Been looking and looking and looking now have some questions.

[hitech]

I believe I know what is causing some stutters on peoples systems. But the coding fix is not trivial so I want to be sure it is what is causing the issue before I do the rewrite.

This is only relevant if you are running detailed terrain and having lots of stutters. What I need people who have this problem is do some test for me.

Please do all these first test off line with ndisles terrain.

1. Go into the tower at, I.E. it is the default. And lower clip board.
     Wait about 15 secs doing nothing. Now look right, Did the View stutter as it paned around?

2. Release the right view ,after you have been looking forward,  look right again, was there stuttering this time?


3. Turn off detail terrain, Save it by pressing ok, Exit game , then repeat test 1 and 2.

4. Fly online with detail terrain OFF for a while, did almost all you stuttering go away?


HiTech

[BaldEagl]

Not sure if you saw this thread or the one linked to it:  http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,270594.0.html  It might give you more clues.

I'll try the tests later this evening.

[gyrene81]

HiTech, if you can give me until after 6 p.m. central today, I have 2 systems (maybe 3 if I can get my ati9600 pro system running) that I can test on.

You want the dxdiag hardware/driver info included with the test results?

[PK1Mw]

I tried the tests and I'm not getting any stutters, the only time I get stutters it seems, or at least when they are most noticeable is when I begin to roll in a plane, with detail terrain on.

[Lusche]

1. With advanced terrain details: Stutter
2.  No stutter

3.1 Without terrain detail: Stutter
3.2 No stutter


4. Fyling online without terrain detail:
To some extend...
When I up and fly over a friendly field, I get initial stutter, i.e first time I bring clipboard up , look back, rolling my plane (think its some ground textures that's being loaded )
Over time stutter reduces or even goes away (flying solo over water). But getting to a "new" enemy base -> stutter fest. New enemies getting into view -> stutter. Bringing up clipboard in fight then -> massive stutter.

Interestingly I even get stutters when sitting in Oclub on a base not under attack, for prolonged time, staring at the wall. They happen each time a friendly spawns on runway, though it seems only as long this is a "new" type of plane (Second P51 spawning doesn't seem to trigger stutter, but I can't say for 100%)


I experience no stutter at all when not running game in compatibility mode, but that's making the game unstable: Minimizing results in almost certain lockup, when not minimzing I was able to play 15mins to 2.5h until I got spinning clipboard bug. (But that's much better than 2.13 which wasn't playable for any amount of time without compatibility mode)

AMD 64 X2 4200 2GB
GF 9600GT 512 MB
XP SP3
SB Live! & AH stock sounds
Track Ir

[mia389]

1. No
2. No
3. No
4. Yes almost. Still there but not as noticeable

[5PointOh]

1. Go into the tower at, I.E. it is the default. And lower clip board.
     Wait about 15 secs doing nothing. Now look right, Did the View stutter as it paned around? (In pan view mode) Yes it stuttered as I panned 360 degrees

2. Release the right view ,after you have been looking forward,  look right again, was there stuttering this time? Yes, but less of a stutter


3. Turn off detail terrain, Save it by pressing ok, Exit game , then repeat test 1 and 2.
    1. Go into the tower at, I.E. it is the default. And lower clip board.
     Wait about 15 secs doing nothing. Now look right, Did the View stutter as it paned around? Yes it stuttered as I panned 360 degrees

    2. Release the right view ,after you have been looking forward,  look right again, was there stuttering this time? Yes, but less of a stutter

4. Fly online with detail terrain OFF for a while, did almost all you stuttering go away? Nope still there sir, like PK said, most of the time while rolling the plane.

[lengro]

Offline with ndisles, default tower, enabled pan [F8]:



Wait 15sec, now pan right:



On first 360 degrees I get stutters as (Cnt=) starts counting and "Used" increases (as shown in above pictures)
I continue the right pan for several revolutions and now its very smooth at 59-60fps, only interrupted by 2 or 3 very small (almost unnoticeable) stutters on every revolution.

Now disable detailed terrain and restart game:



Again I get stutters on first right pan and "Used" increases.



I can't see any stutters in the following revolutions.

Note #1: in game with absolute minimum settings (vsync=on) and running WinXP with less than 18 processes, I experience occasionally very small stutters, typically (but not always) when changing views.

Note #2: CPU is running with both cores - apparently I'm one of the lucky Athlon X2 users.


From DXDIAG:
   Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3 (2600.xpsp_sp3_gdr.090206-1234)
          Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+,  MMX,  3DNow (2 CPUs), ~2.5GHz
             Memory: 2048MB RAM
    DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
     DxDiag Version: 5.03.2600.5512 32bit Unicode

        Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
   Display Memory: 512.0 MB
     Current Mode: 1920 x 1200 (32 bit) (60Hz)
   Driver Version: 6.14.0011.9038 (English)
 Driver Date/Size: 7/14/2009 20:54:00, 5842816 bytes

 Description: SB Audigy 4 [8000]
 Default Sound Playback: Yes
 Default Voice Playback: Yes
            Hardware ID: PCI\VEN_1102&DEV_0008&SUBSYS_10211102&REV_00
                   Type: WDM
            Driver Name: ctaud2k.sys
         Driver Version: 6.00.0001.1371 (English)
      Driver Attributes: Final Retail
          Date and Size: 6/23/2009 13:36:24, 528408 bytes
        Driver Provider: Creative
         HW Accel Level: Full

[texastc316]

Computer illiterate question, ho can you tell both processers are running?

[715]

• Test   A   B   C
• 1       Y   N   Y
• 2       N   N   N
• fps    59  85  85

A = Detailed Terrain on (and Detailed Water + Reflection on)
B = Detailed Terrain off
C = Detailed Terrain on but Detailed Water off

4 (online w Detailed Terrain off)- no stutters and fps pegged at 85.

3GHz E8400, 4GB RAM, HD4850 512M, XP SP3, 1280x1024 w 1024 textures, 4xAA, 8xAF

[ten367th]

ten367th

1. yes stutter
2. no stutter
3(1) no
3(2) no
4 A little stutter but not bad.

[lengro]

Computer illiterate question, ho can you tell both processers are running?

The easiest way is to run the taskmanager in the background before you start the game - run the game for a while, then exit. Now check the CPU activity in the taskmanager. If both were high until you stopped the game, you are using both cores.

If you are running in compatibility mode you are only using a single core.

[texastc316]

Cc, I run comp. Mode thanks

[hitech]

Lusche: You running in compatibility mode or not?

HiTech

[Lusche]

Lusche: You running in compatibility mode or not?

HiTech

I did both for testing purposes. All stutter issues and varying FR only when running in compatibility mode.