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PC gaming lettin' me down: Deus Ex: Human Revolution's atrocious stuttering bug

wiggleb0t

Banned
trifire 5870 everything maxed vsync perfect 60 fps smooth on this end. 1920x1080

If using ati, make sure you're rocking the latest CCC and if you run crossfire install latest caps, Always uninstall caps>reboot>install new caps>reboot.
 

Ikuu

Had his dog run over by Blizzard's CEO
5850 with the latest drivers and never saw this or had any issue at all in the 30 or so hours I played.
 

plc268

Member
5770 here.

I only ever had a problem when I had the game open for an hour or more. It seemed like a memory leak because if I closed out the game and reloaded, my framerate was back to normal.
 
570 SC Edition, Maxed (except AA which is on med FXAA) & DX11, No stuttering. Unfortunately the title of this thread seems like it'll end up attracting a lot of ignorant anti PC sentiment. I dunno, maybe that was the point.
 

jett

D-Member
Such a wide range of hardware with this problem, just WTF is causing it? I thought it was my PC(although something like this has never happened to me in a game before).

Specs:
C2D@1.86
3GB RAM
ATI 4670
WinXP
 

Red

Member
jett said:
Such a wide range of hardware with this problem, just WTF is causing it? I thought it was my PC(although something like this has never happened to me in a game before).

Specs:
C2D@1.86
3GB RAM
ATI 4670
WinXP
What kind of fps are you getting
 

jett

D-Member
AgentOtaku said:
Completely turning off SSAO helped, but it's still present

I'll try that too, although turning off SSAO is gonna make the game look even uglier than it already does...

Crunched said:
What kind of fps are you getting

30+ at 720p
 

Red

Member
jett said:
I'll try that too, although turning off SSAO is gonna make the game look even uglier than it already does...



30+ at 720p
Have you checked with fraps to verify your performance? What does it dip to?

Not trying to imply you can't recognize the problem, but going by this thread it seems the issue is more prevalent with newer hardware. Is it possible that your stuttering is due to actual frame rate drops?

Not trying to be an ass and act like your machine is too weak, I'm simply curious.
 

Septimius

Junior Member
I'm running the game titties to the max, and I'm having no troubles what so ever. I have a constant 75+ fps.

Specs:
Intel i5 2400 (3.1 GHz)
8 GB RAM
Nvidia GTX 570 SOC
running off of an SSD
Steam version

Settings:
DX11
1920x1200
Auto aspect ratio
FXAA High (MLAA loses fps with Nvidia over FXAA)
16x Anisotropic
Soft shadows
High SSAO
High DOF
no tripple buffering (hmm. Probably meant to have that on)
no V-sync
post-processing enabled
tessellation enabled

EDIT: BTW!! People running with only two cores are gonna have a hard time running this game. The game utilizes more cores efficiently, so there's a bigger gap than normal between two and four/six core CPUs.
 

Septimius

Junior Member
JoeTheBlow said:
What the flying fuck are you simpletons doing saying "no problems for me"?

Its called a bug. It happens for some, not others. The people its happening for couldn't give less of a shit if you don't have it, and don't like it implied that either us or our rig is to fault.

I have it, thousands of others do, the devs have acknowledged it, and it really fucks up an otherwise lovely game.
Imagine if a film you wanted to watch dropped every 2 in 50 frames, its that annoying.

Hilarious post. Maybe someone is trying to figure out if there's a correlation between hardware and the bug? I have to run, so cutting this short, wouldn't you be intrigued if someone with the exact same hardware don't have the problems you have?
 
I beat the game on my laptop and didn't even know it was a bug. I thought it was just performance related as it happened significantly more often in the hub areas (Detroit, China) than in the "levels". I'm running an i5 with 4 GB of memory and an ATI 5650.
 

Kintaro

Worships the porcelain goddess
JoeTheBlow said:
What the flying fuck are you simpletons doing saying "no problems for me"?

Its called a bug. It happens for some, not others. The people its happening for couldn't give less of a shit if you don't have it, and don't like it implied that either us or our rig is to fault.

