Can someone with Crysis 3 do me a favor

[Carfax83]

And load up the game and start the "Roots of all evil" level, specifically at the save point where you're just coming out of the cave and overlooking the cliff when the Helicopter appears and the Cell Soldiers are grouped together.

After you kill them, shoot one of those trees with the skinny branches they have until it's broken in half. Tell me if you noticed any weird pauses while doing so..

On my PC, I usually get a minor pause or stutter when shooting those trees in half. It's more noticeable the first time, then afterwards it's less so.

I wonder if it's because of the physics, or maybe an animation loading or something.. Anyway, I just want to see if anyone else experiences it, or if it's just me.

 

[Carfax83]

So more than a hundred views and nobody has a copy of Crysis 3 that can do this?

 

[SpunkyJones]

I aint no tree killing commie.

Also, I don't have Crysis 3 yet. BUMP!

 

[cmdrdredd]

will try this now.

edit: well nevermind...the game had to update and now won't open. Just crashes immediately after the crysis 3 splash screen with the message "size of shader to big for int16" I've seen a couple reports of this and it appears no fix is coming.

So I am in the process of reinstalling in hope things work out.

edit2: So I got the game working, fired up that level and the trees splitting in half have no animation lag or hiccup. I run 2560x1440 2x SMAA and everything set to max.

 

[Carfax83]

edit2: So I got the game working, fired up that level and the trees splitting in half have no animation lag or hiccup. I run 2560x1440 2x SMAA and everything set to max.

OK thanks man. As soon as I read your post I knew the problem couldn't be hardware related as we have similar specs, so it had to be software related; either drivers or something else.

I had a feeling though that the lag was being caused by an older version of Visual C++ that had auto installed with EVGA Precision X, and sure enough, after deleting it, the problem is now fixed.

Apparently, Crysis 3 requires Visual C++ 2010 for optimal performance, and for whatever reason, the game was using the 2008 version instead.

Deleting Visual C++ 2008 fixed the stutter issue with the trees. However, now EVGA Precision X won't work

What overclocking utility do you use for your 670s? It seems that the latest versions of both Afterburner and EVGA Precision X require Visual C++ 2008 to work..

 

[blackened23]

Have you tried MSI Afterburner? It's written by the same guy who codes Precision, it's pretty much identical in terms of functionality. I'm using 3.0.0 beta 10 and it has worked great for me.

 

[cmdrdredd]

OK thanks man. As soon as I read your post I knew the problem couldn't be hardware related as we have similar specs, so it had to be software related; either drivers or something else.

I had a feeling though that the lag was being caused by an older version of Visual C++ that had auto installed with EVGA Precision X, and sure enough, after deleting it, the problem is now fixed.

Apparently, Crysis 3 requires Visual C++ 2010 for optimal performance, and for whatever reason, the game was using the 2008 version instead.

Deleting Visual C++ 2008 fixed the stutter issue with the trees. However, now EVGA Precision X won't work

What overclocking utility do you use for your 670s? It seems that the latest versions of both Afterburner and EVGA Precision X require Visual C++ 2008 to work..

Ironically I use EVGA Precision X lol.

Also I'm on driver version 320.14 I have not tried later versions as I have not played many PC games lately that would have required fixes and performance updates.

I never usually play with an fps indicator on but I was messing around in crysis 3 and noticed how it was running around 35fps during that portion of the game. I never really noticed that. Turning off AA only gains me 10fps at this resolution. Very playable because motion blur hides a little bit of the low frame rate. Then I tried 1080p and noticed how much better it played at 60fps, but I don't know if I enjoy the hit to the visual quality. A trade off I am not sure of.

 

[Carfax83]

Have you tried MSI Afterburner? It's written by the same guy who codes Precision, it's pretty much identical in terms of functionality. I'm using 3.0.0 beta 10 and it has worked great for me.

Do you know if it installs Visual C++ 2008?

 

[Carfax83]

Ironically I use EVGA Precision X lol.

And I bet you have Visual C++ 2008 installed too right? But on your rig, Crysis 3 must be using the 2010 version. Weird.

I never usually play with an fps indicator on but I was messing around in crysis 3 and noticed how it was running around 35fps during that portion of the game. I never really noticed that. Turning off AA only gains me 10fps at this resolution. Very playable because motion blur hides a little bit of the low frame rate. Then I tried 1080p and noticed how much better it played at 60fps, but I don't know if I enjoy the hit to the visual quality. A trade off I am not sure of.

