screen stutters

[LLogann]

I'm having the same issue.  Tonight it got really bad.  Lost UDP, and it would seem to be a connection issue.  

Trace Route:
Tracing route to 206.16.60.41 over a maximum of 30 hops

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.1.1
  2     6 ms     6 ms     7 ms  10.240.160.57
  3     7 ms     7 ms     5 ms  dstswr2-vlan2.rh.nbrgnj.cv.net [67.83.246.162]
  4     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  5     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  6     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  7     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  8    10 ms    14 ms    10 ms  ae-33-89.car3.NewYork1.Level3.net [4.68.16.133]

  9    15 ms    11 ms     9 ms  192.205.33.93
 10    56 ms    58 ms    56 ms  cr2.n54ny.ip.att.net [12.122.130.130]
 11    57 ms    56 ms    55 ms  cr2.wswdc.ip.att.net [12.122.3.38]
 12    55 ms    55 ms    55 ms  cr1.attga.ip.att.net [12.122.1.173]
 13    57 ms    56 ms    55 ms  cr2.dlstx.ip.att.net [12.122.28.174]
 14    54 ms    55 ms    55 ms  gar23.dlstx.ip.att.net [12.122.138.153]
 15    56 ms    57 ms    56 ms  12-122-254-154.attens.net [12.122.254.154]
 16   256 ms   210 ms   203 ms  mdf001c7613r0003-gig-12-1.dal1.attens.net [63.24
1.193.22]
 17    57 ms    57 ms    63 ms  206.16.60.41

Trace complete.


Ping Plotter kept coming up the same way on the 4-7 hops.


Last 5 or 6 days it's been happening.  This is the first time I've ever had an issue with lag/connection/UDP and such.

[Chalenge]

it is a Sound Blaster X-fi Titanium, and what would be a better card?

As much as I dont like Creative and especially the X-Fi that Titanium is supposed to be a good card. I dont agree that it is in every case. The problem is related to the use of nvidia chipsets and ESPECIALLY with SLI systems along side the X-Fi cards. From Creatives website:

"Very lengthy handling of Interrupt Service Routines (ISR) and Deferred Procedure Calls (DPC) by the graphics driver on nForce motherboards (Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte are some motherboard vendors that use this chipset), particularly when nVidia SLI graphics are used."

That said the Auzentech cards (also a X-Fi) dont seem to suffer with this problem and so rather than push the blame on nvidia I have to say that the blame lies with brand 'C' and somewhere within their drivers but I am not tech savy enough to say for sure but I know what works in my experience and that is what I am reporting to you. I decided to go with the HT Omega line and I have had very good success with the Striker 7.1 card even on Vista.

I dont want the burden of your upgrade on me though if it doesnt work for you. Please bear that in mind. I hope you can RMA that X-Fi.

[Skuzzy]

Gyrene, what in-game settings ("Video Settings", and "Options->Graphic Detail->Advanced") do you have the game configured for? 

[Chalenge]

Wing19 I thought about your situation some more and I want to suggest you pull the Titanium and try AH with onboard sound (as much as that sounds like a bad idea). I believe you will still get hesitations (I have the sister board to your MB and mine did have hesitations when I used onboard sound) but the stutters should decrease a great deal. Also you want to make sure you are using SLI correctly and NOT using nHancer but instead using the nvidia control panel application and properly. By that I mean enhancing the AH application and allowing the primary card to take care of the rendering of frames and using the slave card to do the post-processing like this:

http://i447.photobucket.com/albums/qq197/Chalenge08/Image1.jpg

http://i447.photobucket.com/albums/qq197/Chalenge08/Image2.jpg

Reboot if SLI was not already active. Next you should set your global settings and AHII profile settings as follows (in picture 1 above choose the option just above 'Set SLI...' and on the Global Settings tab:

http://i447.photobucket.com/albums/qq197/Chalenge08/Image3.jpg

and then on the game settings tab it should look like this:

http://i447.photobucket.com/albums/qq197/Chalenge08/Image4.jpg

Your system should make good use of that. In AH you want Anti-aliasing set to the first notch and you should be able to have all other features on but shadows may limit your frame rate if set to 4096 (I recommend 2048).

