Stuttering Consensus

Direwolf

Direwolf

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I thought I'd check back here since it's been a while since anyone's done much talk on the stuttering problem. Are there still a large number of people experiencing it, has it been decreased for others by recent patches, and has anybody come up with anything new on what to do about it? I also thought this might be a good place to gather what conclusions have been arrived at so far, so newcomers can see.

My own stutter is still very slight, and happens pretty much exclusively when a "new" sound is brought into the environment (such as the first time I break wood after loading, first grenade, etc). Over the past few months I've run pretty much every fix I've seen people throw out, but to no avail. It is unaffected by my graphic and audio settings, and is actually made worse by disabling hardware acceleration.

Other than this I've tweaked to the point where my comp can run at nearly max settings with absolutely no problems. So performance isn't a issue, and I'm just looking to iron out this last little kink.
 
I still get it. Exactly the same places you do - whenever I fire a gun for the first time or switch models. I really makes HLDM not very fun to play so I've barely played it much.

PC specs - 2.6ghz, 512MB. I can run most new games with decent to high settings.

I hear it's to do with how Valve have stored all the files. Apparently they're slow to access or something. I remember reading about that a long while ago when HL2 first came out.

I think they had to store the files a certain way to make them easily patchable through Steam, but the tradeoff is that they're slow to access giving stutters. Although that's just from my memory and may not be true, but it's probably somewhat true.

So don't expect to be able to play HL3 without any stuttering either unless they do an engine rewrite. It seems Valve with all their cash test their games on nothing but Alienware high-end performance PCs, so they don't notice glaring problems.
 
I have stutter just like you guys and the only game I play now (already done with HL2 itself a long time ago), is Counter Strike. Its the only game where the stuttering really doesn't bother me. It only really stutters for the first 2 rounds, but after all the sounds and the whole map has been seen/heard, it runs smooothly with everything at high 4x AA, and 8x AF. Still waiting if they can fix it though, I have tried everything in the book, new video drivers, sound drivers, console "tweaks", nothing.
 
I figure they'll be able to fix it eventually, probably with a tweak along the lines of letting you load up all the needed sounds beforehand.
 
I might be going crazy, but I clearly recall two distinct commands that were supposed to do that (sv_preload, cl_preload). Those commands did nothing to help the stutter, but I want to know why they are completely gone now. Its like they never existed.
 
I used to be able to only run HL2/CS:S in medium texture quality, if I set it to 'high', the stuttering was too bad. But when I bought another 512mb of RAM (I now have 1gb) I could play the game with high quality textures with no stuttering at all. So I guess it was just a lack of memory.
 
Yeah, that seems to be a seperate issue from the other stutters. However, it also seems to be the one that really messes up gameplay, instead of just being an annoyance.
 
For me, it might be lack of memory. I get some stutter like that in Doom 3 aswell. Right before I open a door, or the first time I choose a gun etc.. only difference in Doom 3 is that I actually made an autoexec with console commands that fixed the problem. In HL2 however, it happens even if I force hardware DX 7, and I have a 6600gt.
 
for me it gets a hard pause (3-10 seconds) at very specific points in the single player HL2 and seemingly more random in CS

I noticed I get more stutter after I build cube maps for custom maps
 
I have a very minimal stutter, perhaps the first 5 sounds when loading and then its fine...
 
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I'll have to reiterate every point made in the comic. Except for the "What's so grreat about this game anyway?" If guided rockets that halo around a strider isn't good enough for you... then you just have no taste.
 
yeah i get it in hl2 but tbh i forgot about all the tweaks that are in the console to limit if not eradicate it so i just accept it,i only get it the odd time like you said wolf,loading a new sound or a scripted event so its no biggie for me,i dont really play hl2 any more anyway

i play cs and never really get it,only the 1st time i select different weapons
 
I hope it's the RAM thing, because I've got a 3ghz, 1024mb ram PC sitting there waiting until my room's been renovated. I'm using a different comp right now.
 
In some occasions the stutter may happen even with 1gb of RAM.
 
I have a gig of ram and I do get some stutter,not much though..it does stop(rarely) for a few seconds..and always in the situations already described(new sounds,etc...)
 
yeah i have a gig too,512mb heap,some stutter like i said
 
i've got 2 256mb's, but only get stuttering in css, when I first spawn in, and then when I fire a bullet.
 
I've got 1GB PC3200 RAM (two 512 sticks). And I'm the one that started the thread.
 
Sorry for bringing back such an old thread, but my freind lent me his XMS 1gb RAM sticks (512x2) and the stuttering is gone. Completely wiped out. So I guess thats my solution. Just wanted to say that, sucks about people with 1gb already though.
 