I have it, thousands of others do, the devs have acknowledged it, and it really fucks up an otherwise lovely game.
Imagine if a film you wanted to watch dropped every 2 in 50 frames, its that annoying.

Perhaps the stupidity in the OP is what does it?

AgentOtaku said:
PC gamin' lettin' me down yet again T__T

Guess I have to play my PS3 version.

Shit like this that makes me so fusterated sometimes as a PC gamer after all these years.

Blaming the platform in the OP and title is stupid. Doesn't even list his specs for either laptop or desktop. Not to mention drivers.

Also...defensive much?
 

Durante

Member
JoeTheBlow said:
What the flying fuck are you simpletons doing saying "no problems for me"?
We are trying to determine if any particular combination of hardware is more likely to cause the effect. But if that annoys you we'll stop immediately, don't worry.
 

daviyoung

Banned
JoeTheBlow said:
Its called a bug. It happens for some, not others. The people its happening for couldn't give less of a shit if you don't have it, and don't like it implied that either us or our rig is to fault.

Maybe because the bug is set-up related? Why do some experience it and others don't if it's not an issue with an individual's hardware/driver installs? Only if some copies were released with the bug and other copies weren't.
 

coopolon

Member
I had regular framerate drops, especially as the game progressed, but nothing like this stuttering (assuming the fps in those videos is staying constant). I voted and posted my specs in the official forum thread. Hope they get it worked out.

e8400/5870 here.
 

Derrick01

Banned
I don't think it's solely a nvidia thing, I was able to run the game at just about max settings on a measly gtx 470 even with dx11 on at 60 fps.

There was some stuttering, mostly from a new area loading but nothing anywhere near as bad as that video in the OP. Is that processor a dual core? I've heard that people with dual cores have some pretty bad issues getting the game to run.
 
I usually have it a couple of times after I boot up the game and start playing, but from then on it's smooth.

Asus N53SV
i7 quad
8gb ram
nvidia gt540m 1gb
750gb 7200rpm hdd WD scorpio black

720p
DX11 on
FXAA high
Tesselation on
trple buffering on
SSAO normal
AF 16x

As far as I can tell, it's caused by hdd access. At least my hdd light is flickering a lot in the rare occasions it happens.

Even though my hdd is no slouch by mechanical hard drive standards, my guess is it can't keep up with what is being requested by the game in the initial streams of data.

Anyone with an ssd having the same issue?
 
I had this problem, or at least a version of it: standing in a room, not moving, and spinning around (I play with a PS3 pad so the turning motion is completely consistent) I would get little stutters and hitches just like in the video in the OP's linked article.

I fixed it and played through the whole game with no more problems (except for the occasional quick pause as it loaded new areas, and I'd have to be running full pelt through one of the hubs to make it happen; just going from cover to cover, slowly stealthing my way through a mission it never happened again).

I noticed it didn't stutter with vsync off, and on the configurator I was only able to select 59hz for my screen resolution instead of 60hz. I used the Nvidia driver to make a custom resolution of 1680x1050@61hz, applied it, loaded the DXHR configurator again and for some reason it gave me a resolution option of 1680x1050@60hz. I chose that, loaded the game, and never had another stutter.

It's probably not a fix for everyone, and I have to delete the custom rez if I want to play Mass Effect 2, but it got me through the whole game quite nicely.

My setup: C2D e7200@3.16ghz, 4gb DDR2, GTX560 1gb, Dell 2209WA 16:10 monitor. OS on hard drive 1, swap file on hard drive 2, Steam+games on hard drive 3.
edit: my in-game settings: everything on max, DX11.

edit edit: I'm sure I read somewhere that the particular type of stuttering I experienced was specific to 16:10 monitors, something to do with assuming they all run at 59hz instead of 60hz, but a quick at-work google can't find the post.

edit edit edit: I don't think people with dual core CPUs should be warned off too harshly. t'other half and I have almost identical PCs but for the CPUs (mine as above, other half's is a Phenom II X4@3.2ghz) and monitors (1080p), and while at the halfway point I turned off tessellation for a while to stay above 40fps-ish otherwise performance was more or less the same: 30+ all the way through, 40+ for the most part.
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
I've seen plenty of this as well.

