planes).  No difference in FPS.  Without FRAPS running, the low FPS/stuttering is present.  Turning on FRAPS (and displaying FPS) doesn't decrease performance, but I can at least read the FPS during playback (not recording with FRAPS).

The only other thing I can think of that is different in my setup than it was 3 months ago (prior to reformat) is I have SP3 before and prior to reformat I was using SP2.

[Fulmar]

Getting a little confused.  I haven't made any system changes and my FPS now returned to normal in the film viewer.  Would playing AH and then quitting and using the Film viewer have any adverse effects?  Textures from the game still loaded in memory or something?  I had just booted my computer up.  Played a few different games (non-AH) and tried the Film viewer and I had no low FPS issues.

[GrimCH]

Hmmm

I guess it's worth a try to run the filmviewer in win98/me compatibility.

Just guessing...

[Skuzzy]

Getting a little confused.  I haven't made any system changes and my FPS now returned to normal in the film viewer.  Would playing AH and then quitting and using the Film viewer have any adverse effects?  Textures from the game still loaded in memory or something?  I had just booted my computer up.  Played a few different games (non-AH) and tried the Film viewer and I had no low FPS issues.

Just a guess, but it could be related to other applications.  There are a ton of multi-media applications that are notorious for causing resource issues with other applications.  20-30 planes in view can cause stuttuers to happen, depending on the planes.  Takes a lot of CPU power to handle that many planes.  Any type of updater programs, like Googles toolbar or iTunes stuff could cause the problem.

[Fulmar]

I'm going to write this off as a fluke as the number of background service I keep running is limited.  I try and stay as vanilla as possible.

[Fulmar]

Update:  Well the problem returned, but I 'sort of' solved the problem.  If I am just running AH Film Viewer without anything else open, I'll still get the FPS drop issue.  Planes on screen will also kind of stutter and mini warp around.  But by fluke, I noticed that whenever I have Windows Media Player open, the stutter and low fps issues vanish.  I have no idea why this would be.  I have tested this many times over the last couple days and the result is the same.  Without Windows Media Player open, the FPS issues are there.  With Windows Media Player open, Film viewer runs flawless.

This defies all logic for me.

[lambo31]

Could it be that power saving thing where at idle the cpu runs at x6 multiplier instead of x9? Maybe the film viewer isn't enough to kick it up to the x9 unless another program is running.


 Lambo

[Fulmar]

Speed Step is turned off.

[Skuzzy]

This could be related to a DirectShow bug in many NVidia drivers, if you have an NVidia card.  That is just a guess.

[Fulmar]

8800 GTS 640mb.  I believe I'm running 175.19 which is the latest set which was released July 9th and I do recall updating my drivers almost immediately after that one was released.  I may try to roll back the drivers or try a beta set.