Slight skips in Doom 3 and Half life 2

[ofn01]

I have seen numerous posts about this, but I just wanted to see if I was
right in diagnosing this issue
My specs are listed at the bottom of this post.

In Doom3 (the demo), I get little 'pauses' quite often, more so when opening
doors etc but also just when moving along with no real change (that I can
percieve). In Half Life 2 (full game) I was getting the same thing, but
these reduced quite a bit when I changed the sound from 5.1 to 2 speaker and
from High to Medium.

I have Onboard sound (Realtek AC'97 - latest drivers), and I have read some
posts that say that this sucks CPU cycles and that HL2 and Doom3 need the
CPU a lot.

Could this be the problem or could it be something else?
I choose the optimal settings for HL2 (full game) and Doom3 (demo) -
basically medium quality, no AA and a res of 1024x768. Sound settings for
both are 2 speaker.

Specs:
Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz (1MB cache, 800FSB) with HT (Prescott)
MSI 865PE NEO-2 P MS-6728 Ver 2 (No D-bracket) 3.50 AMI BIOS
Nanya 2 x 256MB dual channel DDR RAM (PC3200) 400MHz
256 Mb ABIT 9600XT (Catalyst 5.1)
FSP Group FSP300-60PN 300W +3.3@28A, +5V@30A, +12V@18A,
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Western Digital 160GB 7200rpm hard drive with 8MB buffer
Onboard Realtek AC'97 Audio
Sony DVD-ROM drive (16x)
Sony DW-D22A Dual-Layer IDE DVD+/-RW (black)
Speedtouch 330 USB DSL modem
Windows XP Pro SP2
memtest86 1.27: 7.5 hour all tests no errors
Motherboard Monitor Voltages: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
3DMark2001: 13200, 3DMark2003: 3800, 3DMark2005: 1600

 

[Sleepy]

I have seen numerous posts about this, but I just wanted to see if I was
right in diagnosing this issue
My specs are listed at the bottom of this post.

In Doom3 (the demo), I get little 'pauses' quite often, more so when
opening doors etc but also just when moving along with no real change
(that I can percieve). In Half Life 2 (full game) I was getting the same
thing, but these reduced quite a bit when I changed the sound from 5.1 to
2 speaker and from High to Medium.

I have Onboard sound (Realtek AC'97 - latest drivers), and I have read
some posts that say that this sucks CPU cycles and that HL2 and Doom3 need
the CPU a lot.

Could this be the problem or could it be something else?
I choose the optimal settings for HL2 (full game) and Doom3 (demo) -
basically medium quality, no AA and a res of 1024x768. Sound settings for
both are 2 speaker.

Specs:
Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz (1MB cache, 800FSB) with HT (Prescott)
MSI 865PE NEO-2 P MS-6728 Ver 2 (No D-bracket) 3.50 AMI BIOS
Nanya 2 x 256MB dual channel DDR RAM (PC3200) 400MHz
256 Mb ABIT 9600XT (Catalyst 5.1)
FSP Group FSP300-60PN 300W +3.3@28A, +5V@30A, +12V@18A,
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Western Digital 160GB 7200rpm hard drive with 8MB buffer
Onboard Realtek AC'97 Audio
Sony DVD-ROM drive (16x)
Sony DW-D22A Dual-Layer IDE DVD+/-RW (black)
Speedtouch 330 USB DSL modem
Windows XP Pro SP2
memtest86 1.27: 7.5 hour all tests no errors
Motherboard Monitor Voltages: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
3DMark2001: 13200, 3DMark2003: 3800, 3DMark2005: 1600

All recent FPS games (HL2, Doom 3 and Far Cry etc) use a lot of memory and
your OS uses approx 130mb so 512mb isnt enough for smooth gameplay.
2 things would help - adding another stick of RAM will help and adding a 2nd
HDD.
Even an old 4gb 5400rpm HDD - just format it and stick it as slave and put
the swapfile
on it. That helped me considerably and I have 768mb RAM.

 

[DaveW]

True. You need to buy a decent PCI sound card to relieve the audio load in
those games off the CPU.

 

[NightSky 421]

I have seen numerous posts about this, but I just wanted to see if I was
right in diagnosing this issue
My specs are listed at the bottom of this post.

In Doom3 (the demo), I get little 'pauses' quite often, more so when
opening doors etc but also just when moving along with no real change
(that I can percieve). In Half Life 2 (full game) I was getting the same
thing, but these reduced quite a bit when I changed the sound from 5.1 to
2 speaker and from High to Medium.

When I first got my paws on the Far Cry demo a number of months ago, I was
getting fairly frequently split-second pauses during gameplay. No other
game prior to that gave me any such trouble. After doing some routine
troubleshooting and ruling things out, it turned out that my Hercules
Fortissimo III sound card was to blame. I happened to have an old SB Live
Value sound card laying around and swapped out the Fortissimo III for it.
Despite the fact that the drivers for the Live were older than the
Fortissimo III, the problem I had with the split-second gameplay pauses
totally disappeared when I switched to the Live sound card. I've since
switched to an SB Audigy 2 ZS Platinum, which also does not have the
problem.

So you never know, it could be the sound card that is giving your trouble.
Even if you do get a sound card, I would still seriously consider buying an
extra 256MB or 512MB RAM for your computer.

