Every once in a while, playing 1.3 pb (or latest) I get a pause. Example, as you can see by this (http://www.overminddl1.com/bz2wz1.png) picture, I get on average about 400fps while looking at a base, and about 500 looking at a landscape, but every ten seconds or so it drops to about 2fps, it only does this in some select maps, still isolating (do not play much) which ones, but does anyone else experience this?
You must be playing on a LCD monitor. Me thinks a crt would be having massive tearing problems.
Yes its an old lcd, but the purpose of this post was not fps.
Hi I find playing with Vsync turned on makes it alot smoother gameplay.
VSync only sets a max refresh rate (to the monitor vertical frequency to be exact). I usually play with it on, I forced it off to see what my fps were, didn't help/hurt the freezing, that seems to be CPU based freezing...
These are just pure suggestions. First are there any programs running the background that could be causing problems. Loading up the Task Manager and keeping a history of the CPU usage while the CPU is idle may indicate something is amiss.
If you do see spikes in the CPU usage while the System is idle. Then try to track down which program in the Processes tab.
Well I hope I haven't Insulted your intelligence or anything.....you are one brainy guy. :-D
Do you have those options set in gameprefs that give extra time to the cpu for calls from other progs?
This is a wild shot in the dark, but are you running an Athlon 64 with Cool 'n Quiet enabled?
Or, are you running a Prescott Pentium 4, which has built in thermal throttling?
Well I do know for a fact that Overmind has a AMD64. But about the Cool and Quite tech I dunno.
No cool and quiet, and it does not do it on all levels. Heck, I play HL2 at max quality with never a slowdown, so I do not think this would be a problem for BZ2...
OM, you stated that you're seeing the pauses in 1.3pb.... is it also happening in 1.2? Also, is this in SP/IA or in MP?
Is your CDdrive empty?
Don't recall in 1.2, have not done it in far too long, and things have been and have not been in the cd drive, it never spins up when something is in, so I doubt it is cd tracks or whatnot... This is BZ2...
Again, I ask... is this happening in SP/IA or in MP... or both? :)
Please list the suspect maps as well, if you can remember.
The COW map shows a similar issue.
I believe it's because of the high number of ships embedded in the map. BZ2 seems to "run through the list" of objects every so often and if that list is long it can show up as a pause.
OTOH I've also had things like that happen with long view distance maps without fog, like the COW map. (no fog on the moon). This could also be texture dependant...
I used to get a 'pulse' every few seconds that was caused by my cheap sound card (and equally cheap drivers). It disappeared when I switched to an SBLive card. When I had it I noticed it most on Bridges for some reason...
That's all I can think of to check...
-Av-
For note, the map of the screenshot above was very empty except for what was on screen... And it is not restricted to a specific map/dll type, it appears at random, should I get some testing done I can list off specific ones...
!^%@$#!@%^!@#!@$!@#
Well anyhow I have not seen this same !@#!@$! problem crop up myself. Ok I was playing multiple session of bz2 last night and I was having this awful occurance. The timing seemed completely random. Just to play this morning the Restarted my computer and then played a MPI (same map) and volia no more problem. Not to say it won't crop up again. I'll work on pinpointing the cuase as time goes on.
But that leads me to a Important question. OM how often do you restart you computer? The randomness of maps you mentioned may have been related to the last time your computer was restarted.
I'm going to take not of all processes running at the time the next occurance (hopefully if) happens. Then maybe we could compare notes. Its would be a read pain to it I happened during a dogfight *shudder*.
Edit:
I almost forgot I last night I was playing with a couple of friends on TS (thanks RIP for the server). And during the slow-ups which seemed to last about 5 seconds, I could still talk to and hear them fine. Which reminds me of something else, sometimes when the slow-up happened my framerate would only dip to maybe 15-25 FPS (off my V-sinc limited 85)
Edit 1 more time:
I looked at OM's pictures again, sheesh how do you get off with only :shock: 4 :shock: sound channels?
its sound like what I get if I dont reboot or accidently leave spyware doc on when I play... its just overload on the comp or w/e, either defrag and see if it does that, or close background problems (after a reboot) and see if that fixes it...
Actually I have 64 sound channels, but I had just rebuilt my computer and it was running the motherboard sound, I had not yet put in my Audigy. Do not worry, I have it in now, couldn't stand to be without it. :D
OM could you tell me
1. Which software firewall you are using
2. What anti-virus program you are running.
Thanks this slow-up bug seems to be not just BZ2 related, I saw it in Halo last night. GRRRRR. Got me killed more than once. Not to mention the fact that Halo is simply not my type of game for Multiplayer.
When playing, hit ctrl-alt-del and bring up the task manager. Then click on the 'processes' tab, and click on the title of the 'processor usage' column and watch it for awhile. Some processes might jump to the top of the list suddenly and then back down to 0% usage. That might be your culprit.
I myself have had similar problems with Winamp.
