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Any Help with Terrible Hitching?
cargillj
Member Posts: 8
I just rebuilt my computer so I could start playing Vanguard again but I am having nasty hitching problems.
Here are my system Specs:
Windows Vista 32bit
Pentium D 3.0 GHZ
4GIG 667 DDR2 RAM
Nvidia Geforce 8800GT (Forceware 169.25)
Seagate 500G SATAII 7200 HD
ASUS P5K-E Mobo
I can run the game at High or Balanced and get between 35 - 50 fps. However I get terrible hitching everytime I move anywhere. I have tried several different areas, Thestra, Quilios etc. and no matter where I go every 2-3 seconds of movement it stutters and hitches. Vista is completely updated and the EQ2 hotfix has been added. Not sure if there are better drivers out there for the 8800GT yet, or if there are some settings that I can tweak, but I am finding it pathetic that even with an 8800GT I am having nasty hitching problems.
Thanks for any help.
Comments
Are you using the latest Nvidia 8800 drivers?
I'm asking that because my wife runs VG on a much lower system specs at medium settings and although the game runs at 20-30 fps it doesnt hitches too much (only when loading new scenarious and tat the first 30 seconds after logging in).
or when you walk into any town bigger then an outpost.
Make sure your system has been defragged, turn off volumetric clouds and make sure you have the hot fixes listed on the Nvidia driver page for Vista.
Vanguard hasn't hitched for me since I reactivated my account. I run at High/Very High @1920x1200 and I get 50-70fps in towns/cities such as Leth and Khal. If you haven't been in an area since reinstalling, it will hitch alot as it loads everything into cache. Once youve been to this area, it will run alot smoother.
Core Duo E6600
Vista 64 Ultimate
8800GT
4gigs DDR2 800mhz ram
There are 3 types of people in the world.
1.) Those who make things happen
2.) Those who watch things happen
3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
Some things you might try, although I think these two mostly will affect you if you run the game in windowed mode.
Do you have the sidebar running? Turn it off.
Do you have the station launcher runnning in the background? Turn it off.
Etc.
I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention.
"You have the right not to be killed"
make macro /flush all
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Holy Flamin' Frost-Brand Gronk-Slayin' Vorpal Hammer o' Woundin' an' Returnin' an' Shootin'-Lightnin'-Out-Yer-Bum!! ~Planescape: Torment~
I see one of VG's greatest mysteries remains unsolved. It has always been an issue where one person can run the game with no issues at all, while another with very similar hardware has big problems. Obviously its something local to the user, but it seems to vary from case to case.
Good luck OP, since others can run it well, it should be possible for you to do the same. Just need to figure out the root cause and it should work.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Your system shouldn't have any problem running VG. I have heard things about issues with Vista but don't know if that is causing your issue. If you have a dual boot into xp you might try that and see how it compares.
Hitching issues do exist in VG and are unfortunately a normal event during play. Fortunately they are far less today then at launch. At launch going into the buildings in kahl would result in my computer screen freezing for sometimes more then a second and then moving a frame then another second. it was like I'd basically just need to sit back and wait till it settled down and even then it was very low fps and still hitchy.
Today I can go into the same area and I'll get what I call mini hitchs
it will still hitch but it isn't quite as completely disabling it is almost more like a stutter. I can still move through it and while I don't like it it is more managable. The better news however is that these textures are now being cached so that ones you do this bit of hitchiness in a new area it saves the textures and you won't hitch the rest of the time. This makes it a million times more tollerable.
So what you should see and what is normal for all players is the first time you go into an area after you log in you will have some hitchiness as you run around the area. This should smooth out and disappear as you move through the city. So when I first hit kahl I get this hitchiness. As I run to the crafting area it begins to clear up and after I get their it goes away. If I run back the way I came there is no hitchiness and it doesn't happen again till I relog in or till I go to some other area. Playing on max settings I'm getting 30+ fps in kahl or tursh as I run around in these cities.
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Ethion
I see one of VG's greatest mysteries remains unsolved. It has always been an issue where one person can run the game with no issues at all, while another with very similar hardware has big problems. Obviously its something local to the user, but it seems to vary from case to case.
Good luck OP, since others can run it well, it should be possible for you to do the same. Just need to figure out the root cause and it should work.
Aye,Friend of mine built with the same exact specs as I did (save for a different brand of ram) and he had issues with the game as well. Thing is I have like nothing running at start up, while his taskbar has a few things he likes to have auto start up. Slight differences like that can make all the matter.
There are 3 types of people in the world.
1.) Those who make things happen
2.) Those who watch things happen
3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
Some folks have had luck using 3rd party UIs and disabling any windows that they don't use.
http://www.vginterface.com/
IIRC, VG doesn't require a restart for any settings changes, so I'd tinker with each setting and see if you can narrow down what's causing the lag. It certainly won't be your machine.
A lot of people say the hardware and character occlusion helps them, but when I was playing hardware occlusion caused terrible graphics anomolies (flashing textures and phantom trees/bushes) and I had serious doubts that character occlusion did anything at all (anytime I logged in the character models loaded before anything else).
Also, do a full file scan next time you log in.
the problem should be your cpu, its probably a bottleneck in your system.
Does the hitching clear a few seconds after logging in or does it continue? Even the best system in the world will endure some initial hitching as the textures are loaded for 4-6 seconds. After that is should smooth out. If it doesn't smooth out, then there is something not configured properly. My only additional thoughts would be a defrag or perhaps Vista is not utlizing the 4 gigs of Ram correctly.
My unproductive productive take on the subject: get rid of windows vista. It has caused massive amounts of problems for the gamer crowd, and is not particularly suited for gaming.
It is a problem with bad programming, remove the game and install AoC when it is out, no more hitching!
ya want an example of bad programming, go try DnL - vanguard, even at release, was no where as bad as that was on release
Sounds to be OP is complaining about the initial hitching when moving into a new area. The game is not an FPS, so initial load time doesn't bother me, but if one really wants to get rid of hitching, buy at least 24GB of ram, a server MB that has at least 8 memory slots, create a 20GB ram drive, copy Vanguard onto it and run from there, also set your swap file on the ram drive as well.
You obvisously havent got in AOC beta yet
Nothing is going to help you with hitching. Even the most top of the line computers that can run Crysis at max settings will experience hitching in VG. The hitching ultimately is caused by a crappily put together and highly, highly unoptimized game, not your hardware.
Its mostly the hard drive RPM. If you aren't running Vanguard on a 10,000 or higher RPM then there will be some hitching.
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
Higher rpm drives will help some but it won't prevent the hitching. Any time you go into a new area the texture maps for things in that new area need to be loaded. It's a basic VG problem in the design when they were trying to make a zoneless game. There are no loading screens that load all the textures as you move between chunks just a hand off of the client from one server to the next. They wanted to load textures on the fly and the implementation hits the disk hard which caused the graphics to freeze while your system is trying to load textures for new geometry. Now when they load them they compile them to match your settings and save them so that you won't continuously do it like they did in the past. So like many games once the textures are loaded it doesn't need to hit the disk again and you won't be hitching any more.
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Ethion