Doom3 Stutter Issue

H

howsmydriving

n00b
Joined
Aug 10, 2004
Messages
6
Hi all. I apologize if this specific issue has been addressed already...

I just built a new machine and am getting a consistent stutter in D3, regardless of what the video settings are. I have tried all combos, here are my specs:

Athlon xp 2500 mobile barton
512 megs crucial ddr 400
wd1200jb
powercolor radeon 9600pro 128mb
DFI NFII Ultra Infinity

Basically, the game stutters about every 1-2 seconds because the HD is being accessed. Every time the game stutters, you can see the HD light blink. I have tried installing the IDE drivers again, installing the SATA drivers again, disabling SATA, and various other settings.

I have also changed various settings in the ATI control panel and hydravision, but none of those changes seem to have an impact.

Also, the audio stutters as well when this happens. I have the most recent drivers for audio and video, DirectX 9, etc. I really don't know what is causing this, as it doesn't appear to be related to the video settings. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

EDIT: One other thing: The HD is the only device on the primary bus, I have a lite-on 52x burner and an NEC 8x DVD Burner on the secondary bus.
 
Run defrag and check your start up programs through run->msconfig. Also, have you seen the cache_meg tweaks with the three lines to change? Helped me a bit.

But you might just have the "512mb of ram" problem that has arisen now in a lot of games.
 
Hey thanks for the quick advice.

Yeah, I basically killed all processes not vital to Windows before running (including some iTunes crap and Logitech iTouch) but that didn't seem to have any impact on the problem.

I guess I'll try to defrag tonight, although I just built this machine, and this drive is brand new (just installed Windows this weekend). Worth a try though.
 
I had a similar problem and discovered that it was FRAPS trying to write a movie to the HD. Quickload default is F9 for Doom 3, and F9 is also the default key to record a movie.
 
Yeah, I think I may have some issue like this, although I don't have FRAPS on that machine. Do you guys think it's possible that my video ram is caching to the HD or something like that? Maybe some BIOS setting is out of whack.
 
I have the *exact* same issue, and I've tried defragging, everything in the control panel, changing my cache limits, reinstalling chipset/video drivers, checked for newer soundcard drivers, checked all of my BIOS settings (that I reasonably think could affect this), and nothing works.

Every 2 seconds it stutters, and the HD light blips. Does yours stop blipping if you leave it running for long enough? It usually takes my system 3-8 minutes, but eventually it will stop stuttering. Though it will start up again next time I load or save a game. I almost wonder whether something is sharing IRQ's with my HD or something weird like that.

I posted here, but the first round of people weren't very helpful -- some told me to make sure vsync was on...?!? Heh.

If you figure out how to stop this please post it here, because it makes the game extremely hard to play, really jerks you out of the immersion.

my original thread about this: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=788203
 
I posted the solution yesterday.
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=790861

Doom3 was nearly unplayable for me with constant repeating/stuttering of the audio which would cause the frame rate to drop like a rock. That was until a game reviewer found a solution.Link to review

Edited August 8th: After some more time researching my sound problem, I stumbled across a solution that gets rid of the stuttering completely. All you have to do is right click your hard drive, click properties, go to polices, and turn off write caching. The sound is smooth and doesn't skip at all. Hope that helps other people as well.
Click to expand...

After making the change audio works perfectly and no more frame chugging. :)
 
Beck - thank you both for the input. I agree that this is extremely frustrating.

Conman - If this solution works, I owe you big time. I'll try it tonight and let everyone know.
 
I made a post regarding a similar issue yesterday, but it got no love, so I'll paste it here with all the stuff I tried, maybe it can help someone...

littlewing said:
I've run into a wierd problem with Doom 3. Whenever I'm playing there is a stutter every few seconds. At first I thought it was just latency from playing online, but it happens in single player as well. It's most noticable when I strafe. It's like every 3rd step (it's not random) some frames are dropped, and then there's a small jerking/skipping motion as my position/screen is updated. This isn't the same as the door opening skip, as this happens even if you're looking at a wall and strafing parallel to the wall. It's not a framerate issue. My fps can be in the 60's and this still goes on.

