Doom 3 Stuttering?

[Stretchman]

Originally posted by: shimsham
dual monitors? i remember people having the same issues, and disabling the second monitor stopped it.

Alas, no. but thanks for mentioning it. Just using one LCD.

I went ahead and sent a query to Activision technical support, and they responded immediately, saying that they couldn't see the stuttering in the videos. They recommended clearing these items in Startup:

. Process SYSTEM.INI File
. Process WIN.INI File
. Load Startup Items

in order to clean boot. They also recommended disabling all the Microsoft Services.

 

[wanderer27]

Didn't there used to be a "Write Caching" or some such setting that you could turn off to fix this ?

It used to be on the Video Card options (not in game).

Okay, I think I found what I'm refering to : "Enable Write combining"

I seem to recall being told to turn this off in other games exhibiting similar behavour.

Someone refresh my memory on this, it may be the solution he's looking for.

 

[dguy6789]

Are you running Folding or SETI or any other distributed computing programs?

 

[Stretchman]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
Are you running Folding or SETI or any other distributed computing programs?

No, everything here is pretty basic. Windows XP Pro on two drives (160 gb Seagate) running in RAID 0. The only programs I have running in my tray are AVG Anti-Virus and my Wireless networking (RA-Link) software.

 

[BFG10K]

I tried this com_fixedtic 1 command but it messes up the timing in the game, you run much faster than you should and the speed fluctuates up and down depending on area,

Yup, this command used to remove the framerate cap nicely but version 1.2 cause the command to remove the game update cap as well which makes the game run as fast as possible, like a timedemo.

Just so I know what to look for - do you mean to say that the enemy AI becomes faster?

The physical game speed increase proportionally to your framerate just like running a timedemo. However since the game engine speed is 60 Hz and you're running a 60 Hz vsync'd LCD then it probably won't affect you.

 

[Stretchman]

Well folks, I spent some time blasting my way through imps and pinkies tonight, and I think I can safely file this one under "Solved". Everything seems pretty smooth and fluid, just the way I like it. Even the cutscenes lost their stuttering. As far as I can tell, there is no pacing issue with regards to the way the game played before using the console command, and everything else - sounds, voices, images, etc - seems in sync.

I'll continue to keep a close eye on it through the next few levels however, just in case there are any changes. My gracious thanks to the many posters who took the time to read this thread and offer their ideas and assistance. I hope it'll help out other players as well.

Also, I used a command line switch:

C:\Program Files\Games\Doom 3\Doom3.exe +seta com_fixedTic 1

So that I don't have to retype it everytime I startup the game.

 

[Nox1]

Excellent! I'm glad everything worked out!

Quake IV is on it's way Oct 18th...using the Doom3 engine, I wonder if this frame skip will be an issue with it as well.