New audio stuttering thread [keep stuttering discussion in here]

[Zaius]

Steam: We're currently not updating any games

Bandwidth usage 500kb/s

Work Rig
2.8 socket 775 P4 @ 3.5
512MB DDR2 @ 639MHz
PCI-E 5750 at 507/679
Audigy 2
2 x 80GB Sata Raid 0

Game Rig
2800+ A64 stock
1GB DDR 400
6800 Ultra @ 425/1200
Audigy 2
2 x 80GB Sata Raid 0

Steam has succesfully disabled both.

 

[sonictk]

for me, I don't have stuttering.

It's just that my audio plays like it's on super-speed mode.

This is especially annoying during CS:S.

snd_mixahead fixed it a bit, but it still hurts a lot.

I hope VALVe can come out with a better patch soon.

(Ironically, my old nvideia geforece 4 mx had no problems at all, when I upgraded to a new ati radeon 9600 pro 256, all these problems occured.)

2.4 Ghz P4
ATi Radeon 9600 PRO 256 MB AGP 4x
512 MB RAM

 

[wasted]

im still with you guys. st-st-st-stutter st-st-st-st-still there.
but i found out that counter strike works pretty well. unfortunately i really really suck at that game =[

 

[Akhen]

Just had a major breakthrough in the stuttering audio problem.

I meant to check the DMA settings on my CDROMs under

Device Manager/IDE ATA Controllers/Primary IDE Channel

in the Control Panel, but looked at my hardrives by accident.

The hardrive I installed Half Life 2 (D on had changed from UDMA mode 6, to PIO. No idea why, but with all the copy protection in Half Life I would bet they are related.

I had to delete "Primary IDE Channel" under the "IDE ATA/Atapi Controllers" section in Device Manager. When Windows reinstalls the channel and harddrives it resets the UDMA to the proper level, UDMA 6 in my case.

My performance in Half Life 2 went from pathetic to excellent.
I know this is pretty simple stuff, but with all the other extreme things being suggested, it is worth a try.

Hopefully this works for others... Good luck!

Thank you so much, :cheers: i became a member of this forum just to thank you, because this didnt only solve my half-life2 stuttering and long loading times, but also a lot of other problems with transfering to or from my harddisk. So now my burnings, on my pioneer are fast again maybe all of this could be Service Pack 2 related.

 

[Diversant]

I've tried to replace original HL2's mss32dll in the Base directory of the game with the older one from GTA:Vice-City. And I think that stuttering has decreased. And it seems to me that general performance of the game has also improved. I've tried to play it under WinMe, but has not tried it under XP yet... But at least I can tell that something has happened.

Maybe trying different older versions of this file will help?

AMD 2600+
AsusK7N8X-X
256 mb DDR 2700 + 128 mb DDR 2100
Sapphire Radeon9600PRO
Audigy 5.1+Creative Inspire 5300
2xSeagate 20Gb

 

[mofo_inc]

I don't know if this helps any of you but my story so far was:

Game ran great, no hiccups with sound only played an hour or so but everything seemed great.
Downloaded new steam patch and HL2 would not boot at all. I reinstalled steam and hl3 in the wee hours of the morning hoping to correct it all (which it did not).
This afternoon I tried again and it loaded up on first try. But the sound was horrible pops and hisses and totally unplayable. Somewhere along the lines I was checking some other audio programs up and noticed that I was having problems there too. I reinstalled "k-lite mega codec pack" and now hl2 works without any pops or stutter so far. :afro: Don't know if this addresses any of the probs anyone else is having but it sure helped me.

