Anyone running this on XP x64? I'm getting TERRIBLE stuttering!

[Satsumomo]

This is Half-Life 2 1.0 all over again!

I'm currently installing HL2 Ep2 to see if it's affecting HL2 as well (I just installed x64 last night)

Currently, I'm getting a game freeze with stuttering sound for 3 seconds every 10-15 seconds, it's VERY annoying and frustrating, specially when a hunter has just jumped on you.

I have an E8400 @ 3.6Ghz, 4GB of DDR2 @ 1000mhz, game is installed on a 250G drive with 16mb cache, however I tried it on my 500G drive with 32mb cache and it's the same thing. Both drives have been defragmented and the problem hasn't gone away.

I switched the audio from my Audigy to the onboard, same thing. All I can think of is it's the x64 architecture or something. I changed the game setting to low pooled memory and nothing changed. I read on Steam that your Pooled page shouldn't go above 150mb, and mine's over 180mb, however the 32bit limit is 470mb and the 64bit one is 128Gb. So I assume I shouldn't have a problem there.

Anyone else?

EDIT: Ok, I ran HL2 Ep2 and it run flawlessly, everything on max, 8x MSAA, 60fps constant no slowdowns and noooo stuttering.

 

[Anthraxxx]

maybe it's your memory? you've got it overclocked, right?

 

[Satsumomo]

I think I just solved it... I killed my video card overclock (It was only 10mhz) and it seems to be working fine now, I'll have to play a bit more to confirm. My memory is "overclocked" but it's factory specs are 1066mhz, so it's really working under it's rated performance.

 

[Anthraxxx]

oh, well grats on getting it fixed.

 

[Top Secret]

Just curious, why would you overclock that card? Unless you're doing Crysis benches?

 

[Satsumomo]

Well guess what, the stuttering is back

I'm uploading a video of it stuttering. I had the card OC'd because strangely, on stock, if I run Farcry 2, I get around 30-40 fps, but if I OC'd it only those 10mhz, I get constant 60fps. Weird.

Here ya go:

[youtube]46UI-cNuK0Q[/youtube]

 

[Satsumomo]

BUMP! Guess what? It is FIXED!

Leviathan from the OC Forums helped me out!

It's an issue with multi-core processors. You can set the game to run on only one core by setting the affinity and that should fix it until Valve fixes the issue. A Valve guy posted in one of the threads on the Steam forums about the issue so they are aware of it. It doesn't seem to be a very common bug, most multi-core setups work just fine, it looks like you got unlucky.

EDIT: Alternately, I think you could just set "mat_queue_mode 0" in the console to turn off multi-core support in the game.

Now my game runs stutter free, and with a major FPS boost to boot!

 

[Varangian]

Affects XP32 as well, I was wondering what the hell was happening as the game was unplayable and I've come to expect Valve to release pretty bug free games. The set affinity fix works a treat however.

 

[CyberPitz]

That is crazy, I was getting the EXACT same thing, but I updated my video card drivers and that fixed it for me.