System:
2600+
NF7-S v.2.0
1gb PC2700
Radeon 9800 (non-pro, running at stock speeds)
250gb 7200rpm hd

Things I've tried/info:
-Drivers - the cat 4.7, 4.8, 4.9's don't change anything. Same goes for the omega 4.7's. No other cards have been used on the system. Driver Cleaner 3 was used to uninstall before trying another set of drivers.
-The hd is defragged.
-This is a fresh install of XP with SP1, no luck, then SP2, again no change.
-Updated my mb bios to the most recent version.
-Toyed with doom's visual settings/resolutions, no change even at 640 with everything off.
-Forced all vid card settings to max performance.
-Tried changing agp aperture size
-Giving doom more memory via autoexe
-Heat shouldn't be an issue, the room that my computer is in has an open window, fans, and the case panel is off. I put a heatpipe cooler on my video card and got rid of the stock cooler.
-Framerate is pretty solid when this happens.
-No other games have this issue.
-I've tried DirectX 9.0B and C.
-Updated nforce drivers to latest from abit, will try nvidia's version soon.
-Fastwrites being on/off makes no difference.

The only other thing I can think of is the onboard sound that I'm using (I seem to remember a problem with bf:v and sound).

Any ideas? I've seen a few isolated posts (on other boards) with other people having the same problem, but no potential solutions came up.
Click to expand...
 
Sounds like a different issue littlewing.Since it looks like you're trying everything,did you try unzipping the pak files?Takes up a lot of space but when you're desperate.... :D
 
Just search the net for some doom3 console guides. It could be lots of things, but I do remember reading one command that loaded textures from the harddrive as you played to shorten level load times.
 
Conman said:
Sounds like a different issue littlewing.Since it looks like you're trying everything,did you try unzipping the pak files?Takes up a lot of space but when you're desperate.... :D
Click to expand...

Unzipping the pak files does nothing but cause problems with pure servers and increases level load times. Please dont tell anyone to do that.
 
Conman said:
Sounds like a different issue littlewing.Since it looks like you're trying everything,did you try unzipping the pak files?Takes up a lot of space but when you're desperate.... :D
Click to expand...

Crap, you're right I completly missed the last section of howsmydriving's post. I stand corrected. The unzipping didn't help, and it's supposed to slow things down for most people (according to id).
 
i have a similar problem that all you guys are having....i just built a new pc (abit nf7-s v2, 512 ram, wd1200jb, evga 6800nu); i even have it overclocked [stable] to over 3200+ levels at 11*216 = 2.376Ghz.....so far at least; i've been tweaking my video settings and i' did a lot of windows xp optimizations (ie: turning off unneeded services, etc)....i've also tweaked my doom .cfg files; its gotten better, but i still run into these stuttering problems; it "seems" to get better as i play...but its not completely gone; and when it stutters, the hdd light is going - why, i don't know

i'll try the above fixes tonight and get back to you guys (goog thing i found this thread, i was getting ready to start my own just like it).....:)
 
I've read about this pak file issue, and it seems really bizarre to me that id would knowingly do something that dumb. So, I think I may try that as a last resort.

Conman's suggestion about the HD settings seems logical and obvious, so i hope that works :)

good luck to all!
 
conman - i did this and it did fix the sound stutter. however, the drive is still accessed every couple seconds, so the video still stutters :(

i wonder if this would be linked to the fact that I have my 120gig hd partitioned into 3 sections?

however, if i wait about 6 -10 minutes, the issue does go away. i guess i'll just have to take a beer break every time I load a new level :)
 
conamns trick didnt help me :(....however, i disabled a few none essential startup items and i tweaked my .cfg file even more, and its now much better :cool:
 
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