 

[pLzBeNiCe]

finally "i" fixed it.
with new patch from 30.11. i added command "+snd_async_prefetch_priority 1" in properties/launch options in hl2. there are no more stutters.
my system:
p4 3.0 ghz
radeon 9800 pro
1 gb ram
4.12 beta driver
creative sb 5.1

 

[The Insider]

finally "i" fixed it.
with new patch from 30.11. i added command "+snd_async_prefetch_priority 1" in properties/launch options in hl2. there are no more stutters.
my system:
p4 3.0 ghz
radeon 9800 pro
1 gb ram
4.12 beta driver
creative sb 5.1

I placed this command in my autoexec.cfg without the "+" sign in front. Of all the things I have tried this has made the largest difference. Stutters are there,but very small. Not perfect, but a HUGE improvement.

 

[dogboy73]

My game seems just as bad after the latest patch/update. I don't think the frame rate drops of quite as bad but the stutters are just as bad & frequent ;(

 

[Jacob Singer]

Stutters are there,but very small. Not perfect, but a HUGE improvement.

Same here. I still cannot enable the highest texture level (shame, since I have a 6800) but the game still looks amazing, and the few stutters I'm getting are not game-killers.

Still, I'm hoping for an eventual patch that alleviates the problem altogether. I mean, why should there be sound stuttering during menu choices?

 

[Jak]

e-mail from Yahn (Valve)

Hi, I just sent Yahn at Valve an e-mail regarding the audio stuttering issue. I told him that im still having the problem even with the latest patch and mentioned the things that have improved / got worse since the last 2 patches. This is his reply:

We're still looking at a few things, I'm not sure if all of the stuff went out on the 30th update. It's the #1 issue we're investigating and we expect to roll out something as soon as we have it and it's tested.

Thanks for your patience,

Yahn

 

[cgulalo]

I too have the shutter problem and so do all my friends

I find it funny that site admin calls it bitching, but i don't enjoy games where it shutters everytime some sort of action is about to happen. It completely takes out the element of surprise. I have 3 completly different systems at my house that have HL2 on it. They all have the same shutter problem. I will just describe the fastest one.

P4 3.02ghz(with HT enabled)
Intel perl motherboard
Geforce 4800 GT 256mb
1 Gb Ram
120 gb 7200rpm hdd
XP Pro. Service Pack 2

Things that I have tried: Lower Video quality. Lower Sound Quality. Disable Auto Save. Disable Hyper Threading. Played with XP settings any where from Virtual memory to only having The OS run on start up with it set to maximum performance. I have all the latest drivers on pretty much everything.

Is there anything else i can try?... I honestly haven't even attempted to play the game until the shuttering goes away. Thank God Counterstrike Source doesn't shutter or i would be one pissed off consumer. Especially since i purchased 3 copies of this game.

I think valve just released the game way too early without thoroughly testing it. :x

 

[RogueForce]

Well I have always had small problems with sound in Hl2 and CS:S. However it seemed to be related to my SB live 5.1. Whenever I change the settings in the audio controlls from 4 speakers down to 2 the studdering goes away and it sounds great. Unfortunately this trick doesn't work with the new Hl2 deathmatch. While I know CS:S and probably Hl2 still work after the update; the sound in deathmatch mode is so choppy it is virtually unplayable. Any combination of speaker settings i have tried so far have not produced a positive result. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions I would appreciate it.

Now to indulge in a bit of CS:S

 

[Gargi]

Now I can definitly say, that this stuttering isn't soundcard-related. Now I'm trying the third soundchip. First it was a Soundblaster live 5.1, after that the AC97 onboard chip and today I got a Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS. Having a very good sound now there is still that stuttering.
cu
Gargi

 

[CastleBravo]

To everybody (including myself...)

check out this test HardOCP did with a SLI config and some HL2 benches..

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=Njk2LDU=

They even have the stutter bug with this system:
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe (nForce4), AMD Athlon 64 FX-53, 2 x 512MB Corsair XMS PC3200LLPro TwinX Dual Channel DDR400, Western Digital 74GB Raptor SATA/150, Windows XP Professional SP2 with DirectX 9.0
AND : 6800 GT in SLI config! so 2 freaking top notch videocards!

Valve better get the patch out soon....