I dunno what the prob is, the game seriously runs smooth as anything when it's not stuttering, and I have 512 mb of pc300 ram. Though I should probly try the game on another pc to see how it compares.
 
still stuttering mildly here, it has got better though, i didn't do anything except update through steam occasionally.
 
When ever I fire up garry's mod and I get to a scripted or loud noise(Strider's secondary attack,moving combine walls, too much crap going on in the backround), it stutters then crashes. Same thing with regular HL too only not as severe.
I cant even play CS:S or any MP mod without having massive stuttering. Before the CSS patch with the bots was released, I would get zero lag with all maps. Now CSS is worthless. I get a super low FPS with less than 3 people on Office. ON OFFICE for god sakes!! :angry:

Edit: For example, I just started the mission Following Freeman in Garrys mod and I lifted a headcrab that touched a wall.....WARNING!!! My computer freezes and I have to restart it improperly. To me, it seems the patches are making my performance worse. :|
 
I had stuttering on several games before HL2, so I never thought of it as such a HUGE problem as some people are making it to be....
 
If you get poblems with first sounds or rendering of certain things ... must be a problem of precaching . Probably due to hardware, hence the kid who added 512 ram and had no more problems. Or it might just simply be fps drops due to graphics card... open ur console and type "net_graph 3" and see how much FPS u get, might also be the graphics card. Well i spoze u know that if ur fps goes below 30 well it stutters...

And
StardogChampion said:
I hope it's the RAM thing, because I've got a 3ghz, 1024mb ram PC sitting there waiting until my room's been renovated. I'm using a different comp right now.
Click to expand...
You should be fine i have 3.4 ghz / 1024 mb ram along with an Ati x700 pro. who cares bout the other details , theyre just details. A similar configuration to urs and i can run HL2 / CSS on max with good FPS, so enjoy! :sniper:
 
I started reading this thread hoping to find something of an update on this issue. No such luck. It would appear that Valve has successfully swept it under the rug.

This issue *is* real and it's total bullsh*t that Valve is being so completely cavalier about it. They simply refuse to address the issue. Don't take my word for it. Do a simple search on Google. Then chose one of the hundreds of forum posts complaining about this problem. I've sent several emails to support@valve. I've not received any replies. The forum posts mentioned early reflect this as Valve's "response of choice", which is none at all.

I'm a seasoned gamer. I understand that tweaking your rig is a neccessary evil and I'm more than up to the task. I cut my PC gaming teeth on GLQuake with my 3Dfx card (Anyone here remember Diamond's Monster 3D?) and a Pentium Pro 200. I understand env variables. Hell, I even have a cherished email from none other than John Carmack himself answering a silly question I sent him shortly after Quake's release. I'm certain that no one will be impressed by this, but to summarize: I've come to expect that some, if not a whole LOT of tweaking is neccessary to get the most out of these games.

I keep my rig fresh. Presently, I have Doom3, FarCry, Painkiller, Stronghold 2 and LOTR: Battle for Middle Earth installed. All run just fine. I invite anyone to explain how my PC can withstand popping off an Army of the Dead spell with some 300 entities *already* on screen without so much as a hiccup. But take two steps down a darkened hallway in HL2, and sh, sh, sh, sh, she locks up for a f, f, f, f, few seconds.

That said, I have spent the better part of TWO weekends trying to alleviate this HL2 stuttering phenomena. I've even gone so far as to create a pristine WinXP install JUST for this title. I've defragged, moved pagefiles, created RAID 0 and RAID 10 stripes. I've tried beta drivers, countless autoexec.cfgs, turning down graphics settings, heapsize 512000, I've even "contiged" my HL2 files. Still, I have the stutter. BAD. The games simply stops for 5-10 seconds at certain parts of the game. Even the -nosound switch results in stuttering.

So after all this, what is the conclusion I've come to? The game is broken. It's really that simple.

It's really unfortunate. I feel as if Valve has left not only myself, but *everyone* who purchased this title high and freaking dry.

While I still desperately wish to play this game, it's unlikely I'll get it to run without Valve's help. If I don't receive a reply to tonight's email, I'll uninstall HL2 and Steam to make room for something else.

Something else that works...


(sorry for the rant)
 
Got a new graphics card, and then i edited a few settings. Stuttering went but was replaced with delayed sounds.

Changed snd_mixasync from 0.5 to 0.2 and upped the heapsize to 512000. Runs at a constant 100+ FPS with full AA and AF at 1024x726, no stuttering, and load times at 10-20 seconds. Totally awesome.

