Game frequently pauses for around 1 second during play.

ashwashw Join Date: 2003-01-26 Member: 12831Members, Constellation
ran the profile command, results here: http://steamcommunity.com/id/ashw/screenshots/
ran dxdiag, output here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/a4iorpzdglxx0mk/DxDiag.txt

I'm running in 1280x720 with all the graphics options low/off except multi threading.

I notice that when in the server browser, moving the mouse across the server list triggers a sound. running it across 5-10 does this rapidly and causes the background animation to stutter in a similar way. This makes me suspect a sound issue. I wanted to turn sound hardware accell off but it appears i'm out of date as this doesn't appear as an option in windows 7.

Comments

  • DC_DarklingDC_Darkling Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
    hmm. gambling here since I do not know what it means.
    But execute message hmmm...

    Lets think weird.
    * disable help messages
    * cleanup any log files from ns2. (basicly: C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Natural Selection 2)
    Do note this will reset a a lot if you delete it in total.
  • IronHorseIronHorse Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
    edited April 2013
    @ashw this sounds like something running in the background occasionally.
    Have you tried closing every single program running in the background before launching ns2?
    Would be useful to first see if anything is spiking during typical windows usage using task manager's performance tab.

    *edit* : a developer said this looks like a network message, so you may wish to attempt temporarily disabling your firewall or something along those lines that could be interrupting your network traffic. (At your own risk)
  • ashwashw Join Date: 2003-01-26 Member: 12831Members, Constellation
    edited April 2013
    Thanks for the replies @IronHorse and @DC_Darkling.

    I tried ending every process I could, turned off windows firewall and security essentials (I'd already made an exception to ns2.exe in any case)

    No luck, the issue is still there :(

    Looked in task manager when not gaming and the performance graph looks typical (close to flat).


    edit: I haven't tried a wired network connection yet. will do so tomorrow.
  • ashwashw Join Date: 2003-01-26 Member: 12831Members, Constellation
    no difference with wired connection and every process ended that I could end. :(
  • MurphyIdiotMurphyIdiot NS2 programmer Join Date: 2008-04-17 Member: 64095Members, Super Administrators, NS2 Developer, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts, Future Perfect Developer
    Are you running any mods? The log I was given from you shows a lot of script errors at the main menu.
  • IronHorseIronHorse Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
    @ashw try typing net_log 3 in the console as well as net_messages and then *right after* this pause happens to you in game, exit ns2 and copy and paste your log.txt file to pastebin.com, providing us with a link to it to review. (do not run ns2 again until you have uploaded this log.txt or else it will be overwritten)

    To get to the log.txt file, press windows key + R, fill in "%appdata%\Natural Selection 2", hit enter.
  • ashwashw Join Date: 2003-01-26 Member: 12831Members, Constellation
    edited May 2013
    Sorry for the late reply, I didn't realised there were additional posts.

    edit: This is lies-> I disabled Raw Input from the controls menu and the issue where the background animation in the main menu stuttered stopped occuring and the ingame freezes significantly lessened.

    edit: It was actually running in 800x600 that significantly reduced the stuttering, but it's still going on.

    @MurphyIdiot no mods installed or running

    @Ironhorse Will do so
  • DC_DarklingDC_Darkling Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
    www.sysinternals.com
    Go download process explorer. Run this as a administrator.

    When ns2 is having huge spikes, see if something not NS2 is eating up cpu power.
    process monitor has a cpu graph in the top right corner to do this. Hover over a spike to see what was happening.
    (fullscreen) windowed mode will work best with this test.
  • DC_DarklingDC_Darkling Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
    Ironhorse probably wont be on soon, but ill do my best. :p
    Seems you have a lot of resend packages, look at all the resends and unreliables in that log.
  • IronHorseIronHorse Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
    Yeesh.. You're using a low end mobile GPU card /laptop. Generally I'd assume that'd be a culprit for such a resource intensive game.. But seeing as those wonderful profile shots indicate network....

    So you've tried wired and disabled firewall.. But have you tried connecting straight to your modem / DMZing your router too?

    Looking over the info you've provided, there's definitely something weird going on network wise. So what's your network setup look like? Wireless? When wired, what models for router and modem? What isp? Etc

    How quickly is this reproduced for you? That text log was short given how lengthy net_log logs can be..

    But ya try to isolate factors for now like routers etc
  • ashwashw Join Date: 2003-01-26 Member: 12831Members, Constellation
    @IronHorse It's a gaming laptop with a GTS 360M and a i7 quad core at 1.6Ghz 2.8GHz turbo, so it runs BF3 and black ops without problems, it is beyond the minimum specs so I expected it to be playable. I have been able to play NS2 at really decent framerates (low graphics and 800x600) but it's the second or so long pauses that are ruining it. Looked at process explorer and there are no spikes in cpu or gpu activity. They're not even far beyond 50% usage. I'm going to assume this is down to the crappy DSL here, it's a long line. I had no idea that there would be an issue because I've not noticed problems when playing on xbox live. (what does that say about console gaming vs pc gaming)

    Moving in a few months, will retry then.

    Thanks for your assistance :)
  • DC_DarklingDC_Darkling Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
    also note that your cpu can be busy even at 50%.

    A cpu can max out at certain kinds of commands it can process, not only as a whole.
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