[patriots]

First off, the work you guys are doing with FreeSpace 2 is incredible, I found the mod earlier this year after buying the game on GOG, and loved all of the improvements to what was one of my favorite games when I first played it around 10 years ago.

Now, to the problem: I'm having an issue with rather severe stuttering whenever a message pops up on the HUD. The stuttering ends as soon as the pop-up leaves, even when the audio from the message is still playing. Performance is great at all other times, and I didn't have this issue on a previous install of FS2 Open.

I'm running 3.6.12 inferno build, sse2, with the 3.6.12 mediaVPs

I found a couple of other threads on the issue, such as this one: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=72231
But they were all at least several months old, and none seemed to have any solutions. Is there any way to fix the problem?
Also, what other information would be helpful?

Thanks for the help.

EDIT: Debug log attached. I glanced through it myself, though I have no idea what to look for, and noticed that there were a couple of errors: "unable to parse 'scripting.tbl'" and "unable to parse 'interface.tbl,'" both with error code = 5.

[attachment deleted by ninja]

[Satellight]

I'm running 3.6.12 inferno build, sse2, with the 3.6.12 mediaVPs

You should try the last nightly build corresponding to your system.

Anyway,

[patriots]

Thanks! I'll try the latest nightly build, and see if that does anything.

[Macfie]

Changing the build you are using will not completely remove the problem.  It is less noticeable on the recent nightly builds.  It can be removed by turning off the message ANI display on the HUD by using the settings for the HUD in the mainhall.

[patriots]

Yeah, just tried the nightly, and the problem was still there. It seems odd, the fps displayed on-screen doesn't drop at all during the stuttering, and I didn't notice the issue on a previous install a couple months ago. Oh well.

Thanks for the help, any idea what's causing the issue? It doesn't seem to be too widespread, or at least I couldn't find much on it, so if there's anything I could help test, I'd be happy to.

[Kolgena]

I have the _exact_ same issue. No idea how to fix it. Want to compare hardware/drivers?

[patriots]

Sure:

Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 @ 2.00GHz
Windows Vista 64 - bit
4GB Ram
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650, Catalyst 11.4

I'm going to update my drivers to 11.6 and see if that does anything, though I think I had 11.4 last time as well, when I had no issues.

[Macfie]

Intel Core 2 quad Q8200 @ 2.34GHz
Windows Vista 64 - bit
8GB Ram
Nvidia GeForce GT120 @ 1GB

[Jeff Vader]

11.5 was problematic, but 11.6 should be alright.

[patriots]

Just updated to 11.6, but still having the issue. The problem goes away when the com video is disabled, but I'm curious as to what causes it, and why I didn't have it with my previous installation.

[Jeff Vader]

Now that I took a look at the log, you seem to be missing the patches for the MediaVPs. They are available here (the MV_xxxx_Update.zip files). Download those.

Also, out of curiosity, are you forcing antialiasing through the gpu driver control panel? That has nasty effects at least on my HD5770.

[patriots]

Thanks, I'll see if that helps. And no, I've got it set to use application settings, which I leave off on most games, tends to do terrible things to my fps....

EDIT: Applied the patches, but still having the issue whenever the com video is on screen.

[Kolgena]

Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz P8600
Mobility 3650, 512MB 10.7/TwL modded (v3.95) (24/7 overclocked @590/790, stock is 450/600. Been stable for 2 years though and stutters at stock clocks...)
Vista Home x64
4 gigs ram.
VAIO FW, if that matters somehow.
AA is set to use application settings, AF is forced to 8x, though stuttering happens regardless of forcing.
Vsync is off. Turning it on in the launcher alleviates stutter a bit only if framerates are fluid enough to maintain 60.

[Rodo]

I have the same problem, it gets nastier when turning the ship around while the head ani is playing.

X4 965 BE
8GB ram
GTX 260
Win 7 64
can't remember if I have some custom stuff set from the nvidia panel, probably not since I'm always changing the exe's with the new nightly builds.

Vsync is off. Turning it on in the launcher alleviates stutter a bit only if framerates are fluid enough to maintain 60.

I can confirm this, I made some tests a while back to figure out what was causing it and got to the same conclusion, the only difference is that for me it eliminates the problem completely (though I don't use it since I get that frikking refresh image overlaping thing).

[patriots]

That's interesting, changing the Vsync setting didn't do much for me, though turning it off did give pretty bad tearing, the slowdown was still there.

[Kolgena]

Cool story: My HUD stuttering disappeared. Except, it was after a clean Win7 Pro x64 install after Vista, and also an upgraded 10.5 driver to 11.7b catalyst.

Sooo. Not sure why it fixed itself, but it's fixed.