[Performance]Very slow graphics and stuttering sound

from Elemental Forums

Hi,

When I started the game the introduction did not play properly. Instead the screen went into 3 sections, the top two stripes in black, with the centre being yellow. Some very stuttery sound was playing but I couldnt make out what it was.

I pressed escape and came to the main menu. Here the menu options took a long time to highlight (although the mouse moved fine). Once in the different menu options it took a long time for the different options to function. I turned down all the graphical settings, including advanced lighting to no effect.

The sound effects constantly stuttered as did the background music. I attempted to start a new game, it loaded but was also plagued by the problems mentioned above.

I had left the Task Manager window open, and on exiting the game, I noticed that one core was being used at 100%, while the other barely at all. Memory usage wasnt significant.

Please find attached a zip file from the suggested directory, plus the debug file. Hope this helps!

http://www.stormwind.co.uk/other/debug.err

http://www.stormwind.co.uk/other/Elemental0_805-2010-07-05T23-33-50-109.zip

1,099 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

A restart seems to have helped this issue. The introduction remains the same but the performance hit seems to recover after a few minutes (which it did not before).

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting M0rdred1, reply 1
A restart seems to have helped this issue. The introduction remains the same but the performance hit seems to recover after a few minutes (which it did not before).
End of M0rdred1's quote

 

Well right now they're testing aspects of multicore threading. That's what's causing your system to essentially choke. And the video it was trying to play is an intro video, you can disable that in the options menu on the first page. From there, you need to wait a few moments roughly 15-30 seconds to wait till the music stops chopping and stuttering.

Once it's done, you should be a bit better, even though at times there may be a little stuttering. But you can create a game from there. As far as loading, make sure to wait 15-30 seconds before you try to load a game as well, otherwise it'll hang on you.

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Sorry should have clarified I restarted the computer not the game. Before I did that I restarted the game four or five times and it didnt help. Also I had read elsewhere that waiting helped - which I did on the first runs but that didnt help either (waited for 10 minutes). The system reboot however seems to have been the key.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

System restart didn't do anything for me. It was actually my sound card driver, but getting an OLDER GENERIC driver fixed it (by fixed I mean to where it's just sometimes slow/choppy like mentioned above. Not sure how or why. My sound card functionality isn't hurt either, in fact, I can now use Audacity to record.

Anyway, it's the multi-threading thing? Does that mean you'll have to have a dual core to run this game eventually (because I don't :( ), or will this clear up/provisions made for those without one?

 

 

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Having similar problems. See my main post for details and reports:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/386702

I also get yellow bar and black bars above and below with choppy sound and stuttering graphics. The game will not move past opening screen. Buttons do not highlight and I cant select anything. I have waited for a full 30 minutes on opening screen and it never loads. I have to use restart button on computer to get out. CTRL-ALT-DEL does not work, nor does windows icon or alt-tab.

 Will try to update sound card drivers, as I am running drivers from 2007. I have a SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio. I will update if this works. I am already running updated video drivers for ATI Radeon 4600.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Just joined the beta, and I'm having this same problem with the opening.  I don't experience any of the other bugs mentioned, however--just that the opening is a yellow bar with stuttery sound.  When I won a game (incidentally, I'm not sure how it happened, since I never even saw the comp, but that's a different story,) I got a similarly yellow block with similarly stuttery sound.

 

I'm using a laptop running 64-bit Vista Home Premium.  My graphics card is a GeForce 9600M GT, but I'm not entirely sure what my sound is.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Update to beta 4.