Cant play Clive Barker's Undying on my new PC

[ibex333]

I installed the game normally. It launched no problem. When the 1st cutscene started playing, all hell broke loose(no pun intended)

The cut scene skips and stutters like crazy. The voices overlap each other. It seems like the game is going too fast and skips big chunks.

Once I got into the game my character's movement felt like he was leaping from place to place - not walking


I did some research and found out about something called the "Benny Hill" effect. This is something that happens when one tries to play some older games on dual core systems.
I saw some "fixes" on the net, but most of them are designed for dual core AMD's.

I updated my video card driver, but now instead of skipping and going too fast, the game is too slow! The NPC voices are not in sync with the cutscenes. First you hear the words and then the NPC moves his/her mouth and makes gestures in dead silence... My character now moves like he is stuck in a bog and trying to get out...

What gives?!

Can anyone help? Thanx.

 

[BFG10K]

This isn't a dual-core problem but one with the original Unreal engine where its internal tick breaks under a high framerate.

The way to fix it is to lower your framerate and the simplest way to do that is to force vsync.

 

[ibex333]

How do I force vsync exactly?


What number should i lower the framerate to?

 

[mismajor99]

I had the same problem with my ATI card a few months back. I got the itch to play it again and found it so I installed it, being all excited, and the same thing happened. You need to go to your video card settings from your desktop(right click on desktop and click properties, than settings tab) to force v-syn. I've had ATI cards for the past 3 generations so I'm not up to snuff on nvidia settings, maybe someone who knows the nvidia control panel can chime in on more specific help.

 

[CaptainJackSwallows]

i dont think its old games, prolly smt wrong with the engine like bfg said. i mean, i play quake1 on a quad core so...

 

[BFG10K]

How do I force vsync exactly?

Through your video cards's control panel.

What number should i lower the framerate to?

You don't; vsync will cap your framerate to that of your display refresh rate.

 

[lupi]

I've heard of some problems with games having problems with AMD dual core chips; until patched some are fixed by manually turning off one of the cpu cores.

 

[ibex333]

Update:

I forced vsync on. It doesn't help. Nothing changed. The game still runs too fast.

 

[will889]

Use Refresh Force (RE-FORCE) to lock refresh rates and thus set FPS cap.

 

[AdamK47]

The original Unreal engine exibits problems with both high framerates and dual core processors. The dual core problem only exibits itself in some Windows XP installations. Vista handles dual cores much better and I haven't had to patch any game executable to set the affinity. When I was running XP with my Core 2 Extreme I had to set the affinity. I used this handy utility to set it. Make sure you back up your executable first. This fixed the same problem I had with Undying that you currently have.

The framerate issue doesn't cause stuttering in the Unreal engine. It usually causes a game to run faster than normal. Simply enable vsync to fix that.

 

[BFG10K]

I forced vsync on. It doesn't help. Nothing changed. The game still runs too fast.

Are you sure it's on? Have you checked your framerate?

 

[shortylickens]

Run the game and then alt-esc.
Run the task manager.
Right click on Unreal and set processor affinity.
Uncheck 1 of the boxes.

That may do it.

 

[ibex333]

Originally posted by: shortylickens
Run the game and then alt-esc.
Run the task manager.
Right click on Unreal and set processor affinity.
Uncheck 1 of the boxes.

That may do it.

That did it! It's still not perfect as some cutscenes are still somewhat "suspect" but the game runs pretty good overall... Thank you.

 

[lupi]

Good thing you didn't do that when I posted it earlier.

 

[shortylickens]

Originally posted by: lupi
Good thing you didn't do that when I posted it earlier.

Well, you didnt post it earlier. You just said "manually turn off one of the cpu cores".
That implies shutting down, starting up, going into the BIOS and doing some scary shiat.

Not everybody is as familiar with Windows as you are, sometimes you have to give directions.

 

[AdamK47]

The imagecfg program I linked here automatically sets the affinity on the exe so that you don't have to do it each time with task manager.

 

[ibex333]

Originally posted by: AdamK47
The imagecfg program I linked here automatically sets the affinity on the exe so that you don't have to do it each time with task manager.

Thank you I'll try that too. At 1st I didnt understand what that proggy was supposed to accomplish, so I was reluctant to try it.

Originally posted by: lupi

Good thing you didn't do that when I posted it earlier.

No reason to be offended. I greatly appreciate your help just like I am very thankful to everyone who replied. As the poster before me said, I simply didnt understand what you were saying. All this "affinity" stuff is new to me.