I guess this makes the stutter the most hardcore performance bug in all history...

 

[x2501x]

Ok, I've had stuttering since the beginning, and dealt with it. I used all the autoexec commands and got the game to a playable state. This latest patch has left me with terrible crackling popping screeching sound. I have defragged about 5 times, tried different autoexec commands...tried no commands. I have no idea how to fix this. It's never been as bad for me as others...and now that some people are making things better...I'm dead in the water.

Also, HL2:dm's sound is fine. As soon as HL2 loads the menu scene it's crackle city.

 

[KagePrototype]

My fix for stuttering:

Switched visual quality from high to medium. Stuttering completely dissapeared. Game still looks good, runs really well, and loading times are cut by at least half.

 

[JediPunisher]

A new update was just released, build 2217.
Do you think they fixed the stuttering bug this time? Of course not... This patch was targeted at DM and the SDK. The stuttering is just as bad as ever... and I noticed decreased frame rates as well. If I were Gabe, I'd forget about DM and the SDK for the moment, and put 100% of the staff on solving this problem. Those that aren't programmers could work as play testers... because I'm tired of being one.

 

[x2501x]

And I'm sick of this game turning my hard drive to swiss cheese. I have a new hard drive with only steam on it. Every day the drive is at like 60% fragmented after playing hl2. It's stupid. All the files show up as frequently modified in speed disk. And I have some tiny fragments sitting in the middle of the drive, in the middle of nowhere, that refuse to move.

 

[Gargi]

I guess this makes the stutter the most hardcore performance bug in all history...

GeForce 6800 GT SLI ! WOW! Having such a machine being not able to play a Game like HalfLife2 at a satisfing state must be really hard

cu
Gargi

 

[madcat75]

I get occasional stuttering or sound delay:

sound blaster Live sound card
windows xp sp2

 

[brav]

i also used to get some stuttering, and even worse it used to crash with a looping sound after 10 to 20 minutes of play.
i updated my sound(onboard realtec ac'97) to the latest 3.66( http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/dlac97-2.aspx?lineid=5&famid=12&series=8&Software=True )
and my graphics driver( 6800 vanilla ) to the latest beta which valve made a link to in their support section ( http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_downloads_winxp_2k_67.02.html ) forceware 67.02, now the game never crashes and i dont have any stuttering
specs are:
amd64 754 2800+ at 2.05ghz
abit kv8pro 3rd eye
512mb 3200ram
6800 golden sample
80gb sata 7200 h.d.
onbord sound realtek ac'97
450W psu pfc
not much else really...

 

[ChivoExpiatoro]

I've had the stuttering from day one which has made the game brely playable. After taking the advice from the sticky on the steam forums and installing beta drivers the stuttering is worse and now unplayable. I've updated everything I can think to but with no avail. Doom 3 and Far Cry run fine so I'll have to stick to those for now because I really am giving up on trying to get HL2 working for now, a couple of weeks trying have been a waste of my time.

specs are:
2200XP
256Mb RAM
Gefore 4200ti
c-media onboard sound
120Gb HD (43Gb spare)

 

[Southern Comfort]

And I have some tiny fragments sitting in the middle of the drive, in the middle of nowhere, that refuse to move.

If you have norton system works (Norton Utilities) and use One button Checkup or uninstall alot of stuff it will get clogged in the Norton Protected Recycle bin.

Empty your Norton protected files from your Recycle bin (this may take awhile so be patiant) , those files cannot be defragged or moved as long as they they are in there (windows defrag cannot move these files either) , it will also free up some space. ALSO set the Recycle bin to use less than 2% of your dirve to hold files and tell it to purge them faster (I use 1 day) , its default at 10% and holds them 7 days I think.

I use speed disk also it appears to leave your drive in a fragmented state (Acording to Norton this is normal) but it runs much faster than if you use Windows Defrag , have you tried Perfect disk? Some say its much better.