[gyrene81]

Gyrene, what in-game settings ("Video Settings", and "Options->Graphic Detail->Advanced") do you have the game configured for?  

This is after the last bit of changes I made...an hour or so of experimenting:








*NOTE: turning on detailed water actually lessened the stutter effect but the frame rates are unstable...starting out in tower frame rates are zero then as objects render (30 to 60 seconds) they jump to 74-75. ISP speed is generally steady around 18mb down and 1.5mb up.

Gyrene you have your resoluation set very low. Can it run the game in native resolution for your monitor?

Tried that, but the frame rates bottom out...I'm thinking I may have to find a faster video card with a 256bit interface instead of the 128bit on the current card...maybe more pixel pipelines too...I just don't want to end up having to upgrade my PSU as well since it's a new 700w modular and cost a pretty penny.

[Skuzzy]

And what happens when you turn off "Detailed Terrain"?

I really cannot see the video card you have in your computer being able to keep up when things get busy in the game, when running with the "Detailed Terrain" option enabled.

[Chalenge]

I am not up on the *500 line of nvidia sticking mostly to the *800 or *900 cards (now *95s). Skuzzy says it may have trouble so you will want to get all you can from it. Of course I always want to run in native resolution but in your situation it may not be possible.

BUT... your refresh rate reports 60Hz and yet you say you are hitting 75fps? That shouldnt happen unless you have nvidia control panel (NCP) set to Force Off vsync (not recommended). If you have vsync on in AH (and your screenshot indicates you do) and NCP is set for application setting or Force On (by my settings it should be but I use SLI) then you most likely have a driver issue that needs to be cleared up by an uninstall and a good cleaning program (I use Driver Cleaner). Afterwards install the latest driver from your cards manufacturer and you should be good.

My way of thinking on FPS is not the biggest number I can get but to insure smooth video rendering without stutters. The only possible reason I could think of to need more than say 38 fps (give or take about where I lose the ability to see any difference) would be if Skuzzy tells us it matters. For instance if you take the amount of ammo a fifty or thirty caliber weapon fires in one second and spread that out over say 75 frames. If those frames dont render do the bullets hit? If they do hit then it doesnt matter. If they dont hit then we want the most we can get. I dont think it matters but I am open to more information on that one and obviously it would cause me to change my tune.

[gyrene81]

And what happens when you turn off "Detailed Terrain"?

I really cannot see the video card you have in your computer being able to keep up when things get busy in the game, when running with the "Detailed Terrain" option enabled.

I hate to say it Skuzzy but there's no way. This game should not require a higher end video card than what I have to run detailed terrain, especially after being able to run it throughout the 2.14 series of improvements with detailed terrain no with significant hits on the frame rates until patch 7. Detailed water I can understand...that wasn't turned on until this past Thursday trying to eliminate the stuttering effect.

It's an XFX 9500GT 600MHz core 512MB DDR3 (2000MHz memory clock) 128bit interface...my old P4 with the 7300GT gets the same results with the same settings, and that one I can somewhat understand turning detailed terrain off to maintain frame rates...but I had 3 systems to test on through 2.14 patch 6 and the stuttering effect was consistent with them all...tweaking settings throughout each one until the effect was minimized and the only one that absolutely would not run detailed terrain on at 60-75 frames steady was the ATI 9600pro.



Since 2.15 I have been getting 60-75 frames with vertical sync set to application controlled on both systems with Nvidia cards regardless of the driver version. When the frame rates start fluctuating during air battles, I do get "rubber bullets" at the 50 fps and below marks. I noticed Nvidia just released a new driver today (noting increased performance in some very high video rendering games) so I'll do a clean install later this evening and test it.

