Gun shoot and explosion stuttering

[RazorbackNL]

Hi all,

 

Black Shark is running pretty good on my system, with a framrate between 30 and 60 FPS. I do experience massive stuttering while using the board cannon. The bullets impacting in the ground make small explosions causing a lot of stuttering. Also the flare trails are causing the same stuttering. I have solved the flare issue with a no-trails-mod, but I do not seem to get rid of the explosion stuttering.

 

Is there a way to manipulate some settings in Black Shark to solve this problem? I already have set effects = 0 in the options.cfg file, but that doesn't work.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Martillo1]

Asus P6T Deluxe X58, Intel i7 965 Extreme 3,2Ghz, 12Gb DDR3 1333-999, Toughpower 1500Watt, 2 x WD 300Gb, 2 x Asus GTX280 1 Gb in SLi-config, Asus Xonar D2X, Win Vista Ultimate 64bit.

:huh:

 

I have an Asus P6T Deluxe V2, i7 920, 6 Gb RAM, 1x Asus GTX260. I play around the same framerate than you, and the guns' explosions do not bother me. Maybe the initial load of textures.

 

However I do suffer from occasional hickups, but not when firing.

[Mustang]

;747938']Hi all,

 

Black Shark is running pretty good on my system, with a framrate between 30 and 60 FPS. I do experience massive stuttering while using the board cannon. The bullets impacting in the ground make small explosions causing a lot of stuttering. Also the flare trails are causing the same stuttering. I have solved the flare issue with a no-trails-mod, but I do not seem to get rid of the explosion stuttering.

 

Is there a way to manipulate some settings in Black Shark to solve this problem? I already have set effects = 0 in the options.cfg file, but that doesn't work.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Does your HDD stutter/load something too when the cannon is being fired?

 

I say this because i've witnessed a similar thing on my rig.

[TKMR]

Does your HDD stutter/load something too when the cannon is being fired?

 

I say this because i've witnessed a similar thing on my rig.

 

Defrag. =)

[=SCoRPioN=]

Has little to do with defrag, and a lot to do with the Sound Chip and its Driver. If you do not have a separate PCI Sound Card installed, or if you installed it and did not disable the onboard chip, you will get stutter when there's a lot of sounds qued up, like when firing a cannon.

 

A separate Sound Card is just as important as a Graphics Card, believe me.

 

No matter how good your onboard sound chip is, it will never process the sound as fast as a separate card.

 

So, there's your problem. Try installing another sound driver or go buy a sound card and disable the onboard one in BIOS. You can pick up a used card like an older SB Audigy on craigslist or somewhere else, and the problem will go away.

[TKMR]

;748003']Has little to do with defrag, and a lot to do with the Sound Chip and its Driver. If you do not have a separate PCI Sound Card installed, or if you installed it and did not disable the onboard chip, you will get stutter when there's a lot of sounds qued up, like when firing a cannon.

 

A separate Sound Card is just as important as a Graphics Card, believe me.

:helpsmilie:

No matter how good your onboard sound chip is, it will never process the sound as fast as a separate card.

 

So, there's your problem. Try installing another sound driver or go buy a sound card and disable the onboard one in BIOS. You can pick up a used card like an older SB Audigy on craigslist or somewhere else, and the problem will go away.

 

Oh I have a very good SoundCard and a decent video card, and a lot of times when I'm flying I'll get some slight stuttering. I can also hear my HDD crunching like mad. Did I defrag, and it's a lot better now.

 

;)

[dragony]

Also please note that due to advanced ballistics modeling CPU gets VERY overloaded with calculations when several hundreds of projectiles in the air, simple way to get stutter even on powerful systems - make two Mi-24 go at each other gunzo or place a lot of Shilkas/Vulcans, or fly near enemy Nimitz :)

[=SCoRPioN=]

I never has stuttering, of any kind, it's all just smooth.

I'm using an older SB Audigy card with a gameport that I use MS Sidewinder Precision Pro joystick on. Even got it to work on Win7 :)

If you have a separate Sound Card, make sure you DISABLE the onboard Sound Chip from BIOS, otherwise it's sending the sound to both of them, and that doesnt help.

 

Also, if you have over 2GB of RAM, Disable the Windows Page Swap File in XP.

Unless you have programs like Photoshop that require it.

 

No Page File = faster loads, using HDD less.

 

Definitely Defragment on regular basis. DO NOT use the Windows Defrag, and use Diskeeper Lite or something like that.

[RazorbackNL]

Thanks for all the response guys.

 

I do have a separate sound cart. I have disabled the onboard sound in the BIOS. When I start firing the gun, there is no harddisk activity.

Is it wise or possible to disable the Swap File in Vista 64?

I did not defrag at this time. That is something I will try next. Is Diskeeper Lite also working in Vista 64 or should I use another program to defrag?

 

EDIT: Diskeeper Lite does not work while it is payware. Does somebody use a freeware disk defragger?

Edited September 8, 2009 by Razorback[NL]

[Panzertard]

Your system is fast enough to not have any stutter due to system specification.

 

In my opinion the stutter may be symptoms of either/combination of;

- Driver incompability

- Failing hardware component

- Other software problem in system or DCS.

 

Also for general troubleshooting, have a look here: TROUBLESHOOTING - Help us helping you.

