Mini-hitching/Stuttering

NikolaiLevNikolaiLev Join Date: 2012-11-01 Member: 165658Members
edited March 2013 in Technical Support
When I look around I get this hitching that pauses my turning. It's seemingly not the same as an FPS drop, though it might be a drop related to looking around (for some reason). Unfortunately, I do not know if this started happening because of Build 240, or because I installed Windows 7.

Specs:
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz
Radeon HD4890 1gb
4gb DDR2 800
Windows 7 SP1

I've always had mediocre frames running on all low, but this never happened. With this bug, the game is virtually unplayable as it becomes excessively difficult to track where I'm actually aiming. I've attempted turning on texture streaming, messing with raw input, but nothing seems to really affect this (the gaps between hitches seems worse the lower my frames are, though).

Thanks in advance.

Edit: Bewilderingly, turning up the in-game mouse sensitivity (while lowering my mouse's DPI to compensate) mitigates this problem. However, it still exists. It seems 240 or Win7 has overall reduced my performance. Hopefully there's a way I can eliminate this problem, or at least help others with the same one.

Comments

  • AngeluszAngelusz Harmonic entropist Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18072Members, Forum Moderators, Constellation, NS2 Playtester
    I think we need more info. Does your mouse hitch, or also movement itself (w,s,a,d)? If it's only the former, try using "raw input" in options.

    If it's the latter, check r_stats and net_graph to see what's happening, waiting for render thread? Waiting for GPU? Perhaps choke?

    Anything weird going on in the console? (~)

    Give us some stats and we'll look in to it. :)
  • NikolaiLevNikolaiLev Join Date: 2012-11-01 Member: 165658Members
    It's just the mouse, movement is fine. Like I said in the post, I've already attempted modifying my raw input settings. No effect.

    I've checked r_stats and while waiting for GPU never occurs, waiting for render thread flickers between 0 and some two digit number. It seems to be correlated with the hitching. Given this occurs in explore mode, net_graph doesn't seem to apply here.

    Nothing in the console.

    Hope this is enough!
  • IronHorseIronHorse Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
    Try running only in fullscreen mode. No windowed or fullscreen windowed.
    Also be sure to disable any Vsync
    Still occurring?
  • DC_DarklingDC_Darkling Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
    Also lets start with the basic 'which mouse do you have'.
  • NikolaiLevNikolaiLev Join Date: 2012-11-01 Member: 165658Members
    IronHorse wrote: »
    Try running only in fullscreen mode. No windowed or fullscreen windowed.
    Also be sure to disable any Vsync
    Still occurring?

    All tested. No effect.


    Also lets start with the basic 'which mouse do you have'.

    Logitech G700. However, I doubt this is the cause of the issue, as I was using the G700 before I installed Win7/played B240. It's also worth re-emphasizing that the turning hitches coincide with spikes in "waiting for render thread."

    I always knew my CPU was not up to par for the game, but it ran playable without this issue before the aforementioned occurrences.
  • DC_DarklingDC_Darkling Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
    Im going to shower you with stuff you do not want to hear, but I am going to anyway. :)

    * wireless mouse. batteries ok? tried for testing with a wired mouse?
    * tried without the mouse macros?
    * how big are the render thread spikes?
    * tried closing more and more programs before you run ns? (as a side note, you would be amazed how many stuff out there is insanely badly coded. browser plugins, printer programs, some mouse control programs.

    It can be a combination of factors.
  • n0_FXn0_FX Join Date: 2002-11-19 Member: 9304Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    reduce the polling rate of your mouse to 100/200hz, i guess its on 500 or even 1000.
  • IronHorseIronHorse Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
    edited March 2013
    I'm curious to see what you find with profile. Do you know how to use it?
    I'll see if I can link you to an earlier post of mine explaining how. (http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/2074238/#Comment_2074238)
    Profile would show the culprit in this case I believe

    Also check your video settings and look for "max buffered frames" or "pre buffered frames" (not sure what it is for Amd cards) and please report what you find

    Edit: you switched to win 7 recently? What are your os mouse settings? Try polling rates as mentioned in here as well

    Edit2: Have you confirmed your in game gfx settings are the exact same? Do you have texture streaming enabled?
  • NikolaiLevNikolaiLev Join Date: 2012-11-01 Member: 165658Members
    edited March 2013
    n0_FX wrote: »
    reduce the polling rate of your mouse to 100/200hz, i guess its on 500 or even 1000.

    Puzzlingly, this helped. It heavily mitigated the issue, though it's still slightly there, and I still need to test what happens in a real match (this was in Explore Mode).

    In the interest of actually getting to the bottom of this issue rather than bandaging it, I'll answer most of the questions here. AMD does not have any options related to max buffered frames or so. I could download ATI Tray Tools for this sake but those have always given me problems in the past. Graphics settings were all the same, especially considering I've tested different settings.

    This is profile at 125 polling rate.

    http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=131137373

    This is profile at 1000 polling rate, moving to another part of the map to get lower frames (which makes the issue more apparent. And yes, people joined my Explore Mode game and killed me; I still need to suggest they be excluded from quick join).

    http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=131137411

    I hope a fix can be found for this issue, as it seems to be confined only to NS2 and no other game (I've never encountered this issue before). Good luck!

    Edit: I forgot to mention that I've always had my mouse on 1000Hz polling rate, so there's still something odd about Win7/B240. Further, I've played in a real match and it's quite playable. Unfortunately, my performance in general has taken a hit as well, but that's not quite related.
  • n0_FXn0_FX Join Date: 2002-11-19 Member: 9304Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    i got this problem a few years ago with my core2duo e8400 and windows xp 64bit. idk why, but it seems that some mice are really cpu-heavy at high polling rates, which creates a cpu spike (check your task manager) when moving the mouse. normally 125hz should fix that problem.

    maybe your cpu goes into some kind of energy saving mode until you move your mouse, which can produce some kind of stuttering too. try to deactivate "intel speed step" in bios and/or use the "high performance mode" of energy saving options in windows (i dont know the correct translation in english).
  • DC_DarklingDC_Darkling Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
    a usb device pulls power from the usb port in most cases. USB 1 has low power, 1.1 higher, 2.x more and usb 3 can push quite a lot of power through by spec.
    The keyword is by spec. Depending on motherboard & drivers many usb can deliver more power then spec indicates, and some produce less.

    I would start by checking your USB ports & drivers
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