 

[ofn01]

When I first got my paws on the Far Cry demo a number of months ago, I was
getting fairly frequently split-second pauses during gameplay. No other
game prior to that gave me any such trouble. After doing some routine
troubleshooting and ruling things out, it turned out that my Hercules
Fortissimo III sound card was to blame. I happened to have an old SB Live
Value sound card laying around and swapped out the Fortissimo III for it.
Despite the fact that the drivers for the Live were older than the
Fortissimo III, the problem I had with the split-second gameplay pauses
totally disappeared when I switched to the Live sound card. I've since
switched to an SB Audigy 2 ZS Platinum, which also does not have the
problem.

So you never know, it could be the sound card that is giving your trouble.
Even if you do get a sound card, I would still seriously consider buying
an extra 256MB or 512MB RAM for your computer.

Cheers for that!
I am looking at the Audigy 2 Value edition which I think could solve the
problem.

 

[Gordon Scott]

I have seen numerous posts about this, but I just wanted to see if I was
right in diagnosing this issue
My specs are listed at the bottom of this post.

In Doom3 (the demo), I get little 'pauses' quite often, more so when opening
doors etc but also just when moving along with no real change (that I can
percieve). In Half Life 2 (full game) I was getting the same thing, but
these reduced quite a bit when I changed the sound from 5.1 to 2 speaker and
from High to Medium.

I have Onboard sound (Realtek AC'97 - latest drivers), and I have read some
posts that say that this sucks CPU cycles and that HL2 and Doom3 need the
CPU a lot.

Could this be the problem or could it be something else?
I choose the optimal settings for HL2 (full game) and Doom3 (demo) -
basically medium quality, no AA and a res of 1024x768. Sound settings for
both are 2 speaker.

Specs:
Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz (1MB cache, 800FSB) with HT (Prescott)
MSI 865PE NEO-2 P MS-6728 Ver 2 (No D-bracket) 3.50 AMI BIOS
Nanya 2 x 256MB dual channel DDR RAM (PC3200) 400MHz
256 Mb ABIT 9600XT (Catalyst 5.1)
FSP Group FSP300-60PN 300W +3.3@28A, +5V@30A, +12V@18A,
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Western Digital 160GB 7200rpm hard drive with 8MB buffer
Onboard Realtek AC'97 Audio
Sony DVD-ROM drive (16x)
Sony DW-D22A Dual-Layer IDE DVD+/-RW (black)
Speedtouch 330 USB DSL modem
Windows XP Pro SP2
memtest86 1.27: 7.5 hour all tests no errors
Motherboard Monitor Voltages: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
3DMark2001: 13200, 3DMark2003: 3800, 3DMark2005: 1600

Hi

Couple things.
you need more ram...
you need another HDD.

Put your system files on the fastest HDD and load all your program files
on the other/slower disk. Also move your swap file to the non-system
disk.
This ensures your system can access and load files as fast as possible,
and the system disk isnt encurring useage if/as the swap file is accessed
on the other disk.

Also advise you to read the steam forum threads for HL2 and CS source
optimization and stuttering problems. 1 suggestion is to add some lines
to your .cfg file, sorry its on my other/gaming box I believe its
something like mat_forcetexturepreload 1 .....

Along with adding more ram, your bios item for graphics aperature size
should be set to 64 or maybe 128.

Gordon

 

[Les Matthew]

True. You need to buy a decent PCI sound card to relieve the audio load in
those games off the CPU.

I'm sure i read somewhere that Doom3 sound is handled entirely by
the cpu.

les...

 

[Barry]

Half Life 2 has a known problem the manu has been working to fix. Google and
you will find several sites detailing the problem.
You are not alone in this problem.

Barry

 

[mhicaoidh]

Taking a moment's reflection, Les Matthew mused:
|
| I'm sure i read somewhere that Doom3 sound is handled entirely by
| the cpu.

I believe that's only with an integrated audio device (on the
motherboard), and isn't Doom 3 specific.

 

[John Carlyle-Clarke]

Taking a moment's reflection, Les Matthew mused:
|
| I'm sure i read somewhere that Doom3 sound is handled entirely by
| the cpu.

I believe that's only with an integrated audio device (on the
motherboard), and isn't Doom 3 specific.

Is that true of all integrated audio, or are there good and bad ones?
I am browsing for an upgrade at the moment, and most motherboards have
audio now. Should I budget for soundcard as well, to avoid
performance problems?

 

[Smart Feet]

Is that true of all integrated audio, or are there good and bad ones?
I am browsing for an upgrade at the moment, and most motherboards have
audio now. Should I budget for soundcard as well, to avoid
performance problems?

No, not all. I use the integrated audio in my Asus A8V Deluxe motherboard
and it has given me zero problems...

 

[de Moni]

No, not all. I use the integrated audio in my Asus A8V Deluxe motherboard
and it has given me zero problems...

But if "real" PCI sound card has got hardware buffers etc.
which I guess most of integrated mobo sound chips don't
have, there can be a slight performance gain in CPU-
intensive games playing a lot of sounds simultaneously.

Of course, with the latest monster-CPUs the difference
can be quite unnoticeable. But I noticed noticeable
performance hit in few games when I switched from
SB64PCI to mobo's integrated AC'97 and the CPU
was XP1700+.

 

[mhicaoidh]

Taking a moment's reflection, John Carlyle-Clarke mused:
|
| Is that true of all integrated audio, or are there good and bad ones?
| I am browsing for an upgrade at the moment, and most motherboards have
| audio now. Should I budget for soundcard as well, to avoid
| performance problems?

I don't know if it is true of *all* integrated audio devices. However,
I know that integrated devices will use CPU, Bus, and RAM resources that PCI
devices will not. Therefore, there is always the potential for poorer
performance from integrated devices when compared to PCI.