Oblivion / Fallout 3 - Microstutter / frameskip ongoing issue for a minority!

Neil79 · 1 Nov 2008 at 17:41

What was once a grand time is no more.

Rhys-M · 1 Nov 2008 at 18:18

Yeah i suffer the same thing, in both games. FPS clamp works indoors, but my 8800 GTS 640 just doesnt cut 60 frames outdoors so you get a slow down. This is fustrating as even your walking pace slows down

and can take forever to explore. I end up looking at the sky just to speed things up.

Ive tried all combos to, drivers, sound. Funny enough oblivion never used to do in it on XP, when i first played it.

I believe this is problem for vista 64 users. Maybe an engine incompatibility

However i didnt expect the exact same problem to be in Fallout 3. A bit sloppy on Bethesda's part

edit: seems people on all OS's are suffering

Neil79 · 1 Nov 2008 at 18:26

Rhys-M said:
I believe this is problem for vista 64 users. Maybe an engine incompatibility

Fraid not , (XP/Vista) (ATI/Nvidia) (Soundcard/On board sound) (Amd/Intel) it seems to happen to different people's systems with no permanent fix

Rhys-M · 1 Nov 2008 at 18:29

Its a shame the only solution is to buy a better GFX card

Heatsinked · 1 Nov 2008 at 18:31

If this was first seen in Oblivion and subsequently reported many times on their own forums (and others I'm sure), why the hell haven't Bethesda fixed it by now??! Do they not listen to their own fans?? :confused:

Neil79 · 1 Nov 2008 at 18:35

Heatsinked said:
If this was first seen in Oblivion and subsequently reported many times on their own forums (and others I'm sure), why the hell haven't Bethesda fixed it by now??! Do they not listen to their own fans??

Probably don't see it as worth fixing as the majority either 1) don't notice it , 2) don't get it. I notice it straight away , stare at a wall and side step right all the way then do it going the other. Smooth , skip , smooth , skip , smooth skip its almost as if every second frame is a skip. :confused:

Rhys-M · 1 Nov 2008 at 18:46

Its pretty easy to see, and vastly distracts from the game.

Maybe the problem lies too deep in the games engine to fix. This seems the best suggestion so far

I believe the problem seems to be related to a lack of synchronization between the rendering engine (possibly the movement or physics code?), and the video card. The fact that the FPS clamp fixes the problem, tells me that it is not a videocard problem.
I'm almost certain that a real FPS cap in Oblivion (no, I'm not talking about vsync!!!) would solve the problem, but I still haven't found a mod that implements that, perhaps because it's something that can only be implemented at the renderer level. This would be like the setting "com_maxFPS" in Quake3. The Source engine (Half-Life2, Portal, etc.) also has a setting for a framerate cap.

Neil79 · 1 Nov 2008 at 18:51

^ yeh , shame that isn't in oblivion or fallout 2 just that ifps clamp which can screw you over if your frame rates drop below 60. Far FAR more noticable in oblivion as that game loves to frame rate drop lol

AWPC · 1 Nov 2008 at 19:48

I get this on the ATI 4870 on Vista 32bit but it is not consistent at all. Mainly happens on the outdoors wastelands area especially the first one you encounter but never happens in the smaller rooms/tunnels. Very annoying as it is very jerky when this happens. Yet I can have AA or not and it still happens regardless of how much/little AA I use so suspect it is a game engine issue with large outdoors areas and draw distance causing stuttering as the game engine cannot handle a certain level of complexity.

In ruined cities it does not happen at all even with 8xAA/24xAA or no AA I get the same 60FPS so must be the game engine surely??

Strife212 · 1 Nov 2008 at 19:53

I can say I've never had this, it must be annoying if you get it though.

Viral · 1 Nov 2008 at 20:11

I had this problem and managed to fix it by doing these 3 things, one of them must have worked.
1. Removed Vodei MP codec
2. Patched to latest Nvidia drivers
3. FFDshow made exception so that audio codec not used for Fallout 3, (this was also a tip for Oblivion)

Neil79 · 1 Nov 2008 at 20:24

Don't forget this is NOT related to stuttering or hitching , this is actual frameskipping/microstuttering on every step... It is not related to codecs , hard drive tweaking , soundcard drivers or ufo's from space. This is a frame rate cap / vsync / sync problem... Reading peoples replies here and on fallout 3 forums people are getting confused with actual in gaming stuttering and thinking its cured by sorting codecs out and the like when the core issue for us isn't the same.

Imagine walking along a line from left to right <-----------------> its smooth , imagine it for us <-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-> every line being a frameskip or microstutter , frame rates could be bang on 60fps and it'd still be exactly the same.

Strife212 · 1 Nov 2008 at 20:27

It cant be a hard coded engine problem or it would happen on everyones though surely?.

Neil79 · 1 Nov 2008 at 20:33

Strife212 said:
It cant be a hard coded engine problem or it would happen on everyones though surely?.

Unsure , but as the developers won't respond to email or forums it isn't being investigated. It could be something so simple causing all of this , but with people such as myself replacing everything and even getting a new computer and still seeing it , i gave up with it.

ifpsclamp - 60 is the ONLY thing that cures it , clamping the frame rates it tells the game to go no higher, but you get a horrible slow mo effect with that option if the frame rates drop off.

Strife212 · 1 Nov 2008 at 20:37

It is strange. How about if you set the FPS clamp to 30? Or does that still have the stutter.

Neil79 · 1 Nov 2008 at 20:37

I'll give it a go now..

Neil79 · 1 Nov 2008 at 20:59

Lol , runs at super speed woooooosh round corners i feel like that mouse that runs really fast.

.one. · 1 Nov 2008 at 21:02

Neil79 said:
Lol , runs at super speed woooooosh round corners i feel like that mouse that runs really fast.

Speedy consalus.

Neil79 · 1 Nov 2008 at 21:04

That's it

Strife212 · 1 Nov 2008 at 21:27