Yeah, that level is very GPU intensive, which is why I use it to stress test my GPU overclocks. The Welcome to the Jungle level is the opposite, in that it's very CPU intensive.

 

[gorcorps]

Have you tried reinstalling the 2010 version manually with everything else installed, including 2008? I wouldn't think it'd be something as stupid as Crysis using the last one that's been installed, but it might be worth a shot.

 

[Carfax83]

Have you tried reinstalling the 2010 version manually with everything else installed, including 2008? I wouldn't think it'd be something as stupid as Crysis using the last one that's been installed, but it might be worth a shot.

Tried that and no worky. After installing MSI Afterburner 3.0 beta 10, the hiccups are back since it auto installed Visual C++ 2008.

How does Visual C++ work? Do programs know to use one version or another? Crysis 3 doesn't seem to know. I notice that the game feels more lethargic when using the 2008 version.

I noticed that in the original Crysis as well. The game ran better when using the 2010 version.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I can't see how you get the stuttering and I don't. I have all the same stuff installed unless it's because you're running Raptors and I'm running SSD.

 

[blackened23]

Do you know if it installs Visual C++ 2008?

Very strange. I don't know if afterburner specifically installed it, but it appears so. Per my control panel, I have Visual C++ 2005, 2008 and 2010 installed multiple times, although I haven't any performance issues.

I just gave the level a run through and didn't get the stuttering that you encountered. Strange. I was using FXAA, though, i'll give it a try with SMAA. I'm running crysis 3 from a SSD, FXAA with VH quality. My framerate wasn't super high (single card) as I usually run with a few settings at high instead of VH - but there was no jerkiness or stuttering.

 

[Carfax83]

But if it were my raptors, how come Visual C++ 2010 alleviates the problem?

The readme file also says the game expressly requires Visual C++ 2010. At any rate, it's not as though I can't play the game. It's just that the game noticeably runs better when Visual C++ 2008 is uninstalled.

I'm going to try Visual C++ 2012 and see if that changes anything.

 

[cmdrdredd]

That's the only difference I see besides you having a CPU with more cores and faster GPUs. I don't know what else it could be since I use Precision X and have no issues with whatever it may install along side it.

 

[Carfax83]

OK dudes, the problem is fixed.....for real this time!

I was wrong when I said that it was related to Visual C++. I uninstalled Visual C++ 2010 and installed the 2012 version, and Origin wouldn't even start.

So obviously the game was using Visual C++ 2010. Then I thought that because the physics in Crysis 3 uses the CPU, it could be a problem with my CPU, specifically the voltage.

So I went into the BIOS and increased my voltage from 1.285v to 1.29v. Started up the game, and shot at the trees..

No lag.

Apparently, my CPU wasn't getting enough voltage to react fast enough for the destruction physics.. I can't believe I never noticed it before.

I guess because I had much lower frame rates on my previous 580 SLI, that the lag wasn't as noticeable as with these much faster GPUs.

 

[cmdrdredd]

hrm...sounds plausible. Glad it worked out for you.

 

[Carfax83]

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!

It came back...

But I think I solved it this time for good! I tested it three times this time to make sure, because I don't want another premature victory.

Anyway, cmdrdredd was basically correct in a way. The problem was I/O related for sure. Like most CPU physics in games these days, the tree destruction in Crysis 3 appears to use a combination of canned animations, and computed physics.

So the lag I was experiencing was due to the HDD access for the animations (which is stupid if you ask me because those animations should be loading from memory, not from disk). However, I've had these Raptors for years now, and I had them during my first play through of Crysis 3 on my 580 SLI and I never recalled these hiccups.

The difference this time, was that I was using Diskeeper 12 Professional instead of PerfectDisk 12.5 professional.

For some idiotic reason, I decided to install Diskeeper 12 Professional a few days ago, since it had been a long time that I'd used their software and I wanted to see if there were any improvements.

Not that PerfectDisk 12.5 wasn't working great mind you. It's probably the best defragger out there.. It was curiosity that drove me, and as you know, curiosity always kills the cat.

Not that Diskeeper 12 is a bad defragger, it's just not nearly as good as PerfectDisk from my experience and this ordeal cements this. After coming back to PerfectDisk, the increase in I/O performance is noticeable from when I was running Diskeeper because file access is faster.

So the lag is gone now.. If it comes back again, I'm going SSD. Actually, I may go SSD anyway since they're finally coming to the point where the price/capacity ratio is appealing.