It seems to be less severe in the later missions, but occurs pretty often in city hubs.

I think it's pretty clear that the issue is related to streaming data from disk to memory. It doesn't surprise me in the least as most UE3 games suffer from this as well (though only when moving through "loading zones"). I've installed DXHR on an SSD and it only improves the issue a bit.

It's frustrating as this issue rarely pops up in a console game. Pulling new data into memory doesn't cause stuttering or pausing in console games using this technique.

I do have a bit of faith that they might address it, however, as they completely solved the loading time issue. My load times went from 25 seconds to 3 seconds after that patch.
 

jett

D-Member
Crunched said:
Have you checked with fraps to verify your performance? What does it dip to?

Not trying to imply you can't recognize the problem, but going by this thread it seems the issue is more prevalent with newer hardware. Is it possible that your stuttering is due to actual frame rate drops?

Not trying to be an ass and act like your machine is too weak, I'm simply curious.

I'm telling you, no. It's like the videos show, random stuttering where the game literally looks like it hung up for a second when you're simply moving the camera around. It's not framedropping.
 
A bug is a bug people. PCs have like 1000s different configurations, stuff like this can happen.

I wonder what exactly is triggering this bug? Special GPU model? RAM? GPU/ motherboard combination? Windows version?

I mean if it's widespread across different games then it should be traceable.
 

ToD_

Member
This seems like a data streaming issue. It's more prevalent right after loading a new area. Do you see a lot of hard drive activity when it stutters?
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
StoppedInTracks said:
A bug is a bug people. PCs have like 1000s different configurations, stuff like this can happen.

I wonder what exactly is triggering this bug? Special GPU model? RAM? GPU/ motherboard combination? Windows version?

I mean if it's widespread across different games then it should be traceable.
Honestly, I'm not convinced this isn't an issue effecting everyone. Some people tend not to notice skips and stutters. When someone claims they solved it by disabling v-sync, for instance, that right there suggests to me that they aren't particularly sensitive to performance issues (as lack of v-sync destroys the image in motion).

I still don't know if I'd consider this a bug, rather, an issue with the engine and the way it handles data on the PC. I suspect a fix would require some serious work on their end.
 

Dalauz

Member
people should include HDD specs and if that HDD is running OS

im with dark10x, it seems like a engine problem and how data is streaming
 
ToD_ said:
This seems like a data streaming issue. It's more prevalent right after loading a new area. Do you see a lot of hard drive activity when it stutters?
My stuttering was nothing to do with data streaming. I could walk into one of those apartments in the hub area and close the front door, wait for 30 seconds to make sure there was no more loading to be done, then start spinning, and I would get those same stutters.

Like jett said, it's as if the game hangs minutely once a second.

After fixing it, I still got the occasional frame drop/mini-hang when moving through an area faster than the streaming could keep up, but that was very rare.
 

hteng

Banned
it's very easy to find these stutters and they always happened on the same places, usually when you are transitioning from one area to another in detroit.

i'm on a 6970m, i can get solid 60 fps in all other instances but when i walk into these specific zones, the fps drops to 30~40 fps and that would create the stuttering effect.

It does suck the first time around but after a while i got used to it. I thought it was because of my mechanical HDD and and SSD would probably fix this.
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
It does suck the first time around but after a while i got used to it. I thought it was because of my mechanical HDD and and SSD would probably fix this.
I can assure you it does not.
 

jett

D-Member
I turned off SSAO, didn't help at all. Didn't improve the framerate either, that was strange. Anyway, an example of the the kind of DX experience I'm getting:



I'm strolling happily down the street...
k7tZy.jpg


I decided to look over to my left and...AW HELL NAW
9vTrW.jpg


I stop looking around and things go back to normal
DZFwm.jpg


It happens just as badly in indoor environments, what the hell is that all about.
 
jett said:
I turned off SSAO, didn't help at all. Didn't improve the framerate either, that was strange. Anyway, an example of the the kind of DX experience I'm getting:


It happens just as badly in indoor environments, what the hell is that all about.