 

[brav]

when i had the problems orginally i put in a 5200 into the machine to see if it was the gcard but it had the same prob, but when i loaded an old driver 56.xx i think the game ran for longer periods, the newest driver i got working for +40min was 61.77. so since yours is an old card maybe an older driver might work.

ps with that card the game never stuttered only straight after loading for a second but the game still crashed after an hour or so

 

[Dim]

I've been happily unaffected by the stuttering bug (Athlon 2400, 1 GB RAM, XP SP2) until the latest patch which has given me such bad stuttering the game is unplayable. (Thanks Valve!)

 

[cgulalo]

Hyper Threading

Do you guys know if hyperthreading slows down performance or helps it with halflife 2?

 

[josh7485]

You know how you fix the stutter bug? All you have to do is DISABLE SOUND (this made it COMPLETELY DISSAPPEAR FOR ME) though youll have no sound I HATE YOU MILES AND WISH THE WORST OF LIFE TO YOU AND YOUR EMPLOYS!!

 

[celloman]

Well, for me the latest patch actually helped a bit. Now the stutters are "shorter" but they still appear to come as frequently as before.

 

[Shadow-warrior]

http://www.nb01.freeserve.co.uk/HL2STUTTERRAP1.mp3

 

[Gargi]

Well, for me the latest patch actually helped a bit. Now the stutters are "shorter" but they still appear to come as frequently as before.

Yes and every time new dialogues are jumping into the game. I showed this game my bro in law today and he decided not to buy HalfLife2, cause his machin is a bit weaker than mine and he didn't think that these awfull stutterings are better on his machine as he has seen it here on mine.
He said better to wait until this problem is fixed and maybe the game is a bit cheaper till that.

cu
Gargi

 

[dogboy73]

I showed this game my bro in law today and he decided not to buy HalfLife2

I've put off at least 4 people from buying HL2 after telling them about my experiences so far. 1 of my mates has no internet connection at home so that's him out. The other 3 are using me as a control :E They want to see how things pan out with this problem before actually buying the game themselves.

 

[quinnd6]

At the moment Im using the 67.02 beta driver and theres still a lot of stuttering in parts.

Has anyone tried the omega drivers for the nvidia graphics cards.
They're supposed to help with the stuttering for radeon cards.
Also has anyone tried the 67.20 drivers for nvidia not the 67.02 betas?

I want to know if there any good before I try downloading them.

 

[grecco_diego]

This kindaf bug was corrected with a patch in UT2004 (Did you remember how onslaught games seemed to stutter o-o);

 

[iphitus]

Try setting cl_smooth 0 to stop the stutter

 

[Khro]

A very interesting temp fix: setting HL2 to low priorty.

Check out the original post.

http://www.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=198096&perpage=15&pagenumber=1

 

[wasted]

i tired that low priority thing:

stutters remain...

damn, 19 days since the release, and still not playable

btw, make me happy and suggest that autosave is the culprit again plz, i miss those posts

 

[Khro]

i tired that low priority thing:

stutters remain...

Yeah, it's strange, it works for some but not for others. As for me, it almost eliminated all the stuttering. There are some hiccups but nothing compared to the stuttering I had before.

 

[dogboy73]

damn, 19 days since the release, and still not playable

btw, make me happy and suggest that autosave is the culprit again plz, i miss those posts

Okay then. Disable Autosave. And while your at it defrag your HD. Oh, And the line 'Comeonrunyoubastard 1' to the HL2 launch options!

I've liberated myself from HL2 by purging it from my system & sending the game back to Amazon. Not the ideal solution but I'm glad I'm free of it becuase it's been doing my head in for the last 2 weeks & I feel relieved that's it's gone. I'll buy it again when Valve sort it out ............. If ever, Which I'm doubtful of now.

 

[DeRanger]

Gee, maybe your video card was overheating like Yahn suggested to another poor bastard...

Valve could take a lesson fron Amazon's fantastic customer service if they gave a flying **** in the first place.