Stuttering, Small freezes and framerate Issues

**Shawn6** · 09-13-2013, 12:10 PM

With from stutter3 but but I really think that the stutter3 went even better alone : ( Perhaps the differences are so small that I'm wrong.

**Jazz** · 09-13-2013, 12:14 PM

(09-13-2013, 11:15 AM)jens Wrote: OK so patch3 made some improvement, but patch4 with the main_settings does not and if you modify it to have StreamBufferSize to 32768 as someone did does not do any good either?

You made sure to start a new game? Using continue or loading a game does not work.

Do the rest also have a Creative X-Fi sound card or similar like Jazz? Have you tried using the integrated sound and if that makes a difference?

Deleted my old profile and created a new one, so there was no other option than starting a new game... Changing 'Streambuffersize' had no effect.

About the onboard soundcard: tested it. No joy. Performance didn't suffer, but didn't benefit from it either.

I would also like to stress that there is a difference between "stutters/freezes" and loss of "FPS". Stutters (slight pauses) don't seem to have an impact on the FPS-counter. The stutters are probably related to the hard drive, and loss in FPS to the GPU. The combination of both kills the game and makes playing it unbearable. The stutters can be reduced by using the other executables, but loss in frames can't.

Detail: when testing performance by using the onboard soundcard I - as I have said - didn't notice any decrease or increase in FPS. When I fiddled with the settings in game (switching 'em to 'high' and turning SSAO all the way up instead of 'medium') without restarting the game, suddenly the FPS went up back to 60 in the large, open room! This lasted, however, for only a very short period. FPS plummeted to 40-30 again. It seems completely random at times, but it always happens in larger areas, like the entry hall, dining room and small courtyard.

I'm feeling quite sorry for Frictional. As an IT specialist I know stuff like this can be pretty frustrating. Good luck figuring things out!

**lovebunny** · 09-13-2013, 12:15 PM

(09-13-2013, 11:56 AM)jens Wrote: OK, so having slightly higher value of the streamebuffer creates a stutter for you. Will wait a bit longer to have some more input from others on it. Think there is a risk of skipping/popping/clipping and similar for users with slower computers if it is too low.

I can go as low as "4096" without problems. At "2048" crackeling appears for the menu music. As I am using near-field studio monitors (doing also audio production with this PC) I'm pretty shure the sound is the same at values >=4096.

It should be tested by people with slow HD instead of SSD. Maybe more people could successively lower their StreameBufferSize and post when music starts to crackle!

If no value is found that works for everyone, I suggest an option in the in-game-menue, making the value easy to adjust for people with stuttering-issues.

(09-13-2013, 12:08 PM)CalinTM Wrote: Why in the patch 4 you didn't put the default values with StreamBufferSize to 32768 in the first time, if people say to modify the stream buffers ?

Because this could cause other problems (crackeling sounds) for other people, who have e.g. slower hard discs.

**dlux** · 09-13-2013, 12:24 PM

I tried patch 3 and exhausted all settings (medium, low, lowest possible) and the game still stutters. It is better than patch 4 and not using any patch. The game crashes if I use Patch 3 and set StreamBufferSize to 32768.

EDIT: Okay, I tried patch 3 with StreamBufferSize set to 32768 and It didn't crash this time. But the game still stutters.

OS: Win7 x64
GPU: HD5770, 1 GB (Catalyst 13.10 Beta)
CPU: Phenom II X4 @ 3,2 GHz
RAM: 4 GB

**nebej** · 09-13-2013, 12:30 PM

Jazz and dlux could you try to change the resolution 800x600 and set Graphics settings to low and see if that removes the stuttering?

**dlux** · 09-13-2013, 12:34 PM

(09-13-2013, 12:30 PM)nebej Wrote: Jazz and dlux could you try to change the resolution 800x600 and set Graphics settings to low and see if that removes the stuttering?

I tried that. Windowed and full-screen, even with the lowest possible graphics settings. The game still stutters.

It does seem to help though, but only very little.

OS: Win7 x64
GPU: HD5770, 1 GB (Catalyst 13.10 Beta)
CPU: Phenom II X4 @ 3,2 GHz
RAM: 4 GB

**Jazz** · 09-13-2013, 12:36 PM

(09-13-2013, 12:30 PM)nebej Wrote: Jazz and dlux could you try to change the resolution 800x600 and set Graphics settings to low and see if that removes the stuttering?

Done... No difference. Absolutely none. Framerate dips from 60 to 30 in a kind of horrible way.

Sad

**jens** · 09-13-2013, 12:41 PM

As for the sound part of the stuttering I'm fairly certain now that the final solution will be:
the patch4 with a main_settings with settings that are MaxChannels="48" StreamBuffers="6" StreamBufferSize="32768". Been testing this and the sound works as the should while we have minimized the resources used.

Now for the rest of the stuttering issue, which might more be a slowdown type of stutter? There is a common hardware and that is that all reporting in with having this issue has a Radeon HD5000 series (with the exception of 1 with 6000 series). Yes, there could be a problem with the game, but there could also be a driver issue or similar. So for starters a test here can be to do point nr 3 from here http://www.frictionalgames.com/forum/thread-22991.html to make sure the drivers are at least clean and free of corruption.

**jens** · 09-13-2013, 12:42 PM

Dipping from 60 to 30 is normal if running vsync with adaptive vsync off. Possibly it can be improved if you make sure that the graphics card is not forcing vsync and that trippel buffering is enable (if you run with vsync).

**CalinTM** · 09-13-2013, 12:49 PM

There will be some quality sound loss if i use MaxChannels="48" StreamBuffers="6" StreamBufferSize="32768", over the patch4 defaults with 64 channels etc ?