Vsync + triple buffering screwed things up for me. Without it I had 60plus FPS. With it, it frequently dropped below 60 and the game eventually locked the framerate at 30.

Switch of vsync and triple buffering and try to compare performance.


I've also had small stutters when going into a new area and the game seemed to be loading content (npc's?).
 
dark10x said:
Honestly, I'm not convinced this isn't an issue effecting everyone. Some people tend not to notice skips and stutters. When someone claims they solved it by disabling v-sync, for instance, that right there suggests to me that they aren't particularly sensitive to performance issues (as lack of v-sync destroys the image in motion).

I still don't know if I'd consider this a bug, rather, an issue with the engine and the way it handles data on the PC. I suspect a fix would require some serious work on their end.

But this happens in different engines correct? Source, Tomb Raider... does it happen in UE3.0 games?
 

LM4sure

Banned
My game stutters when I zoom in on the gun, but that's it. Not nearly as bad as the other videos I've seen. Definitely does not make the game unplayable though.
 

Woo-Fu

Banned
alysonwheel said:
My stuttering was nothing to do with data streaming. I could walk into one of those apartments in the hub area and close the front door, wait for 30 seconds to make sure there was no more loading to be done, then start spinning, and I would get those same stutters.

Perhaps it didn't stream the textures required for what you couldn't see until you turned around?

It definitely feels like the same streaming stutter I get on just about every unreal pc port---even though this isn't unreal-based.
 

NBtoaster

Member
I didn't have the latest drivers, I'll see if that helps me. I'm having another issue where the game would freeze, minimise and then crash too.

edit: no crash so far, but there's still stutter. Mouse movement feels better for some reason.
 

Veal

Member
Evershade said:
I have a weird issue, when I play with DX11 on, I get random crashes and little green squares all over the screen, that requires restarting my PC.
And when I play on DX9, as that fixes the crashing problem, I get lots of stuttering, especially in the hub worlds. Using FRAPS the games runs at 60FPS, but will occasionally drop to 35 for a second.
Really annoying. Running GTX570 and 2600k @ 3.4GHz.
Is your GPU overclocked? Sounds like it's dying mang :(
 

jett

D-Member
PjotrStroganov said:
Vsync + triple buffering screwed things up for me. Without it I had 60plus FPS. With it, it frequently dropped below 60 and the game eventually locked the framerate at 30.

Switch of vsync and triple buffering and try to compare performance.


I've also had small stutters when going into a new area and the game seemed to be loading content (npc's?).

I used D3DOverrider, the in-game v-ysnc/triple buffering settings are off. I just turned off D3DOverrider to check if it helped in case you ask :p but it doesn't, at all. Only thing it gave me was screen tearing. There's no fault on my end.
 
Woo-Fu said:
Perhaps it didn't stream the textures required for what you couldn't see until you turned around?

It definitely feels like the same streaming stutter I get on just about every unreal pc port---even though this isn't unreal-based.
Nah, it didn't stutter at all with vsync disabled. Smooth as butter.

The particular manifestation of the stuttering problem on my setup was caused by running with vsync (and triple buffering) at 59hz and solved by forcing 60hz.
 

Facism

Member
Agent Otaku, have you tried going to the nvidia control panel and changing "Maximum prerender frames" to either 1 or 0? I used to have mad stuttering in games until I turned mine down from 3. Worth a shot if you haven't tried it already. Minimal effort required.
 

vocab

Member
5850 here. Get stuttering like crazy. One second its 60 fps, next second it is 30 fps. This is not some simple caching/streaming problem. I walk into same bathroom numerous times, and get drops into the 30's. I get inconsistent performance walking down the same hallway that has already loaded. I refuse to play this game any further than I have already gotten (just hit the first mission with the hostages), and put up with the most distracting technical issue since Fallout 3's micro stutter of doom.
 
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