Still no confirmation from Mythic concerning the "stuttering/hitching" issue!

[TheLionzHeart1]

"Since the moderators decided that petition's shouldn't be allowed I'm throwing this topic back up without the petition part in it. So I guess we aren't allowed to /sign anymore. Please don't question the moderator's decision about closing the original thread. Stay on topic.This is a continuation of the older thread: http://www.warhammeralliance.com/for...ad.php?t=96890"



How many of you are a little disappointed Mythic hasn't even said a word about this frustrating issue so many of us have been forced to deal with?

Note for those of you who don't know about this: This stuttering/hitching issue is client side. It's most likely bad optimization for various hardware setups in peoples PC's. There have been countless temporary user fixes, but with most of them after playing the game for a few hours hitching/stuttering returns again.

Let your voice be heard! Feel free to discuss this widespread problem in order to bring it to Mythic's attention.

Also please stay on topic. No flaming! I want this thread to be the voice of all of us who want this fixed. Since there are so many other threads like this one, it would be best to keep all discussion here in this thread to make it easier for Mythic to keep track of the issue. Thanks.


UPDATE #4

James_EAMythic has finally given us a response concerning the community's feedback about the games performance and crash issues.

Originally Posted by James_EAMythic

Guys,

I've posted before we're always looking into performance and crash issues. I can only repeat myself so many times

This kind of stuff is always a priority, but currently there is no one "big issue"

Players are experiencing different types of problems based on a number of factors, it's impossible for me to provide service for each issue.

We've got the first Grab Bag coming up, this is where we answer burning community questions and let you know what we're working on.

We won't ever be done until everyone who meets our minimum reqs can play our game with little if any problems. While that's a utopian ideal we are always working towards that goal.

Most people aren't experiencing any technical problems, but we realize that to you, if you can't play the game personally, then nothing else matters.

Do know that when I'm not posting I'm spending my day tracking down what I've read on these and other forums, or have received in our feedback queue, or talking to QA about what they're seeing in their bug reports and then to production about where we stand with certain fixes.

We're constantly advocating for the players and provide a report each day based off of what we read and see throughout the community.

Take confidence in the fact that we're always working for you and with you, my apologies if you feel we haven't communicated enough, we'll make sure to step up our efforts where necessary to give you the kind of support you need even if it's just to let you know we hear your concerns.

Right now we're looking into the stuttering, hitching issues players have been posting about. We have a number of leads and hope to begin clearing up these issues as quick as we can.

CTD's, black screens, and other bugs are always being looked into. Due to the variety and randomness of them it's hard for me to comment on any particular issue other than to say we'll fix them as soon as we can, everytime you see a "server maintenance" or "server update" we're fixing dozens if not hundreds of little tiny things at a time that can contribute to correcting the problem's you're experiencing.

We're proud that the game we've launched is solid and stable for most of our players, but we'll continue to work with those who aren't having a satisfactory experience to make it even better.

Thanks all

Source: http://www.warhammeralliance.com/for...2&postcount=46

UPDATE #3

Enough with the flaming guys. We need this thread to stay on topic so that the Devs aren't put off by the pointless rants, whining, and flaming. If someone says something stupid, the best thing you can do is report the post and ignore it. By commenting back you are only hurting this thread. Arguing isn't going to solve a thing.

The best thing we can do is let our voices be heard and prove that this really is a widespread issue. We already know there is a problem here, so it's just a matter of time before they realize it as well.


UPDATE #2:

Listed below are two excellent in-depth posts explaining the "stuttering/hitching" issue in great detail.

Originally Posted by Seph

First of all I'd like to thank you for your time looking into a few of the threads discussing our plight. It is very comforting to get an official Mythic response to our concerns!

However, I don't think you are aware of what we are actually experiencing. It was very inaccurate to label it an "FPS issue" because many people experiencing these performance issues don't have any problem with FPS at all.

The most universal issue I have seen reported with regards to performance is "stuttering." In other words, when we log in the game runs smooth, but over time (sometimes in less than a minute) the gameplay gets very, very choppy to the point of being completely unplayable. The users having these issues do in fact have computers that meet or exceed all of the recommended (not minimum) system requirements.

The fact that we can play the game on the LOWEST settings or HIGHEST settings and see no significant changes in performance indicates that this is not something related to our computers.