I'd focus on finding problems with your system, aka failing drivers or hardware - sounds most likely to be that.

If that doesnt get you any further - I would start thinking about DCS reinstall.

 

As for defrag software, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defragmentation_software

but I doubt thats going to solve your problems - since you have enough memory and your system isnt using swap activly while playing.

It may improve loading time of the game and your system - but thats about it for you :)

[=SCoRPioN=]

In my opinion the stutter may be symptoms of either/combination of;

- Driver incompability

- Failing hardware component

- Other software problem in system or DCS.

 

Too generic. I specifically put what to do to avoid stuttering.

As well as using MSCONFIG and getting rid of the useless services.

My system running on XP has only 21 processes after McAfee and ZoneAlarm is loaded. Without those, it's down to 16.

 

Stuttering is mainly caused by the onboard sound chip. Get a separate sound card! Just as important as gfx card.

[Panzertard]

And thats why I suggested "generic" things to investigate so he can try to find the bottleneck that causing this ;)

It'll require a bit study to figure it our - trial and error. Sound system may be one of the causes as you say - disabling all sound hardware (so the devices doesn't show up in WIndows) is one method to eliminiate if the soundsystem is the cause.

And we could probably write a whole book of guides on how to troubleshoot all the involved elements components on a system - but let's start generic and see where it leads ;)

[RazorbackNL]

I do have a separate sound card; Asus Xonar D2X. I have already disabled my onboard sound device in the BIOS. It is not showing in Windows hardware anymore. I have also uninstalled the drivers for it.

 

In Windows hardware there are no yellow question marks, everything is working correct.

 

There are 43 processes running in the background and I do not know what do are all doing. They are using 17% of the total memory. Maybe I have to look in that direction. I shall try to identify all those processes.

[TKMR]

That's not too bad. Shouldn't affect you at all.

 

When you're running Black Shark open up the Task Manager and see what your CPU and RAM usage are at. Maybe your install is corrupted somehow and is hemorrhaging memory.

 

Update drivers... that's all I can think of. Can somebody else confirm that BS works properly in 64 bit Vista?

[159th_Viper]

.....Can somebody else confirm that BS works properly in 64 bit Vista?

 

Confirmed.

[RazorbackNL]

I have already started to update the drivers. I am currently on 186.18 for the GTX280. The 190.xx drivers where causing vertical sync problems, so I sticked with the 186.18

 

The drivers for the Xonar D2X are another story. I just seem to fail in updating these. I have downloaded the latest verion from Asus, the 6.12.8.1764. Installing these is just giving me a blue screen in the middle of the install. I don't know what I am doing wrong.

[dragony]

External audio - it has USB interface? If yes - try to plug it into active (with own power supply) USB hub.

[RazorbackNL]

It does not have USB. It is feeding from the motherboard AND directly from the power supply.

 

When I Alt-Tab out of Black Shark, the CPU usage is only 17% and the RAM usage = 2,54Gb.

Edited September 13, 2009 by Razorback[NL]

[=SCoRPioN=]

;751544']It does not have USB. It is feeding from the motherboard AND directly from the power supply.

 

When I Alt-Tab out of Black Shark, the CPU usage is only 17% and the RAM usage = 2,54Gb.

 

Disable SLI and Intel HT, if u have it.

Also, on Win XP, set BS to just CPU0.

[TKMR]

Confirmed.

 

Thank you, so that's not the problem them, unless it's installed to the wrong Program Files directory? (not 100% sure how 32 bit programs in 64 bit OS works)

 

;751337'] The drivers for the Xonar D2X are another story. I just seem to fail in updating these. I have downloaded the latest verion from Asus' date=' the 6.12.8.1764. Installing these is just giving me a blue screen in the middle of the install. I don't know what I am doing wrong.[/quote']

 

Try uninstalling drivers before you install the new ones.

 

CPU usage is pretty low. Try flying in windowed mode, and watch your CPU usage, when you experience the stuttering does it spike majorly?

 

Could also always try a re-install of BS (Remember a re-install doesn't use an activation, so long as you don't de-activate it)

[Pyroflash]

the new patch optimized DCS for multi core processors, so setting the core to 0 shouldn't have any effect.

[Tez]

That's wrong. We've just disabled forced affinity assignment to the 1st core. Now Windows controls it.

[=SCoRPioN=]

the new patch optimized DCS for multi core processors, so setting the core to 0 shouldn't have any effect.

 

The patch did not optimize for multicores, it just set it to all cores by default for XP.

Win7 and Vista use it properly..

XP does a horrible job at spreading the threads over the cores.

Set to CPU0 on XP, it will be used more efficiently. You might even get higher FPS and quicker response.

Edited September 15, 2009 by [SCoRPioN]

[TKMR]

With your dedicated sound card, do you have some kind of weird settings? Like forcing it to go through a equalizer, or reverb effects, normilzation effects, or anything like that? If so try turning them off and see if that helps.

 

I'm plum out of ideas after this though, other than a re-install (did you say you did that? can't remember, maybe that was another thread)

[RazorbackNL]

Today I did a reinstall of Black Shark. I wanted to try a mod called BattlefieldFX+LoFI. This mod is intended for low end PC's but what is good for low end computers, couldn't be bad for high end. It seems I finally got rid of the stuttering during gun shooting. I yet need to test it during a MP session but I have high hopes on this one.