Halp! Stuttering!

[Khettienna]

So, recently my game started stuttering. I've tried lots of things to fix it, and I thought I had a few times, but it just keeps coming back. Here's what I've tried:

-Brand new install of Oblivion, with new saves (so it's not mod or ini/settings-related)

-Rip & re-install of several new and old versions of video & sound drivers

-Checked IRQ settings (display junk is not sharing with other junk)

-Checked CPU & GPU heat/fan speed (these are normal)

-Physically cleaning the PC inside (that was gross, but not anymore)

Other notes:

-Happens in random places in-game that seem to have no common denominator.

-Not happening in other 3d games (such as WoW or MW2).

-System specs are reasonably awesome, and this PC has run a souped-up Oblivion with no problems before

-tdt is still reporting FPS as 30 at the lowest (in exteriors with NPCS and/or creatures present)

-Game doesn't feel "laggy", i.e. camera turn times and movement speed seem on point - the stuttering is more like a strobe light effect

So I'm at the point where I just dunno what else to try anymore, and I would like some new ideas! If you have any, please share?

[vometia]

Streamline, maybe? Of all the various things I've tried, this one probably helped with general performance more than most, though I forget if 3.0 or 3.1 is the best version to run (I recall one of them didn't quite work properly, but it's so long ago I forget which, unfortunately). I think Oblivion stuttering is just one of those facts of life, and though it can be ameliorated somewhat, it can't be entirely removed because of fundamental problems with the way it's coded.

Edit: I missed the word "recently". If anything else comes to mind I'll post it as and when!

[Khettienna]

Yeah, Streamline and OSR seem to be having no effect on the stuttering.

I didn't have any stuttering until about two weeks ago anyways, it seems to have just mysteriously onset, and I don't know what I changed that caused it.

[vometia]

Has anything in your .ini file changed? I remember a time when tuning this, that and the other could eke out more performance but that situation changed with 1.2.something and any fiddling about with caching, loading and so on could be counterproductive; might be worth making a copy of it, deleting it and letting Oblivion create a new one and see if that fixes anything. Not forgetting to reapply fonts and stuff if you have a custom user-interface - hope that's not stating the obvious but it's the sort of thing I tend to forget myself!

[Khettienna]

I don't think it's the .ini, 'cause it's doing it both in my "play" install with all my mods and tweaks, and a brand new install that has a fresh .ini. I've tried deleting it to regen a new one, still happens.

[Hanaisse]

I've heard defrag's mentioned before as a possible solution. Unless you've done that recently.

Also might benefit from removing any old files out of your Data folder that aren't necessary or needed any more since the game reads everything.

[Khettienna]

Yeah, I defrag weekly and anytime I move a lot of stuff around. I'm neurotic that way.

My play install is pretty trim right now, and everything that isn't a replacer is already bsa'd without compression. My blank install doesn't really have anything extra that could be removed, so I'm kinda at a loss there.

-Brand new install of Oblivion, with new saves (so it's not mod or ini/settings-related)

-System specs are reasonably awesome, and this PC has run a souped-up Oblivion with no problems before

Edited November 26, 2010 by Khettienna

[vometia]

Is it possible that it's something outside the game? Some background process gobbling up disc bandwidth, perhaps? Although I hate the suggestions to try a minimal boot (and can't remember the steps to do it... ) as a debugging aid it may be worth a try. If the performance is okay under those circumstances, it could be something else using up your resources.

In general terms, things like putting your Oblivion data folder on your fastest disc (assuming you have more than one) may help, or alternatively putting it on any drive other than C: so it's not competing with Windows. In terms of hardware, things like disc-mirroring may help read speeds, though it's hard to say how much of the theoretical advantage translates into actual performance gains, though disc mirroring in itself is a good thing - but a discussion for elsewhere!

It does sound like you've got most of the bases already covered what with uncompressed BSAs and stuff though. I hate it when stuff like this "just happens" without any obvious reason.