I have seen many, many posts over the last few weeks of people with computers with quad-core processors, 4GB of RAM, and dual SLI (yes, thats four GPUs) not being able to play WAR on the LOWEST resolution with the LOWEST settings, yet they can play any other game on the market on the HIGHEST resolution and the HIGHEST settings with ANTIALIASING on top of that!

No offense, but the graphics aren't THAT good that computers this high-end should have these kind of problems.

While I am sure plenty of the posts in our threads are from people who simply don't meet the system requirements, but are many, many more that do and have run analysis of their computer's performance and know that this is an issue with the client, not our computers.

Thank you for your time and understanding,
~ Sophia (Seph)

P.S. Here are some threads regarding the issue:
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/for...ad.php?t=96158
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/for...ad.php?t=81721
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/for...ad.php?t=90109
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/for...ad.php?t=95633

Originally Posted by Maestrok

As for me, same stuttering issue. All in game settings changed to Fastest frame, no specular, no lighting, closest draw distance, and spell effects set to self. PVE combat is bareable with around 20-50 Fps. RvR combat is awful with dips into the single digits. I've noticed that in maps like Gates of Ekrund, when I put my camera around the "Glow" effect of the capture points my fps literally drops 20 points. Soon as I move it, poof, all is back to normal.

We have went through so many steps to optimize our game clients, hell the mass of people posting here are not trying to run the game at 16xQ AA and 16 AF with 15 applications running in the background. The majority of us have sacraficed nearly every visual settings, background applications, and many hours of updates, reloads, and tweaks for only minor improvements.

To purely label this as a FPS issue is wrong. But when the stutter occurs I have zero HDD activity, my CPU usage goes up a minor amount, and my FPS Freezes for a moment, then drops down 10-30 points, then rockets back up to my average of around 45.

For me I have done the following in this order:

• Flashed Asus P5K Bios.
• Overclocked FSB to 1066, in turn raising core clock to 2.67ghz.
• Format - Reload Windows XP Service Pack 3 - All Windows Updates.
• Downloaded and installed latest Omega nVidia drivers.
  • Have tried both Omega, WHQL, and nVidia Beta.
  • Of course I uninstalled/driver cleaner in safe mode.
• Installed most recent version of Northbridge/Southbridge control drivers.
• Installed most recent Atheros 10/100/1000 Network Driver.
• Defraged hard disk.
• Removed unnecessary services, IE:
  • System Restore
  • Windows Update - I run manually on Fridays.
• Turn all nVidia control panel options to Best Performance setting(Where applicable)
• Disabled Windows Indexing Service, Forced windows to Unload DLL's
• Disabled hardware firewall and windows firewall.
• Reinstalled game client from DVD
• Updated Game client
• Defraged hard disk.
• Ran game an set all graphical settings to Fastest Frame Rate
  • Removed Lighting
  • Removed Specular
  • Removed Water Effects
  • Moved slider to 50% - Logged out after each change tried all positions
  • Manually edited USERSETTINGS.XML
    • Changed texturecache=2.00 - also tried other numbers from .75 to 3.00
    • Changed colordepth to 16bit from 32
    • These changes made the most impact in my game performance, raising overall FPS but doing nothing for hitching/stutter.

All of this and still no big change. My system specs are:

1. Retail Intel Conroe Dual Core E2180 - 2Ghz stock - 2.67Ghz OC
2. Asus P5K Mobo - 1066Mhz OC FSB
3. Crucial Ballistic 2Gb DDR2-8500 - 1066Mhz - 5-5-5-15 Timings
4. Western Digital 60gb SATA 7200Rpm Drive - Kinda weak sauce!
5. nVidia GeForce 8500 GT 512Mb - 515Mhz OC GPU, 475Mhz OC Ramdac.
6. 500W Modular Power Supply
7. Logitech USB Headset
8. Logitech G5 Mouse
9. Logitech G15 Rev1 Keyboard

If this is the type of information you need then please take it and fix the performance issues.

Again, please stay on topic. There should only be details concerning the stuttering/hitching/fps/performance issue only. I know a lot of you are tired of posting your system spec's but please put them down. James post was an indicator that this information would indeed help. And most importantly send those bug reports. I'm sure they take them ALL quite seriously. If they see the numbers I'm sure they'll jump on the issue quickly.

