runs smooth but slows down every 2 seconds [Archive]

Hotwire

Nov 27 2001, 12:56

AMD Athlon 1.2ghz
A7M266
256 DDR RAM
GF2 Ultra 64mb
Soundblaster Live! 5.1
Maxtor 60gb 7200rpm

Win 2000 service pack 2

Rightyho,

During OPF the framerate is nice and smooth, but every 2-3 seconds it slows down for about a second, then speeds up again. This happens constantly.

I've read Avon Lady's thing about a Joystick causing this, but I didn't have one connected for this to even affect it.

I think it might be a memory issue with my comp. I had a look at the AMD site and they had a registry entry called 'LargePageMinimum' that apparently fixes data corruption through an AGP graphics card.

I installed this and it seemed to help very slightly (or maybe I just made myself believe this) but the problem is still there.

It seems to affect OPF the most. I tried Supreme Snowboarding and it seemed to run fine. Tribes 2 caused similar errors, but the slowdown occured over a fraction of a second, so it was more of a stutter every so often than and complete slowdown every 2 seconds.

The gameplay was fine when I ran Win ME so it has to be a Win 2000 thing.

Please can anyone help, its driving me mad!

Hotwire

Nov 27 2001, 13:16

oh yeah, I have Upgrade 3 as well.

RN Malboeuf

Nov 27 2001, 13:21

thats a nice MB
intergrated Video/sound/NIC

make sure to disable the Sound and Vid in your bios

you don't have the VIA Chip set so your ok in that area

your MB is close to mine (A7V266) you just don't need the A7VM266 if you know your using AGP Vid and PCI SND (waste of money but not much)(some A7VM's might not have one or the other intergrated)

you might have to up your virtual memory setting
I set mine to 0 min and 1000 max
thats 1 gig max so make sure you have the room for it

I have the Radon 32 meg DDR which out preforms your GeF, let me know if you can run in 1600x1200 at max detail and res in 32 bit like I can (19" monitor)

if you can't reach that res let me know how OFP preforms in your max res, you can get a Frame Per Second program from my Dload Siggy below and we can compair

Hotwire

Nov 27 2001, 14:02

Hi.

A7M266 does use the via chipset. At least mine does anyway http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard3/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

I have a 17" monitor and I run my desktop at 1280 x 960 (i think that's right, I'm at uni at the mo). I get a refresh rate of 70hz, but if I want to stick it up to 1280 x 1024 then refresh drops to 60hz. That's as high as I can go because of my monitor http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard3/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif

I run the game in 1024 x 768 at 32bit. I can go higher, I just don't really see much point as it doesn't seem to make the game any better.

I'll have a go at the virtual memory when I get back. What do you recommened for 256 RAM?

Thanks.

RN Malboeuf

Nov 27 2001, 14:46

the A7M266 has the AMD chip set (at least the ones I sell do and the ones on the asus site)

0 min and 1000 max should be ok

running in higher res allows you to snipe better at longer ranges, you wont see pixel roll over this way, this is when the guys head is a pixel in 1024 mode and you can't settly on that 1 little pixel, in higher res, you actually see a head and not a pixel

but thats a secret... don't tell any one....... hmmmmmmm

Hotwire

Nov 27 2001, 14:55

hehe ok, maybe I'll stick up the res http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard3/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

ScreamingWithNoSound

Nov 27 2001, 20:40

It's a problem with your USB mouse / periferals.

There is a problem with the USB support on the south bridge of your MOBO. It's a problem with the VIA KT266 chipset that's been well documented - head over to www.viatech.com and get the latest 4in1 and USB filter drivers... Via seem to have a problem with creating a new chipset that supports USB properly - their early chipsets have a problem with HP periferals (on USB).

As for the advice on swap file... I cannot agree with setting your swap file to minimum of 0 is pointless. I'm running 2K with 512mb of ram and I have 37mb sitting in my swapfile. If you're running (modern) games, you're always going to need some swapfile space.

Win 2K needs between 64-80mb just to load (depends how much you load on startup) So, if you've got 256mb of RAM and you load a game (OFP) that needs more than 160mb (OFP uses upto 256) you're gonna start using your page file.

