An Odd Problem
Dervish
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 2423Members
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 2423Members
<div class="IPBDescription">involves NS choking up</div> I've installed NS on my computer, and it opens just fine. No corruption problems or anything like that. However, when I join a game - and this includes LAN games I set up myself, not just internet games - I start to have a bit of a problem that makes NS virtually unplayable on my machine. NS works perfectly fine on both of my roomates' computers upstairs, which makes this even more frustrating. What happens is the following:
I'll walk along, everything will be fine, my ping will be around 100-200 (which is normal for our 'net connection), then all of a sudden NS will sort of choke up and I'll stop moving. The screen will jiggle forwards and backwards and the sound will loop the last quarter of a second, along with a weird tapping distortion. My ping will spike up to anywhere from 1000-3000 during this time. Then after about 5 seconds the choke-up will stop and I'll be able to move and look around and such. Then the problem happens again about 10 seconds later. Rinse, repeat, ad infinitum ad nauseum. I've noticed though that the problem most often occurs when somebody uses voicechat or there are strong ambient noises in the area I'm wandering. Not that it doesn't happen *anyway* without either ambience or voicechat - it just happens more often.
Here are my system specs:
HP Pavillion x1926
AMD Duron 900 mhz (bleh =P)
Windows XP Professional
496 MB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 420
I don't know what my sound card is, but it's whatever came installed with this piece of crap.
I have the latest drivers for all my hardware and have the latest directx as well.
I'm using a cable internet connection via small network, and I thought the problem may have been that my computer is farthest away from the modem, and has roughly 75 ft. of cat5 connecting my computer to the modem. However, when I moved my computer closer to the modem, (the same distance both my roomates' computers work from) I still encountered the problem. So I don't think it's a matter of distance.
I honestly thought I saw a post a long time ago on this forum about somebody with a sound issue that sounded *really* similar to my problem. Unfortunately the forums went down the next day, and the post got erased or something, 'cuz I haven't been able to find it no matter how much I've scoured. IAC, the post had some helpful information about console commands to change your sound settings in-game or something. Gah, I don't know... anything's worth a shot now. I'm sick of playing NS on my friends' computers. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
Well, there you have it. If anybody has any ideas on what the problem might be, and more importantly how to *fix* said problem, I'd be grateful to hear them! Thanks!
I'll walk along, everything will be fine, my ping will be around 100-200 (which is normal for our 'net connection), then all of a sudden NS will sort of choke up and I'll stop moving. The screen will jiggle forwards and backwards and the sound will loop the last quarter of a second, along with a weird tapping distortion. My ping will spike up to anywhere from 1000-3000 during this time. Then after about 5 seconds the choke-up will stop and I'll be able to move and look around and such. Then the problem happens again about 10 seconds later. Rinse, repeat, ad infinitum ad nauseum. I've noticed though that the problem most often occurs when somebody uses voicechat or there are strong ambient noises in the area I'm wandering. Not that it doesn't happen *anyway* without either ambience or voicechat - it just happens more often.
Here are my system specs:
HP Pavillion x1926
AMD Duron 900 mhz (bleh =P)
Windows XP Professional
496 MB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 420
I don't know what my sound card is, but it's whatever came installed with this piece of crap.
I have the latest drivers for all my hardware and have the latest directx as well.
I'm using a cable internet connection via small network, and I thought the problem may have been that my computer is farthest away from the modem, and has roughly 75 ft. of cat5 connecting my computer to the modem. However, when I moved my computer closer to the modem, (the same distance both my roomates' computers work from) I still encountered the problem. So I don't think it's a matter of distance.
I honestly thought I saw a post a long time ago on this forum about somebody with a sound issue that sounded *really* similar to my problem. Unfortunately the forums went down the next day, and the post got erased or something, 'cuz I haven't been able to find it no matter how much I've scoured. IAC, the post had some helpful information about console commands to change your sound settings in-game or something. Gah, I don't know... anything's worth a shot now. I'm sick of playing NS on my friends' computers. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
Well, there you have it. If anybody has any ideas on what the problem might be, and more importantly how to *fix* said problem, I'd be grateful to hear them! Thanks!
Comments
The interesting part is, it only occurs on certain maps like eclipse caged and tanith; the other ones are completely fine for me. And yes, that´s hera included.
Eclipse is worst though. I usually can play quite some time on caged until my comp starts its "hang for 2 secs -> play normally for 5 -> hang again" routine. While the graphics are completely stopped the sound is looping and (the frozen) netgraph shows a huge increase in incoming packages.
I tried everything I could think of including driver updates, BIOS settings, improved cooling, underclocking, using a direct connection instead of my router, defragmentation and maybe some more I just can´t remember now.
Some observations I made:
It´s definetly worse for aliens - while I can play tanith almost fluidly as a marine, on aliens it´s there right from the start.
Commander mode is unplayable even on the maps that are not affected.
After exiting HL I get a constant 100% CPU usage with the odd mouse stuttering every other minute until rebooting
Now heres the strange one: When I play in software mode this problem is completely gone, but of course then I get all those bugs associated with software acceleration and less than 30 fps.
I´ve tried lots of different drivers for my GF 2 GTS and the first game right after an update seemed flawless (unless the map was eclipse - that one only works in software mode), although this might just be my imagination.
Also, after I shut down HL I don't have the mouse stuttering problem anymore; it's only an in-game occurrance for me. Weird, huh?
Try openGL or D3D.