Thanks again.


UPDATE #1:

Thank you so much for the reply James. However it seems as though you aren't aware of these "issues" everyone is having. I would like to recommend you look at these threads. Each of these threads below explain the Hitching/Stuttering issue in great detail, with hundreds of replies from people explaining primarily, that even though their system specs are above recommended, they are getting performance similar to a computer that has "under" minimum system requirements. As of now hundreds of us I'm sure have been resorting to "magic bullet" user fixes. While that is fine and dandy it would be even better if you guys would address this issue.

I hope these threads will help you and your team figure out what exactly is causing so many of us with above recommended system requirement PC's get such horrible performance while playing WAR, and hopefully resolve this issue:

http://www.warhammeralliance.com/for...ad.php?t=76218

http://www.warhammeralliance.com/for...ad.php?t=81721

http://www.warhammeralliance.com/for...ad.php?t=96158

http://www.warhammeralliance.com/for...ad.php?t=91719

Thanks again.

[sektor666]

I'm having the exact same problems. The game runs pretty smoothly on all settings, provided I stand still. The moment I try to move, the HDD crunching starts and the game becomes very choppy.

[Chaosforce]

My issue is simple, im getting crap FPS for my rig.

I get about 30-40 playing on single

Scenario 10-25

Large RVR 5-10

I have
4870
Phenom 9950 @ 3.4
4 gigs of ram (DDR2 1066)

I experiance stuttering and Low FPS. The interesting thing about this is putting the game on super lower yield the same FPS.

On another odd note, i also seem to have had yesterday running great(80 FPS on Max 1680x1050, diped around 40 in large RVR), then i started this morning and back to this crap.

[kalaster189]

i see alot of people are working just fine in the open beta. but ever since the server opened to everyone, everyone seems to have big issues, i think it might be because the servers, from wht little i know.

[sektor666]

it would be very strange if this turned out to be a server issue, since several people (including me) reported _heavy_ hdd activity during the stuttering, suggesting problems on the client side.

[Rmedies]

Please contact nVidia and provide feedback

nVidia Vista users feedback here

nVidia Games support forums here

nVidia GeForce Forums here

Basically a forum post there sums it up well
nVidia needs to tweak the driver for Wahammer.
The game has now shipped, now they will support it

PROVIDE YOUR FEEDBACK TO nVIDIA

[sektor666]

i have a radeon 2900hd, so i don't see how nvidia can help me :P

[Funkyforever]

Man, i honestly do not like this forum, the only reason i am here is because of the dev activity here ...

Anyways, i somewhat improved the performance on my system. Sadly i do not know how.

q6600 @3ghz, 9800 gt, 2x wd raptors, 4gb (3,2gb) ram, vista 32 bit

What improved:

-Generall fps slightly higher
-Hardcore stuttering when looking at large water fixed
-reloading of textures faster after alt tabbing out and back in
- less " little stuttering here and there "

Not improved:

- crazy fps drecreament in dense forests
- crazy fps drecreasment at manfreds castle ( feels like everything inside the castle is calculated allthough i am outside and far away )

What did i do ?

- fresh install from the CE dvds
- also installed the directx version of the dvds allthough my directx 9 version was the newest. It actually copied files onto my hd tho.
-fresh download of the patches
- Installed game on my 2nd drive ( both drives allawys defragmented , both WD Raptors )
- Reverted back to the latest official drivers from beta drivers

Now the " joke " is .... after doing that , the water situation did not improve ... i then thought maybe transparent aliasing is on ( because that gave me definiately and reproducable the issue after patch 4.11 )

Well the transparent aliasing was off so i turned it on ... and guess what , it worked again. Sounds strange, well it is. I also noticed that all textures were instantly loaded. This however was not reproduceable. I alt tabbed out and back in and then alot of texture were blurry and needed to be reloaded. However, and that is 100% sure, not as much as before the reinstall.

So dunno , it is all somewhat random , but i would try a dvd install and install the directx from the dvds.

[Jegs]

The funny thing is, James from Mythic posted that we are to use the in-game petition. So I tried. You only get like 200 characters or so... To be as detailed as possible with our system specs, what we've tried to do to fix it, and the problem in general, that doesn't leave much room.