Also, not sure if this has been mentioned. But apparently having your mouse plugged into a USB port rather then a PS2 port can cause heavy stuttering when ever using the mouse. Try swapping them, that usually solves that. I had this problem with Vampire: Bloodlines. Swapped mouse ports and voi-la, fixed.
 
My stutter's gotten worse lately if you can believe it. I just mentioned in another thread that I used to get zero stutter running at 1280x1024, no anti-aliasing, 4x anisotropic filtering, reflect all, and high everything on my 3ghz P4, 1gb ram, 9800 pro. Ran beautifully. This was with my AGP acceleration off, btw (I hadn't realized there was an 8x driver on my mobo CD until after my reformat).

Then I reformatted and I got the stutter. Not too bad generally, but when my acceleration was off it'd stutter like crazy at the train station, or walking out into City 17, and during most scripted sequences. But switching to 8x usually fixed it, aside from tiny stutters (that were nonetheless annoying).

I hadn't tried playing HL2 single player in awhile, but I got the urge to try and see if I could fix the problem again...man, I don't know what happened but when I turned my acceleration off and played, it was crazy. Never before, even after my reformat, had the game stuttered during the G-man's intro speech. This time, once he got to "c-come again," it stuttered so bad I thought it locked up. Then it proceeded to start going again, but when the citadel was showing behind him, he literally stopped talking. Flash ahead to the train and two sound files start playing at once; he was stuttering, "s-s-so wake up, Mr. Freeman" and "the right man in the w-w-wrong place" at the same time. Once the game actually let me move around, I found that I couldn't...it was playing one frame every two minutes. God forbid when I tried to access the options menu while the game was running; thing locked up.
In what may or may not be related news, I've been getting memory errors during HL2DM, which has never happened before.

Beats me what happened because I haven't adjusted ANYTHING on this computer in the past few months. I also haven't DLed anything that tweaks settings or games or that sort of thing, or any new drivers since the last time I played HL2SP. Anyway I'm pretty resigned to the fact that the only way the stutter will be fixed for me is if I march my PC up to Valve's door and tell them to fix the thing, now that they have a PC where the stuttering problem can be duplicated in their lab.
 
Sparta said:
Got a new graphics card, and then i edited a few settings. Stuttering went but was replaced with delayed sounds.

Changed snd_mixasync from 0.5 to 0.2 and upped the heapsize to 512000. Runs at a constant 100+ FPS with full AA and AF at 1024x726, no stuttering, and load times at 10-20 seconds. Totally awesome.

Also, not sure if this has been mentioned. But apparently having your mouse plugged into a USB port rather then a PS2 port can cause heavy stuttering when ever using the mouse. Try swapping them, that usually solves that. I had this problem with Vampire: Bloodlines. Swapped mouse ports and voi-la, fixed.
Click to expand...

@Sparta

Clarify:

USB Mouse is BAD?
PS/2 Mouse is GOOD?

Do you have a link offering a bit more info?

Thx..
 
this is interesting..

system spec

2.8 ghz P4

1.5 gig of RAM

it had a 9800 pro in it, and it was working great, slight stutter, but hardly noticeable.

recently ive put and x800 xt into it, and fired the game up, nothing has changed except the card... now what I get in cetain key points .. at the start of most chapters, stuttering,.. but unusual stuttering.. more of a frame rate loss down from 90 fps to 6 or 8 in parts!.. happens when looking in certain direction's,, but smooth's out when you look away from that section of the level...

it's telling me that it's one problem, and that problem is the way the source engine is programmed to handle optimisation's in relation to handling or precaching whatever it has to, to bring up that part of the map on the screen, Im gonna go out on a limb and guess it's something to do with area portals or something similar and the sudden load placed on the computer in loading the next section when you pass through it...
 
ToeCutter said:
@Sparta

Clarify:

USB Mouse is BAD?
PS/2 Mouse is GOOD?

Do you have a link offering a bit more info?

Thx..
Click to expand...
Yup thats pretty much it. Found it over at the steampowered forums. I'll see if i can find the link
 
Yup its true. I had a USB mouse up until recently and when i tried to play HL2 a few nights ago with it, everytime i moved the mouse it ran like shit. Bought a PS2 optical mouse for 3d work yesterday (was sick of cleaning the ball) and now its fine. No stuttering, nothing. Runs better then ever.
 
Well I just set the -preload command line in my installation, and that does that everytime I load now. It seems to be performing better than before, but still gives a BIG hiccup at the beginning of the level that lasts a few seconds, then continues on as normal, engaging in small hiccups here and there, but nothing TOO bad. I dunno if this works decently for anyone else or not?
 
try turning autosave off. That is usually what causes the big hiccup at the start of the levels. But remember to quicksave if you do that.
 
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