Cause of games stuttering?

[krazy_olie]

Last night I installed batman arkham assylum and it seems to have a high average frame rate but seems a bit stuttery. In the benchmark I would get an average of 60 + but the minimum is 5 or 10 and I have no idea where to start diagnosing the problem.

Turning off AA and phsyx didn't lessen the stuttering so I don't think it's the gpu struggling. I also seem to have a very similar problem on Dead space, but I gave up on that one after I got fed up with how slow the dude in it moves anyway

Specs are

Gigabyte 965p-s3
q6600@2.8ghz
4gb Crucial DDR2 it's 1066 stuff running at 800/4-4-4-12
Asus GTX 460 TOP
X-fi xtreme music running in game mode with cmss3d on

I have the latest drivers for everything.
The game patched itself with it's stupid windows live thing (thing wouldn't let me enter my email password, took me ages to realise it was because of some "linked id" thing :/)

I don't have this problem with source engine games and crysis (which will have fps drops but not stutter) so I imagine it's some sort of setup thing, maybe sound card or some nvidia driver issue.

Any ideas where to start?
Thanks, Oliver

[gilljoy]

Last night I installed batman arkham assylum and it seems to have a high average frame rate but seems a bit stuttery. In the benchmark I would get an average of 60 + but the minimum is 5 or 10 and I have no idea where to start diagnosing the problem.

Turning off AA and phsyx didn't lessen the stuttering so I don't think it's the gpu struggling. I also seem to have a very similar problem on Dead space, but I gave up on that one after I got fed up with how slow the dude in it moves anyway

Specs are

Gigabyte 965p-s3
q6600@2.8ghz
4gb Crucial DDR2 it's 1066 stuff running at 800/4-4-4-12
Asus GTX 460 TOP
X-fi xtreme music running in game mode with cmss3d on

I have the latest drivers for everything.
The game patched itself with it's stupid windows live thing (thing wouldn't let me enter my email password, took me ages to realise it was because of some "linked id" thing :/)

I don't have this problem with source engine games and crysis (which will have fps drops but not stutter) so I imagine it's some sort of setup thing, maybe sound card or some nvidia driver issue.

Any ideas where to start?
Thanks, Oliver

Have you overclocked? bad overclock could cause some instability?

[krazy_olie]

it is, but well stressed. I should try running everything at stock, it could be that these games are executing something which is unstable. if it was cpu or memory I'd expect crashes rather than stutter. GPU possibly could do it if the memory was doing something odd. but I actually restore the memory to nvidia standards of 900mhz from the 920 mhz that it ships with as I've found that extra 20mhz to be useless.

[Tattysnuc]

Is it at a regular point in the games, or does it vary?

[krazy_olie]

on the benchmark I think it was happening at the same points. Haven't played the game enoughto determine inside though

[camalbitboy]

Last night I installed batman arkham assylum and it seems to have a high average frame rate but seems a bit stuttery. In the benchmark I would get an average of 60 + but the minimum is 5 or 10 and I have no idea where to start diagnosing the problem.

Turning off AA and phsyx didn't lessen the stuttering so I don't think it's the gpu struggling. I also seem to have a very similar problem on Dead space, but I gave up on that one after I got fed up with how slow the dude in it moves anyway

Specs are

Gigabyte 965p-s3
q6600@2.8ghz
4gb Crucial DDR2 it's 1066 stuff running at 800/4-4-4-12
Asus GTX 460 TOP
X-fi xtreme music running in game mode with cmss3d on

I have the latest drivers for everything.
The game patched itself with it's stupid windows live thing (thing wouldn't let me enter my email password, took me ages to realise it was because of some "linked id" thing :/)

I don't have this problem with source engine games and crysis (which will have fps drops but not stutter) so I imagine it's some sort of setup thing, maybe sound card or some nvidia driver issue.

Any ideas where to start?
Thanks, Oliver

Why are you running the soundcard with CMSS3d on? Thats to force pretend surround sound from stereo music to 5.1/7.1 set ups, the game will already be in 5.1/7.1 (if selected speaker set up in control panel) so cmss3d will actually make it worse.

I know that doesn't help with your problem, but worth saying anyway.

[camalbitboy]

Oh one thought, have you checked the hard drive? Try running HD tune and comparing it to similar drives to see if its behaving.

[krazy_olie]

Hmmm I suppose there could be an issue with the hard drive, I ahve occasionally booted up and windows has decided to run chkdsk :/ it always passes though.

Does a slow drive affect gaming much? I think it's a fairly standard SATA 2 affair. Will run that utility though. Thanks for the tip

I'm running with cmss because I'm using stereo speakers, rather confusingly cmss does 2 different things which are the opposite of each other! I.e upmix and downmix (it took me ages to figure this out) Why they couldn't have had it as two separate features I don't know.

So I leave entertainment mode with it off because source is stereo (music) and no need to alter it , and game mode with it on so that it downmixes surround sound. Actually seemed to be working quite well with batman. If you tune it right it sounds very good and was definitely working. Got sidetracked there :/. I'll try turning it off though maybe it's doing too much work downmixing, I think this game uses hardware sound so it takes in the actual 3d positions, if it is taking more than expected it could be faltering.

One extra thing I remembered, the game told me I didn't have the latest drivers... but I do :/

[Georgy291]

for me its the cross fire. try trning SLI off

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

What PSU are you using??

[krazy_olie]

I only have 1 card, no sli to turn off.

psu is corsair 400w cx (seasonic made apparently) bit weak I think for the system but appears to be stable if I don't go mad with the overclock.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Have you tried running the GPU at stock speeds??

[krazy_olie]

not yet I an't remember for sure though, probably should give that a try as well. (going to be a busy weekend, but this game seems like a lot of fun so long term benefits there)

[krazy_olie]

Run with gpu at stock at the lowest resolution. It happens at exactly the same place on the benchmark and the min fps is still under 10 there. Leads me to think driver issue?

[hotel2tango]

Hold shift to make Isaac run.

[ehhhhhhh]

for me its the cross fire. try trning SLI off

it shouldnt cause problems...or at least Ive never seen them