Stuttering, Small freezes and framerate Issues

**Mr. Plankton** · 09-12-2013, 04:01 AM

(09-12-2013, 02:39 AM)lovebunny Wrote: Ok, I solved the problem for me by using a veeeeery dirty hack. It's probably not the final solution, but maybe it helps to get to the root of this.

What I did, was writing a VBScript that crawls through all 1888 *.snt files in "<AMFPbasedir>/sounds" (including subfolders) and replaces the string Stream="False" with Stream="True". I also had to go to the main_settings.cfg and set MaxChannels="32", StreamBuffers="4" and StreamBufferSize="65536".

Now there are no more reproducable freezes when a new sound is being played. Anyway, the framerate is still low every now and then, but it's a lot better. You don't get warned anymore when something scary is about to happen.

I would attach the VBScript for those who want to test it themselfes, but I'd like to hear an official "OK" first, since the fix involves messing around bigtime with game-data. Don't want any trouble!

Just do it man, if it works that means that it would also fix my problems with TDD. Same exact issue with both games: stuttering when sounds load.

**w1cked313** · 09-12-2013, 04:08 AM

I signed up to chime in here as well:

I played the game for an hour last night, no issue what so ever, saved and turned PC off.

Tonight, I log into my PC for the first time to play the game, and I stutter every second, when I run it stutters constantly, game is ridiculously unplayable. Have tried restarting PC, tuning down settings, etc.

Won't bother listing full specs because I have well above what most have, i7, 16gb ram, GTX 670, etc etc.

There is clearly something wrong with the game because I tried 3 other games that require stronger specifications and experience zero stutter.

It's also pretty ridiculous and unprofessional for one of the devs on here to downplay this due to it being a "number one seller" on steam and only a small percentage of people reporting the issue given the circumstances and computer specifications, I would find severe consequences to using that excuse at my own development job.

**admiraltennek** · 09-12-2013, 04:34 AM

(09-12-2013, 02:39 AM)lovebunny Wrote: Ok, I solved the problem for me by using a veeeeery dirty hack. It's probably not the final solution, but maybe it helps to get to the root of this.

What I did, was writing a VBScript that crawls through all 1888 *.snt files in "<AMFPbasedir>/sounds" (including subfolders) and replaces the string Stream="False" with Stream="True". I also had to go to the main_settings.cfg and set MaxChannels="32", StreamBuffers="4" and StreamBufferSize="65536".

Now there are no more reproducable freezes when a new sound is being played. Anyway, the framerate is still low every now and then, but it's a lot better. You don't get warned anymore when something scary is about to happen.

I would attach the VBScript for those who want to test it themselfes, but I'd like to hear an official "OK" first, since the fix involves messing around bigtime with game-data. Don't want any trouble!

Please share your script with the rest of us. I have no issues with playing the guinea pig any more at this point if it could possibly result in a fix for this hideous stuttering.

**Woopzilla** · 09-12-2013, 06:55 AM

I'm also experiencing micro-freezes whenever a new sound is played. What should've been lots of good atmospheric moments have been ruined by the preceeding framedrop/stutter. It's acting as a 'scare warning'.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent ran flawlessly without any of these issues while also being played with everything at max settings.

Setup:
Intel i5 750
Asus P7P55D-LE
8GB DDR3 Corsair
ATi HD 5850
Windows 7 64-bit

**MeowPatrol** · 09-12-2013, 07:41 AM

Hello!

I registered an account specifically to post that I solved the freezing/stuttering upon new sounds issue in the same way as lovebunny.

First, I changed my settings in Documents\Amnesia\Pig\main_settings.cfg
I changed three things at the bottom of the file:

1. I set MaxChannels="32"
2. I set StreamBuffers="4"
3. I set StreamBufferSize="65536"

Then saved the file.

Next, in each of the *.snt files in the games sound directory, I needed to replace all instances of Stream="False" with Stream="True". To do so, I did not use a script. Instead I used the Search > Find in files... option in Notepad++. (You can find a download just by searching Google.)

I set it up as you can see in this attachment:
http://imgur.com/ULEuaa8

The full file path is:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Machine for Pigs\sounds

After this the game runs much more smoothly! Thank you very much lovebunny for this solution. Also a big thanks to jens for posting and trying your best to help everybody here, we appreciate it that you can spend so much time gathering information just one day after launch!

In case you are looking for more information to possibly create a patch, I am using an Asus laptop with an Intel Core i7 (3630QM, 2.4GHz), and a Geforce GTX 670MX graphics card with 12GB of RAM.

**Woopzilla** · 09-12-2013, 08:03 AM

(09-12-2013, 07:41 AM)MeowPatrol Wrote: *snip*

This seems to be working, thank you!

I've got a save just before a sudden sound is played and was troubleshooting. After trying the above it no longer locks up/freezes for a split second before the sound is played.

**nebej** · 09-12-2013, 08:54 AM

Could some of the people that have stuttering issues try this patch
http://thedarkswarm.com/downloads/public..._patch.zip

Please test this and let me know if it removes or reduces stuttering

**jens** · 09-12-2013, 09:10 AM

If you set all sounds to stream it should mean that you get few sounds playing at the same time, so it does not play all the sounds it should. With MaxSteamBuffers set to 4 it means that 4 simultaneous sounds will play at most, but the game normally can try to play up towards 20 sounds.

So just a warning that it could indeed remove the stuttering, but causes new problems. Not complaining at all on coming up with the idea!

Also it narrows it down and strengthens the suspicion we currently are investigating that the stutter has to do with the sounds.

**nebej** · 09-12-2013, 09:58 AM

The sound stuttering might have to do with loading of save files. Preloaded sounds might not get loaded correctly after loading a save file.
Could some of you please check if the game stutters if you start a new game? Or if the stuttering only occurs after loading a save file?

**spidernetlabs** · 09-12-2013, 09:59 AM

(09-12-2013, 08:54 AM)nebej Wrote: Could some of the people that have stuttering issues try this patch
http://thedarkswarm.com/downloads/public..._patch.zip

Please test this and let me know if it removes or reduces stuttering

There will be released a patch for Mac and Linux users too?

jens Wrote: Also it narrows it down and strengthens the suspicion we currently are investigating that the stutter has to do with the sounds.

I'm looking forward to this. Wink