[Chalenge]

If you have vsync set ON and your frame rate exceeds your refresh rate (your dxdiag says 60 Hz so 60 fps) then there is something going wrong. You would be best served to uninstall your drivers clean your system of all video drivers and then reinstall fresh with drivers from the manufacturer of your video card (not nvidia).

According to the research I did today (admittedly rushed) the 9500 GT is the equal to an 8600 or about 1/4 the card (32 versus 112 processor streams whatever that is) the 9800 would be (at about half the price). I would go with what Skuzzy said.

[Wing19]

Chalenge,

I have tried onboard sound, single card and the settings on you posts still have stutters. The stutters I have are not bad but annoying and there seems to be no pattern. The setting you provided me with, I cant seem to get my frame rates any higher than about 20. I have not set global settings, does this really make a difference?

[Chalenge]

Global settings can... maybe. Did you uninstall the cards and clean the drivers (sound card AND video) and then reinstall fresh drivers for both? Please make sure you get the drivers from the video card manufacturer.

You are using a graphics setting above your monitors maximum resolution though (1600x1200 Max recommended). Sorry I  missed that earlier. Also dont try to use shadow resolutions above 2048 or turn them off altogether until you are running smoothly.

Your MB is slightly better than the 780i that I have. You have XP and I have Vista. I have 8 GB and I think you have 4 GB (shouldnt matter unless you mixed RAM to get 3 GB or something). You have the E8500 and I have the E8400. I have 8800 GTs and you have the 9800s.

In theory you should do better than my system that I took those settings from.

[Wing19]

Global settings can... maybe. Did you uninstall the cards and clean the drivers (sound card AND video) and then reinstall fresh drivers for both? Please make sure you get the drivers from the video card manufacturer.

You are using a graphics setting above your monitors maximum resolution though (1600x1200 Max recommended). Sorry I  missed that earlier. Also dont try to use shadow resolutions above 2048 or turn them off altogether until you are running smoothly.

Your MB is slightly better than the 780i that I have. You have XP and I have Vista. I have 8 GB and I think you have 4 GB (shouldnt matter unless you mixed RAM to get 3 GB or something). You have the E8500 and I have the E8400. I have 8800 GTs and you have the 9800s.

In theory you should do better than my system that I took those settings from.

I will try new settings in global and I have cleaned all drivers with a fresh driver install

The resolution matches my monitor

I will mess around with it and post results

Thank you

[Skuzzy]

gyrene, if you are not willing to try things I suggest and let me know the results, there is not much I can do to help.

I also happened to notice, at the time of your DXDIAG, Windows was experiencing a very high amount of page file usage.  Is that normal for your computer?

[gyrene81]

gyrene, if you are not willing to try things I suggest and let me know the results, there is not much I can do to help.

I also happened to notice, at the time of your DXDIAG, Windows was experiencing a very high amount of page file usage.  Is that normal for your computer?

It's not that I'm not willing to try what you recommend...fact is that with every single patch update since 2.14 was released I have followed the recommendations made to other people in these forums and spent numerous hours tweaking my system beyond recommendations in order to get the best results possible on my system. I've done everything short of completely reloading my system from scratch...which I may end up doing just to get a cleaner configuration. And I was fairly successful through most of the changes introduced...when I wasn't I just sat back and waited for a patch to be released.

To answer your question, with 2.15 there has been no difference in performance with detailed terrain turned off or on...even when the texture size is dropped to 128.

That 527MB paging file size isn't the normal...I ran that dxdiag with some apps open that aren't normally running...I generally have a 270MB paging file running when I go into the game...down from the 380MB that I had running with 2.14 patch 5.

[Skuzzy]

If it makes no difference with "Detailed Terrain" on or off, is it safe to assume you have not changed any of the defaults in the NVidia control panel for the video card?