[Hanaisse]

Aww, sorry Khett, it was a longshot guess. I'm at a loss too. Have to agree with vometia, hate when this stuff just happens. Hope you find the culprit soon.

[Arthmoor]

Did you do a driver update or anything that might have triggered an audio codec update?

I've noticed lately that my game has picked up a regular "tick" that isn't related to the normal disk stuttering, and I think it's been caused by the ATI driver update I did that ironically fixed the same issue I was having in Gothic 4. You just can't win sometimes

There's also the fact that the last few ATI driver updates broke the vsync or something because I've got that nasty 1-2 pixel width bright line around the left and top of the screen and it won't go away, but Oblivion is the only game it happens to.

[Khettienna]

Did you do a driver update or anything that might have triggered an audio codec update?

Yes! But I rolled back from Catalyst drivers/suite 10.11 to 10.9 to see if that was it. Didn't help, so I've rolled back to 8.2 (more on this later), which is what was relevant when my card was released.

I've noticed lately that my game has picked up a regular "tick" that isn't related to the normal disk stuttering, and I think it's been caused by the ATI driver update I did that ironically fixed the same issue I was having in Gothic 4. You just can't win sometimes

Yes, that's a much better description of what's going on here. A "tick". My old machine did a good job of teaching me what/how much/when stuttering is expected and acceptable, and this ain't it.

There's also the fact that the last few ATI driver updates broke the vsync or something because I've got that nasty 1-2 pixel width bright line around the left and top of the screen and it won't go away, but Oblivion is the only game it happens to.

Holy ham, I think we got hit with the same whateveritis. I've seen this too, here and there.

I -think- I've fixed it. I ripped out all the ATI stuff on my machine, codecs and all, ran Driver Cleaner Pro and CCleaner in safe mode, and re-installed from the 8.2 installer. I also took the opportunity to defrag in safe mode without a page file, and let Windows rebuild a new static page file after the reboot - which I thought of after Hana's mention of defragging. I won't be satisfied that it's really fixed until I play for an hour with no trouble; but if it is fixed, I can't be sure which thing fixed it. Probably ripping the codecs and rolling waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back on the driver did it, since I'm not the only one with the issue.

Gonna do some BTA testing, that should give me an opportunity to know if it's fixed for sure. Will report back.

Thank you very much, all of you! Even if it's not fixed, it's kind of you to take the time to give me input.

Edit:

I spoke too soon, it's still "ticking".

Edited November 26, 2010 by Khettienna

[vometia]

Talking of drivers, sound drivers are also a frequent cause of discontent; are you using onboard sound or a soundcard? Whichever it is, it might be worth switching over to the other and the respective drivers to see if that helps.

Which is admittedly a bit of a shot in the dark and eventually this sort of thing does become a random collection of "have you tried this?" but so many people have had problems with sound drivers that it may be worth a try.

As for video drivers, I'm rigidly sticking to ATI's 10.4 drivers. They work and subsequent ones don't in various ways so I'll proudly remain a Luddite.

[Khettienna]

Okay, that prompted me to poke a little more at ATI's software junks. I tried disabling sound in steps from the Oblivion.ini, all the way down to the Windows Audio service. No dice! But! I also disabled the ATI Hotkey Poller service and the ticking seems to have gone away. I say "seems" to, as I have proven myself wrong over and over - but after an hour and a half of running all over Cyrodiil trying to make the game stutter at all places I knew it would have, I couldn't. I'm irked that I couldn't make the stuttering come back by restarting the service, but there may be other threads to it that wouldn't turn back on without a reboot, and I kinda don't wanna break it again anyways. >.>

I'll post again if it comes back. Now I'm too tired to enjoy the fruits of my labor, so I'm gonna veg out to some TV.

[Hanaisse]

Great news. Keeping fingers crossed.