In short, windows will always use the pagefile, no matter how much RAM you have, so setting it below 64MB is pointless. I would recommend that your minimum pagefile size is 512MB - RAM (with a min of 64MB) thats:

512-256 = 256mb

And the MAX as 2x total RAM or 1GB - RAM.

It's interesting to note, that most people don't realise one simple, underlying priciple with page files - there's no point having more total memory (that's RAM + PAGEFILE) than you're gonna use, which is why I work to this 512MB/1GB pricipal that I invented...

ScreamingWithNoSound

Nov 27 2001, 20:47

*Deletes message that he accidentally reposted*

d*amn computers.

OK, so I double checked...

Are you SURE you have an A7M266?

Because what you're describing does sure sound like the VIA VT8233 southbridge problem...

Double check your BIOS/Manual/PCB printings & version.

If you have the A7M266, this is AMD 761, which should be OK (I'd still recommend updated drivers from www.amd.com)

If you have an A7V266, then it's VIA, goto the post above... (d*amn Asus for naming all their board nearly the same, heh can't complain though, cause it keeps people like me in a job... http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard3/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif )

(Edited by ScreamingWithNoSound at 11:50 pm on Nov. 27, 2001)

(Edited by ScreamingWithNoSound at 12:02 am on Nov. 28, 2001)

Nov 27 2001, 23:37

errr, is it just me, or are you all missing the fact that the A7M266 MB has an AMD 761 northbridge and a VIA southbridge?

RN Malboeuf

Nov 28 2001, 00:36

I was on the site and only saw the AMD Chip set

as for the Virtual mem settings

0 is pointless but does not hurt it in any way, why risk setting it to high and causing errors

setting it to 1000 max (1 gig) just allows windows to use as much as it wants even if it does not need it

this way your just being safe and less likely to crash

trying to explain to a newbie why you should have different amounts when it can vary system to system will casue many of them crashes

where as these settings will not http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard3/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

Nov 28 2001, 00:57

http://www.asus.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/socketa/a7m266/spec.html

Chipset:
AMD® 761 266MHz FSB Chipset with VIA® VT82C686B South Bridge

RN Malboeuf

Nov 28 2001, 01:06

yea, ok next question is what will fix it?
the VIA 4in1's or that seperat South bridge Patch?
MisterFrag should know

Nov 28 2001, 01:10

I suggest the following, one-by-one:

1. Load latest AMD chipset drivers and VIA 4-in-1 drivers.
2. Bring down audio accelleration in windows to lowest setting.
3. Change from 4x AGP to 2x AGP.
4. Disable any devices you are not using (USB, serial, parallel, etc) in the BIOS.

obi

Serbian Delight

Nov 28 2001, 09:32

I had the same problem
All you do is go to options inside the game
Video, change the resolution. Then change back to original one. And done. The game has no prbolems. Its very bizzare.
Plus there is a solution to the problem under the Lead programers Troubleshoot guide to this problem which is more sophisticated but much safer as well

Hotwire

Nov 28 2001, 10:26

Thanks for all your input.

I DEFINATELY have the A7M266 and it DEFINATELY has the Via southbridge that ObiJuan describes.

Last night I reduced my sound playback accelerater to the second lowest notch and that seemed to fix the stuttering problem. But now I can't use any EAX or 5.1 speaker settings so it's not really a permanent solution.

This is definately a Win 2000 + Soundblaster Live! thing as Win ME was fine.

I don't think the USB mouse is the problem as I seem to have isolated the cause to the sound drivers.

On a seperate thing:

My 3D games will also lock up the computer after an hour or so of play. I've had no end of problems with this since buying the computer in Feb 2001. I turned off AGP 4x and that fixed the problem, but now I get a lot of video tearing and I also have the problem of knowing that my comp isn't running as fast as it should.