So I emailed this to support@warhammeronline.com.

I am experiencing horrible hitching/stuttering of graphics. It renders the game almost unplayable. It does render RVR unplayable. It doesn't happen only in high populated areas. I can be looking at trees with no other players/mobs on the screen. I run fraps and my FPS never go down. I maintain 25-30 fps without a drop, no matter what resolution/detail setting I use.

My System:
AMD 3200+ ~2Ghz, 512k cache
BFG nVidia 7800GT, 256M VRAM
4G DDR2 RAM
Integrated SigmaTel Audio

Fixes I have tried (throw reboots in where applicable):
Turned in-game graphics to Fastest Framerate and lowered screen resolution to 1024x768.
Removed Lighting
Removed Specular
Removed Water Effects
Updated nVidia drivers to latest WHQL official version.
Used driver cleaner in safe mode to remove nvidia drivers and try different beta drivers, notably 177.92.
Downloaded and installed latest Omega nVidia drivers.
Flashed Bios with latest version from Dell.
Installed most recent version of Northbridge/Southbridge control drivers.
Installed most recent NIC drivers.
Installed most recent Sigmatel Audio drivers.
Upgraded from 2g RAM to 4g.
Defraged hard disk.
Removed unnecessary services and remove services from start up using msconfig.
Turn all nVidia control panel options to Best Performance setting (where applicable).
Disabled Windows Indexing Service.
Manually edited USERSETTINGS.XML
Changed texturecache=2.00 - also tried other numbers from .75 to 3.00
Changed colordepth to 16bit from 32

[FONT=Tahoma]Formatted hard drive and loaded Windows Vista 64 bit.
Installed game from retail DVDs.
Installed most recent DirectX10.
Updated nVidia drivers to latest WHQL official version.
Used driver cleaner in safe mode to remove nvidia drivers and try different beta drivers, notably 177.92.
Downloaded and installed latest Omega nVidia drivers.
Installed most recent version of Northbridge/Southbridge control drivers.
Installed most recent NIC drivers.
Installed most recent Sigmatel Audio drivers.
Defraged hard disk.
Removed unnecessary services and remove services from start up using msconfig.
Turn all nVidia control panel options to Best Performance setting (where applicable).
Disabled Windows Indexing Service.
Manually edited USERSETTINGS.XML
Changed texturecache=2.00 - also tried other numbers from .75 to 3.00
Changed colordepth to 16bit from 32[/FONT]

[sgtcasey]

Originally Posted by Jegs

AMD 3200+ ~2Ghz, 512k cache

I'm not saying it's the cause of your issue, but your CPU is going on 6 years old. It's something to consider.

[sektor666]

Originally Posted by sgtcasey

I'm not saying it's the cause of your issue, but your CPU is going on 6 years old. It's something to consider.

no. it isn't.

[Zylon]

Went trough 60 pages of the user to user support section, but could not find that one topic where people that experience the choppiness posted their specs so the devs could have a look at it.
Anyone remember which topic that was?

what i did find are these 2 topics that might be interesting to add to your links.
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/for...ad.php?t=88702
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/for...ad.php?t=90335

On a side note.. I dont experiencee any choppiness problems when i play on the server late at night / early morning. This is on the Euro servers. hmm strange?

[sgtcasey]

Originally Posted by sektor666

no. it isn't.

Information I found online (reviews and such) are from 2003.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu...on64-3200.html
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NDc2

Now he could have an AMD64, which would only be around 4 years old. But you have to look at the specs. With a 512KB cache, you're not going to get super awesome performance out of games being released in 2008. Dual-core CPU's being released today have around 4MB of cache.

Again (and it's sorry I have to say this since so many folks take bad news so harshly), I'm not trying to flame. I'm simply pointing something out. Take it how you'd like.

[sektor666]

this is not a cpu issue. give it a rest.

[mangadrive]

Originally Posted by sgtcasey

Now he could have an AMD64, which would only be around 4 years old. But you have to look at the specs. With a 512KB cache, you're not going to get super awesome performance out of games being released in 2008. Dual-core CPU's being released today have around 4MB of cache.

Game requirements said nothing about cache. It said single core 2.4.

If you wanna get technical, then you can't pull up these kinda varibles.