Does not happen anywhere else except BZ2, and only on some maps. Hardware Firewall, not software. AntiVirus is Norton, but generally disable it before games. Only time computer is turned off is when I reboot to switch to a different OS on another drive. Process Usage generally tops out at 2%, generally sits at 0%, and that is when I am listening to music in WMP10.
Just realized I used to see this type of thing, but only when I played music in the background.
Using winamp, I would get the pauses, but only if I neglected to minimize it before launching the game. Winamp was still trying to update its screen in the background, causing a slight pause every so often.
I close anything that could use CPU before BZ2, not that I'd need to, I get a few hundred fps without VSync on.
What network protocols do you have installed? Those can also be a source of hiccups due to polling conflicts or incorrect protocol drivers, though I don't think that should happen on current OSes.
It shouldn't matter, especially since no people are usually in the game.
TCP/IP on one nic, TCP/IP and NFS on another.
Well for right now I seem to have found a "fix" for my problem. Giving bz2 or any other game that exhibits this problem Above normal priority in the processes tab seems to make this problem disappear.
The Guilty verdict......
Outpost Firewall.
Of course I havn't proven it yet, but I just got out of Utk24, I had the TaskMgr open, and I saw it consuming 98% of CPU resources.
More testing with it closed to see it that will fix the problem.
Then I will pass sentence, delete or not.
The accused: Agnitum Outpost Firewall.
Proof: No more slow-ups when this program is off.
The verdict: Guilty of excessive CPU usage at the wrong times.
The sentence: Henceforth this program will be forever banished from my computer.
Ahh peace again.
hehe, a great progarm for monitiring stuff and see whats working hidenly in the background: security task manager
damn great program, no more wormz or viruses running hiddenly in the background - you can get a free version off downloads.com
what about the one included with windows?
can this one kill any proggys?
regular task manager? you cant see hidden stuff and most viruses and worms reopen themself, in that proggie u can "quarntine" them, meaning they cant reopen themselves
If you are smart with your computer then you don't need things like that though, PhoeniX, as the kind of thing you stop with it never gets in to begin with.
My brother is making a killing on snuffing malware (he has a computer service business). In a 24 hour period, he got over 6000 hack attempts on his network (which is probably pretty typical).
These days, anyone can get bitten, no matter how smart you are with your computer.
Your right Mowerman. Accidents/mistakes/ignorance do happen.
Wz, your probably not using msn m + but FYI, latly it was causing major problems, it opened 2 "Internt explorer" tabs in task manager and when you close them it would restart it, before I figured it was msn m + that doing that I had to quartitne IE, cause it just caused problems, for example - it caused undeletable desktop icons
I have other 2 'things' that I'm still not sure what they does but they were working hiddenly in the background, making sure they are not windows or program (that im using) needed I quarntited them, since no other programs found out what they are...
so FYI, using this program is something some people will consider being smart with your comp
I assume you mean MSN Messenger Plus!, msgplus.net, Patchou's creation, plugin capable, etc. and so forth?
If so, I have no issues with it. Just don't be stupid and let it install the sponsor. That is where your issues are most likely coming from.
Or, perhaps one of the plugins you installed is doing it. There are a few out there that do that kind of thing because they have sponsors as well.
As I said, you have to be smart with your computer. Don't accept anything without seeing what it says it is going to do. If it doesn't say what it is going to do then go ask google what it will do first. If it is a google provided item, still ask google, but also ask altavista and yahoo in case google has filtered out some of the negative comments.
If you are vigilant with your computer then you don't need crap like that.
Oh, and that particular tool, having looked into it, puts potentially dangerous system hooks in place that can cripple performance if you aren't careful with it.
it was a plugin, I never install "sponsers" I got the plugin off someone I know who said its handwriting plugin
anyways, that was just a small example the fact that viruses and worms are running all over the net has nothing to do with being smart with your computer, unless being offline is considered smart...
I have a router (with a working NAT), XP firewall, norton personal firewall and ZA, even with all those my antivirus jumps off from time to time notifiying me of virsues, same for spyware, I use spyboy S&D, adaware and spyware doctor, doing weekly tests on all of them, finding at least 10 spyware (overall)
so I realy dont see how being "smart" can make you totaly immune
as mower said
QuoteThese days, anyone can get bitten, no matter how smart you are with your computer.
I agree though, that this program *can* be dangours, you have to know what your doing in order to use it
well, the truely smart can be hit by something and not lose anything of value :D
hmmm if out of nowhere a lighting hits your house and your comp blows up, your all house burn down --> all your back-up HDs, cds, or whatever you use go down with the house as well you'll lose lots of valueable stuff and it has nothing to do with you not being smart :D
lightning?
common, lightning never strikes twice :lol:
Tell that to the guy who got struck 9 times in under a minute... :D
I wish i had that link...
Actually, when lightning strikes, it does not strike once, it striked tens, usually hundreds of times in a couple seconds.