Is AGP 4x going to increase performance or shall I just turn it off?

please take a look at my other thread for a more detailed description:

http://ns1.absolutemm.com/outrageous_forums/showthread.php?threadid=483

I posted on the graphics card site as I thought that might be the problem, but now I'm not so sure.

theavonlady

Nov 28 2001, 10:45

What version of DirectX you have installed? Did you see the FAQ (http://www.theavonlady.org/theofpfaq/) item (revised) about the DirectX 8 tweak?

warrior

Nov 29 2001, 10:35

Hey all;

1: It's NOT a chipset problem
2: It's NOT an integrated devices problem
3: It's NOT a windows 2000 problem
4: It's NOT a swapfile size problem

Keep that in mind, as
1: I have the ***exact same problem
2: I have an ASUS A7V which has the Via KT133 chipset 3: The ASUS A7V has no integrated devices
4: I run OFP under Windows ME
5: My swapfile setting is as it should be; minimum and maximum are the same; 768MB. I can't imagine needing 1 gig and I don't wanna risk running out of it with 512MB. So 768. This makes for a fixed swapfile which is unfragmented as it stays right where it is when it was created and not written across the disk as it needs to increase/decrease in size countless times

Also, I tried downloading the latest BIOS, VIA4in1 drivers. As a matter of fact, ALL drivers are the latest available now. The new drivers even caused the Promise BIOS to not detect my HDD anymore, or when it did detect it, it just switched itself off after about 1 minute!
My Win ME install is clean + DirectX 8.1 and all windowsupdate patches.
Radeon(7200) 64MB DDR o'ced to 197 mHz.
Atlhon 1 Ghz o'ced to 1,15gHz ( 105mHz x 11)
256 MB PC133 SDRAM

The stuttering as described above occurs afer playing OFP for some time, only OFP has this problem, all other applications run smooth and I never experience crashes of any kind, my machine is rock solid. The problem lies with OFP and needs to be adressed. Someone mentioned a programmer's solution to the problem, where can we find it? Browsing through 100's of topics doesn't sound very appealing honestly http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard3/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Any help would be appreciated, I hope my post helped isolate the cause of the problem.

Good luck my fellow-stutterer http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard3/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

RN Malboeuf

Nov 29 2001, 14:43

I'll put it this way, i have the Asus A7V266 and I dont have your problem

>>>>>0 is pointless but does not hurt it in any way, why risk setting it to high and causing errors

have you tried it

having 1 gig instead of 768 does little and only makes sure that if you go over 768 you wont crash

I have built hundreds of systems, and know that these settings are the safest crash proof Virtual memmory settings to go with

Also not that this particlular crash was more apparent in 1.30 and you're doomed to failure no matter what

Also the A7V DOES have Intergrated Sound, yours may not come with it by if you look in your BIOS you will see the option for disabling it (vid might be there or modem or both like mine)
ADVANCED > ON BOARD PERIPHERAL RESOURCE CONTROLLER

make sure it's still disabled if your not using any of them as I have done to mine

(Edited by RN Malboeuf at 7:16 pm on Nov. 29, 2001)

warrior

Nov 29 2001, 15:03

Then again, the bigger the swapfile, the longer the memory allocation starts to take.

Anyway, I don't have any onboard peripherals as mentioned but indeed, onboard sound is still in the BIOS but that's disabled. The soundcard is a SB Live!
Sometimes pausing the game stopped the stuttering in earlier versions, this little trick doesn't work anymore with 1.30. AI has gone down the drain if you ask me.
And still it's a great game! http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard3/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

RN Malboeuf

Nov 29 2001, 15:40

it's only that way because you have your min set so high, if set min set to 0 then it will just load what it needs

1.30 still has it's problems

Nov 29 2001, 19:33

One thing about the sblive cards from creative - they are not PCI 2.0 compliant, so you may need to have a PCI latency in your BIOS. Try enabling PCI latency - the default amount should be OK - is it 32?? - and see if the problem goes away.

BTW, someone mentioned decreasing HW accelleration for the sound and EAX no longer working? I never got hw accelleration and eax working with the sblive series, so don't sweat it.

obi

Mister Frag

Nov 29 2001, 21:20

Yes, the Hardware Acceleration slider needs to be all the way to the right in order to use EAX. That's true for SoundBlaster cards, and possibly others as well; I know it also applies to the Philips Acoustic Edge.

On another note, regarding the possibility of picking up corrupted data from a large pre-allocated (permanent) swap file, you can safely ignore that advise. That's not how virtual memory works. I don't want to get into a detailed technical explanation, but suffice it to say, it makes absolutely no difference what is on the disk from past Windows sessions.