[vometia]

Well that sounds like it's good news: hopefully your persistence has now paid off! It makes sense that it would be something like that, but how will you live without such a useful service running?

[Arthmoor]

Hmm. Well I don't have a "ATI Hotkey Poller service" listed in my services, but I do have one labeled as "AMD External Events Utility" which is on. I'll fiddle with it tomorrow and see what that does, if anything. I do remember having the hotkey poller in XP but apparently that doesn't exist for Win7.

[vometia]

This is probably entering the realm of pontification, but another thought: might your maximum framerate be too high? This is something I heard ages ago and I didn't really want to entertain the notion of lowering it after I'd gone to all the effort of getting it as reliably high as possible, but I think there is some truth in the claim that a large part of the perception of lack of smoothness (whether or not this includes stuttering) is the difference between the minimum and maximum framerates, so speeding things up can actually make them less smooth, paradoxically: especially as low fps can be caused by the heavy requirements of character AI, so for example trying to raise the framerates of busy areas like the Market District can be harder than with the exterior world even when you have everything and the kitchen sink layered on graphically.

I just thought of this when playing Ego Draconis, another Gamebryo-based game which shares some of Oblivion's foibles. The fps there is normally capped at 30, which took me a while to get used to but I didn't mind it after only a short time had passed. I just tried upping the cap to 60 and while it seemed smoother some of the time, it did seem more jerky (or whatever's the word: I know jerky is really some sort of spiced leather inedible), though admittedly it's hard to say how much that was actually the case and how much was simply me looking for problems, even unconsciously, but it did leave me wondering.

[Khettienna]

Pontification is a requisite skill among modgods, do not feel shame.

I'm not worried about normal stuttering. That's just a natural consequence of the way the engine and my hardware works, and I'm used to it. I was just worried about this unnatural "tick" that would get worse and worse once it started and had no discernible cause, and would eventually make my machine so angry it would crash and corrupt my saves. That's gone now, as far as I can tell, so I am satisfied. OSR and Streamline can handle the rest.

[Arthmoor]

I've got the frame rate capped in OSR at 30, and the game in general runs smooth. It's just this "tick" or "jolt" or "jitter" or whatever you want to call it that happens at what seems like a regular preset interval every few seconds. I haven't had a chance to try the game yet since I turned off that AMD service I mentioned before, but when I get to it I'll be able to see if that helps. If it does, ATI sucks for including junk like that.

[Khettienna]

Just a quick update, for anyone to whom this is relevant:

I updated my Radeon drivers to v10.12 (released a couple weeks ago), and forgot about the hotkey poller service (Ati2evxx.exe). Lo and behold, my stuttering was back in full-force until I disabled it again. But in any case, take that as both warning & confirmation.

[vometia]

Groovy! And thanks from someone who may someday update from 10.4; it'd be interesting to hear how 10.12 is in terms of blue screens or lack thereof...

[Khettienna]

Well, I just played for two solid hours with no crashing, so I'd say they're doing pretty good. No promises about what happens to other peoples' boxes, though.

[Arthmoor]

I haven't had any BSOD incidents that I can recall from recent versions of the driver. Remembering to silence that hotkey poller thing gets me every time though.

[Khettienna]

Ohhhhhhh, I spoke too soon. v10.12 introduced a fair amount of text and tree flickering. Out-of-game, I started having these random computer restarts while texturing - after three of them, I decided it wasn't a quirk. Saved my work, went to open the image in preview to make sure it had saved okay, and it happened again... and again, and again, each time after the involuntary reboot from the last.

Went back to 10.4, it's all fine now.

edit: typing is hard

Edited December 30, 2010 by Khettienna

[vometia]

Bummer, I'm really sad to hear about that. I've been mostly happy with ATI after my extremely unhappy experience with Nvidia's 8800 driver fiasco, but it seems that ATI are also making a right mess of things these days. Well I don't think 10.4 is missing anything vital, so I'll stay here too...