Stuttering Help Please

[GregSM 0]

Hi All,

 

 

This sim is wonderful - really wonderful. I purchased CFS III some time ago, in anticipation of the Phase III release, and could bear only to toy briefly with the base product. That the latter was borne of the former simply astounds.

 

I do, however, have this one trouble: stuttering. Thanks to the various information gleaned from the website help pages and from this forum, the trouble has subsided greatly. (Overriding both vertex and index buffers was markedly beneficial, for example.) As it stands, then, the stuttering isn't debilitating but I'd be delighted to eliminate or to further minimize it.

 

To that end, I hope these observations are helpful:

 

1. Stuttering occurs only at low altitude and only when trees, buildings or other ground objects are drawn out to the horizon (or ground objects and horizon must be visible together).

 

2. Frame rates don't seem to have impact as stuttering occurs accross the full range, even at very high frame rates, upwards of 50.

 

3. What's especially perplexing is that while ground objects obviously are stuttering, other aircraft within the same field of vision do not. That is, I can focus on a padlocked aircraft and observe it moving fluidly about the stuttering trees and buildings I can see still in the periphery. (If this is illusory, it's really, really illusory.)

 

Any advice will be gratefully received.

 

System specs:

 

Asus N51V series notebook

Core 2 Duo T9600 @ (stock) 2.8 Mhz

4 gig RAM

Nvidia GT240M (1 gig DDR3)

Vista 32 bit.

 

 

Cheers,

 

 

Greg

[Von Paulus 8]

Welcome Greg!

 

I suppose you've already see the FAQ, but just in case here is the link.

http://www.overflandersfields.com/FAQ.htm#Installation_and_settings

 

Have you tried to cap maximum frame rate to 30 (MaxFPS="30")? People report that sometimes it help reducing the stuttering.

http://www.overflandersfields.com/Tips.htm

 

Another thing you can try is to set the affinity just to one core.

http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?showtopic=37997

http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?showtopic=44947

 

Finally another tip, try to use a program like Game Booster that disable temporarily some background processes that can cause bad system performance.

http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html

[Panama Red 22]

I too was getting "micro stuttering" even though I had high FPS (40-60 FPS) while flying low. I finally curred it by turning of my Antivirus background scan while playing games.

[jaa 0]

There is a known issue with the un-modded cfs3 with a slight stuttering when over airfields. This does not usually last that long though. Could it be that? If so there is nothing to worry about. It usually clears itself.

[Von Paulus 8]

Flying low is more CPU and GPU intensive than in high altitude. it has to draw objects with more detail, so....

 

That's also a good tip Panama.

[Olham 164]

Over airfields, a stutter can occur; old CFS3 thing, I think.

[GregSM 0]

Hello again everyone,

 

 

Thank you very much for all of your help.

 

Several of the suggestions I've tried but many I've not. No doubt the solution somewhere lurks (hopefully it won't resemble a better video card) and it should be easier now for me to find it. I'll report back later.

 

Von Paulus, thank you especially for providing the links – lots of buttons and switches to keep me busy in there!

 

Olham, that's interesting. I'll try to ascertain whether or not the stuttering coincides with airfield rendering.

 

 

Cheers,

 

 

Greg

[GregSM 0]

Hello - and thank you again folks for your help!

 

I have the sim running pretty smooth now such that even in very, very busy scenarios FPS rarely dip below 30. And the stuttering, now mild, is largely localized to airfield vicinities (just as noted above).

 

Perhaps this will help someone with a system similar to mine:

 

1. Disable vertex and index buffers in Workshops/CFS3 Configuration Overrides (absolutely essential);

2. Reduce “Ground Object Density” in Workshops to “Low” (also really important);

3. Maximize anisostropic filtering and antialiasing in the video card control panel. (This, obviously, is counter-intuitive but with my computer these maximized settings cost just 2-3 FPS and seem either to actually alleviate the stuttering slightly or are at least irrelevant to it - so why not enjoy?!)

 

Still, I am experimenting with the CFS3 Configuration Image Quality settings but so far these seem to provide a good balance of visual quality and playability:

 

Overall Graphic Detail: 5

Aircraft detail: 5

Terrain Detail: 3-4

Scenery Detail: 2-3

Effects Quality: 4

Cloud Quality: 3

 

And here are a few common recommendations that don't work for my computer:

 

1. Capping FPS in CFSIII configuration rather induces stuttering;

2. Setting CPU affinity to single core and upping CPU priority have no effect.

 

 

Cheers,

 

 

Greg

[BirdDogICT 3]

Greg,

 

Isn't it great having so many helpful folks here???

 

One additional cure for stuttering mentioned in the Graphics FAQ is turning off all messages in the CFSConfig Overrides (e.g., Disable Warning Boxes, Advisor Messages, and Simulation Warnings). I found ingame messages to cause serious lags when flying low near the airfield or over the trenches (due to, as Von Paulus pointed out, the number of objects that must be rendered).

 

Cheers