RN Malboeuf

Nov 29 2001, 22:14

ops I saw that, that was not what i meant

it does not happen every day yes, but it can happen, windows over writes the older swap files on reboot, but after a few hours this can happen with ill made programs
cough O cough F cough P cough major cough memory cough leak cough

(Edited by RN Malboeuf at 7:17 pm on Nov. 29, 2001)

Mister Frag

Nov 29 2001, 23:02

There are only two ways that swap files are handled under Windows. You either have a permanent swap file of a fixed size (minimum size == maximum size), in which case no time is spent creating or extending it, or you use a temporary swap size, in which case the file is extended as needed.

Neither really will take much time during the boot process, nor is data ever read from the file without writing a page there to begin with.

The Virtual Memory Manager divides the available address space (4GB under non-Datacenter 32-bit versions of NT/2000/XP) into 4K pages, and allocates memory from it. As pages are allocated, they are marked in a Virtual Page Table. If a needed page is not in memory, the CPU will generate a Page Fault, which is trapped by the VMM, and the page is loaded from disk. Page Faults, as nasty as they sound, are a normal occurrence in modern operating systems; the only time end-users are aware of them is when Windows (typically 95/98/ME, because they have an inferior VMM design) fails to handle the Page Fault correctly.

Constant Page Faults will result in thrashing/swapping to and from the hard drive holding the swap file. It allows the system to continue running, but it seriously degrades performance.

ScreamingWithNoSound

Nov 29 2001, 23:07

Hmm...

Creative's driver writers seem to be a bunch of monkeys.

Reducing the hardware acceleration may be your only option - creative seem to have no intention of writing proper drivers for W2K - Let's face it, W2K was released at the very very back end of 1999/start 2000 and, considering that WinXP is W2K+brass shiny knobs, you would have expected Creative to use 2K to workout the compatability problems before XP hit the shelves... but they didn't.

Doesn't inspire too much faith, does it?

(Edited by ScreamingWithNoSound at 2:14 am on Nov. 30, 2001)

Nov 29 2001, 23:22

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Quote: from ScreamingWithNoSound on 2:07 am on Nov. 30, 2001
Hmm...

Creative's driver writers seem to be a bunch of monkeys.
[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>

What do you mean "seem to be"? I thought they were monkeys...

ScreamingWithNoSound

Nov 29 2001, 23:24

LMAO! http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard3/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

ScreamingWithNoSound

Nov 29 2001, 23:57

Come back Creative! All is forgiven!!!

I just installed the newly released (as of 29/11/01) Live! drivers for XP/2K... and they work! Not only did they install correctly, they actually fixed the footstep sounds from miles away issue that's plagued OFP + SBLive!

Haven't played long enough to see if it fixes crashing... but I wasn't having problems with crashing anyway...

RN Malboeuf

Nov 30 2001, 01:18

so that means I can track you miles away and you can't track me?

(rubs hands together)

(Edited by RN Malboeuf at 11:55 am on Nov. 30, 2001)

Hotwire

Nov 30 2001, 11:15

AvonLady, I did try the DirectX tweak that tells you to move the DirectDraw slider all the way to the left,but it didn't work. I also have DirecX 8a.

All my drivers are the latest version (as far as I know, I updated evrything fairly recently.)

SBlive drivers are from the original CD that came with the comp though. I'll try updating them and see what happens.

BoonieRat

Dec 1 2001, 06:48

Hey!, correct me if i'm wrong, but does'nt the swapfile/V~memory only come into play IF theres not enough RAM?, and wot possible excuse can anyone come up with for not having 512MB??,it cant be cost! http://www.flashpoint1985.com/ikonboard3/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif, and if you've got enough RAM, why not download CacheMan and enable 'conservative swap file usage?,....

Taurus

Aug 5 2003, 13:46

i'm sorry to dust this topic off, but was this issue solved by updating the Sb drivers, or was it the Southbridge thing?

I noticed that all my games that uses Direct3D has this odd "stuttering"-issue.
(e.g. Battlefield 1942)

[ edit]
And yes, I forgot
I have DX9b, and when I turn off explorer.exe the stuttering dissapears.

