8600M GT stutter question

--I'm not asking for a fix to the stutter issue.--

Ok, next month two games are coming out that I really want to buy. HL2:Orange Box and Hellgate: London. I've been having a slight stutter while playing Oblivion. It is a very slight stutter but it still bothers me a bit. I have tried all the fixes.

-XP C2D Fix by Gophn
-Threaded Optimization - Off
-LoD - Off
-Optimized Oblivion
-Updated drivers (163.44, not latest but stable)

The problem was much worse in Vista which is why I switched to XP, and I was hoping to rid myself of it. Though I havn't. I'm not asking how to fix it since this is a problem amoung many many 8600M GT users and no solid solution has been found. What I want to know is do you think the problem will be less in Hellgate London and HL2 OB? If so then I'll just buy HL2:OB for 360 and wait on Hellgate London (though I don't want to). The reason I ask is because I know Oblivion is an extremely demanding game and I know it's not programmed as well as many other games. And I know that Valve games are usually very hardware friendly and since Flagship is Blizzard North I know they'll be hardware friendly.

So what do you guys think? Go ahead for PC versions? Or go for HL2 360 version and wait on Hellgate? (I really want HL2 for PC because I would like to dl mods in the future and possibly even help create one).

Thanks,
-Taylor

 

The problem seems more related to Oblivion itself. I have that stutter too (I think 'frame skipping' is a better description) in Oblivion, but games like Bioshock and Company of Heroes (both DX10 Vista) don't have it. So I'd definately go for the PC versions of those games you mentioned. Actually I'm looking forward to Hellgate Londen myself.

 

you do realize there is a fix for the stutter issue

 

Really? Where can I find it?

 

No there isn't.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=170763

have a read at that

 

It doesn't work for me. I think I'm going to side with cinner on this one. It does seem like Oblivion may be my problem. At the moment I don't really have any other game to test it on. I've been playing Sacred and it plays fine until I go into a town and I expeirience a little "skipping."

 

Lol, I just fixed my sutter issue in Oblivion. Cinner after reading what you had said it made me think. If this is Oblivion releated then I've been going about this all wrong. So I googled Oblivion Frame Skip and the first link fixed my problem. It was a guy in a forum and he suggested going in your Oblivion.ini and changing iFPSClamp from 0 to 60, well 60 I still had some stuttering, I set it to 50 and boom gone. It caps your fps and worked wonders for me. I can now play Oblivion on my laptop and enjoy it!

Thanks,
-Taylor

P.S. I'll definitly be getting Hellgate: London and HL2:OB now may even switch back to Vista... though I'm not going to be in a hurry about that one.

 

Ok after more playing and testing with the above fix I have discovered it is no fix at all! If your fps is above the fps cap then your game speeds up, if it is below the game slows down. It's sort of like your character is drinking a red bull, a burse of energy and then he crashes! So ignore the above.

 

Make sure you have Vsync on as well, and make sure iFPSClamp is set to your refresh rate (I'm guessing 60).

Edit: Also, have you seen this yet?

 

Oblivion isnt the most optimized game out there. You'll always get stuttering as new areas load. You need to upgrade your RAM (to at least two) or grab a 7200 rpm hard drive. Have you tried other games? Is this the only one that stutters?

 

I've got 2GB Ram and a 7200 RPM HD. The only other game I've tried is Sacred but I've gotten stuttering in it for as long as I can remember. Even on my x200M I had stuttering I'm pretty sure that's just an issue with the game. I've tried NvN 1 and saw no stuttering but that's an older game and I've tried Morrowind, I noticed alittle stuttering but that's a horribly coded game so I'd expect it there. I havn't been able to try any other games out to see if it's the same. Oct 9th I'll test it on HL2. Guess I'll just have to wait til then.

Odin thanks for the quote. I've been using the iFPSClamp and Vsync but it's trying to over compensate by slowing the game down. (Bullet time lol)

 

Also, what are you running the game at? 'Stuttering' could also just be plain, simple bad FPS.

 

Do you still get the stuttering if you play at the lowest settings and resolution?

 

The problem with terms like 'stuttering' is that everybody could use it to describe something different. With Oblivion, you have your stuttering when the game loads a new area (which can not be helped), but you also have 'stuttering' that is not related to loading new content. In Vista I get stuttering when just looking around, without even moving (so it's not related to loading times). I described it as 'frame skipping' earlier, because that's a more fitting term. The game runs great (good frames per second), but for no good reason it somethimes skips over frames. You'll make your character jump and part of the animation is missing because some frames were not rendered, for example. And then there is the low framerate people somethimes describe as stuttering also.

Conclusion: Stuttering is a confusing term :/

 

I'm getting a frame skip then. The part where you talk about the character jumping and some of the animation missing that's exactly what I have. You'll jump and it's not even a full jump, so basically you hit jump button and then you hear your character's feet hitting the ground.

My FPS ranges from 40-50 outdoors and 50-60 indoors. It's not a frame rate issue. On lowest settings, Bloom (always use a lighting effect), very low detail, no vsync, no distance markers still gets frame skipping. Yes I've lowered my pre render limit. I might even lower it again. It's currently at 2. May try 1.

 

I 'fixed' my frame skipping by switching from Vista to XP.

 

Also, put frames rendered ahead to 0.

 

I'm currently running XP SP2 I still have the issue. ALso when I set my prerender limit to 0 all of my games crash.

 

I fixed my issue with a Bios Upgrade after 8 months of waiting for Toshi*ba. YAY!