BraTTy

Aug 5 2003, 22:19

Taurus

Aug 6 2003, 07:11

I read this 2 year old thread again and after reading about pauses every few seconds , my first thoughts are:

scan for SPYWARE !

http://www.safer-networking.org/index.php?lang=en&page=download

http://www.lavasoft.de/
I did just that, and it returned nothing.
Except for Windows XP beeing a "spyware" itself.

Here's my computer
Dell Dimension 8200
P4 1,8 GHz
768 MB RDRAM
Saphire Radeon 9600 Pro
Soundblaster Live!

Windows XP Home
DX9b

OPF GOTY 1.91

I do have a joystick (Force feedback wheel) but it is connected and shouldn't make any troubles

And the stuttering dissapears when explorer.exe is shut down,

Last, I'm again sorry to dust this old topic off, but I need to know if it's possible to solve this issue.

[ edit]
LOL@Self
wheelmouse?

theavonlady

Aug 6 2003, 07:25

Did you search The FAQ (http://www.theavonlady.org/theofpfaq/) for "input delay", "stutter", "performance", etc.? http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/rock.gif

Have you tried without the joystick?

Taurus

Aug 6 2003, 08:31

Did you search The FAQ (http://www.theavonlady.org/theofpfaq/) for "input delay", "stutter", "performance", etc.? http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/rock.gif

Have you tried without the joystick?
Yes I did search your fine FAQ http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif but to no avail.

Also tried without the joystick, the thing that buggers me is that, and I mentioned this before.
I turn off/stop/kill the "explorer.exe" processes in the taskmanager, and the stutter dissapears.

This makes me ***http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/crazy_o.gif

I tired the dx-tweaks, the Creative things, but they didn't help either.
And I can't play without the soundaccelerator on, because the sound is played in slow motion then.
e.g. (one letter states dragged sound)
(Acceleration on): Group goto 1 05
(Acceleratoin off): Gggrrrooouuuppp *** gggoootttooo 111000555

and when I fire... fly helicopters...

And Well, it doesn't matter, because the stutter is still present.

And I do not have any input delays.

I'm experiencing the "two mousepointer"-issue, but I just alt+tabb that one away.

And a OT question.
Is it possible to show FPS in the game?
e.g.
showFPS 1
or similar?

[ edit]
It doesn't seem FPS is available, fraps is the answer?

Greg

Aug 6 2003, 13:30

2 things to try for your 2 second slow downs:

o Try disabling sound device in device manager. See if it is sound related at all.

o Check you HDD device and driver and make sure DMA is enabled.

Taurus

Aug 6 2003, 14:07

2 things to try for your 2 second slow downs:

o Try disabling sound device in device manager. ***See if it is sound related at all.

o Check you HDD device and driver and make sure DMA is enabled.
I'll do just that, I can imagine it's my %insert favourite swearword herer% Soundblaster that is the cause to all this.

[ edit]
Yes, actually it did run alittle bit smoother, but it's still luggish, stutters.

And, again, when i kill the explorer.exe process the stutter dissapears.

Mister Frag

Aug 6 2003, 23:27

Taurus

Aug 7 2003, 08:59

If your game slows down every couple of seconds and you've already tried everything else that was suggested, try the following (on Windows 2000/XP/2003 only):

1. Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> Performance Options and optimize for Applications, if you haven't done so already.

2. Turn of Disk Indexing. Go to My Computer -> Select each non-removeable drive, one at a time -> Properties -> Uncheck "Allow Indexing Service to index this disk"

Sorry, I've been gone for a while, it's a long story that is not relevant to the discussion, but did I miss anything?
thanks for the tips, I'll try it later (@work now)

@missed something:
Dunno I've been gone as well, but bought GOTY the other day, so it was natural to return to this site.

As far as this thread goes, I found it, and revived it, it has been left alone for two years...

[ edit]
Nope, I'm afraid that didn't work either,
Well, I have lost all my hope, My computer sucks ass.
Until I get a new one I will kill explorer.exe

DIE DELL DIE!!!!
And with that said, I must add, Dell has removed all termalindicators, so one can not monitor the system temperatures.

[ edit]
so, Dell doesn't need to die right now.
It seems it is either my firewall (ZoneAlarm Pro v4.x) or norton antivirus that is making my games stutter

I noticed this today, since I have reinstalled my machine.