Gears of War - Loading pauses

[titaniumx3]

Hi,

I'm not sure if this is a common problem but I seem to get a fair bit of loading pauses and brief stuttering when entering new areas. It's not a huge problem since it only happens once after I first enter a new area but it is annoying nonetheless. The game runs fine at 1680x1050 @ high settings (with highest texture details) and looking at ATI Tools it's using way less than 512mb of graphics memory, so why is it still stuttering when entering new areas? Is there a way to make it load everything to memory? Surely it can't be using more than 2gb of system ram?!

Please note that I've already set "OnlyStreamInTextures" to "TRUE" in the config files and it has indeed solved the constant stuttering you get, but it still stutters/pauses when entering new areas.

My specs are:

X2 4400+
2GB DDR400
X1900XT 512mb
WinXP

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

BTW, the graphics are awesome and the presentation top notch plus the performance makes my x1900 look brand new, lol. Gameplay is a bit repetitive, but oh well, that's consoles for ya.

 

[zytok]

does it on mine as well. I even upgraded my gfx card and it still does it. Have you tried the 1.1 Patch yet? Improved things somewhat on mine.

 

[V1N]

I've just installed Gears of War for the first time ever, was really looking forward to playing this at last, after I completed COD4 yesterday.

Well, I installed it, installed the 1.1 patch straight afterwards.

Loaded it.

Set my screenres to 1680x1050

Left post processing at default, everything else to high, except shadows, left at low, and enabled DX10.

Restarted the game, as it said I needed to after enabling DX10

Wanted to do the training mode, by pressing mouse2.
Before I even got that far, I was aware of some awful stuttering.
Not the normal juddering you get when your graphics card is struggling, but ugly stutters, inbetween perfectly smooth movement. The game was, for the most part, running so fast, I was getting tearing.. but.. instead of enabling V-Sync, I went back to the options and set all the levels back to default, except my screen res of course, and left DX10 on.

It still stutters like hell here and there.
As far as I'm concerned, it's unplayable.

So sod it, I guess it's going back in the cupboard until a better fix comes out.
I'm quite disappointed, as I was looking forward to playing this at last.

I'll give it another go later with the DX10/Antialiasing mode off.
If it still stutters... I hope UT3 runs better, that's in the post, on its way to me at the moment.

What a disappointment though.

V1N.

 

[davecarter]

I have had a similar problem with UT3, its really annoying.
I turned V Sync off and that fixed it only for it to re appear again a few days later. It appears to be intermittent so havent nailed down exactly whats causing it, even the 1.1 patch did not help.

 

[V1N]

I have had a similar problem with UT3, its really annoying.
I turned V Sync off and that fixed it only for it to re appear again a few days later. It appears to be intermittent so havent nailed down exactly whats causing it, even the 1.1 patch did not help.

Oh bloody hell, don't say that.
I've been looking forward to UT3 for a while, was gunna wait until after Xmas, but couldn't.

If it has a similar stutter problem to GOW, then it will be sitting on the shelf doing nothing too. Money for nothing again.

I've not tried GOW with V-Sync ON yet.. it was already off.
I imagine V-Sync would cure the tearing, but run the risk of choppy moments if they gameplay drops below 60fps.

V1N.

 

[davecarter]

Oh bloody hell, don't say that.
I've been looking forward to UT3 for a while, was gunna wait until after Xmas, but couldn't.

If it has a similar stutter problem to GOW, then it will be sitting on the shelf doing nothing too. Money for nothing again.

I've not tried GOW with V-Sync ON yet.. it was already off.
I imagine V-Sync would cure the tearing, but run the risk of choppy moments if they gameplay drops below 60fps.

V1N.

Forgot to add I have a dual boot system and its been fine in XP, only in Vista has the stuttering occured still annoying nonetheless

 

[zytok]

Oh bloody hell, don't say that.
I've been looking forward to UT3 for a while, was gunna wait until after Xmas, but couldn't.

If it has a similar stutter problem to GOW, then it will be sitting on the shelf doing nothing too. Money for nothing again.

I've not tried GOW with V-Sync ON yet.. it was already off.
I imagine V-Sync would cure the tearing, but run the risk of choppy moments if they gameplay drops below 60fps.

V1N.

have found that turning vsync on in the game seems to lock the fps at 61-62 rather than 60 therefore negating the effect of having it turned on. If you apply vsync through nvcpl, seems to work ok.

 

[V1N]

have found that turning vsync on in the game seems to lock the fps at 61-62 rather than 60 therefore negating the effect of having it turned on. If you apply vsync through nvcpl, seems to work ok.

Thanks for that tip

I'm not sure what I did, but got it running smoothly again now, in DX10 mode

I tried different video options, always stuttering (even during cutscenes, including the very beginning where you get out of your cell)

Tried V-Sync on and off
Tried DX10 mode on and off

After the poster above mention he also had problems, and I noticed he also had an X-Fi card, I thought it may be the sound card drivers.
Turned off the.. I've forgotten what it's called now, extra sounds or something.

Had to restart the game again.
While back at my desktop, I had a thought about the disk loading and disabled my antivirus program.

Loaded GOW again, played near flawlessly. The odd glitch, but no intrusive stuttering like before.

Quit my game, turned the extra sounds back on, restarted GOW again, still played with no stuttering.

The only problem I had, was with terrible tearing even with V-Sync on, so I'll take zytok's advice, and enable it in the control panel. Furthermore, I enabled the DX10/Antialiasing, but I still see jaggies!

How did they let it ship like this?

It's been out for some time, are they going to release another patch to fix these graphical problems... after looking around the net, it's obvious it's not just my system. Anyway disabling antivirus seems to have done the trick. I'll try it again later with antivirus loaded and see if it stutters again.
I remember having a similar problem with Half Life 2 in the early days, until they patched it. It stuttered as it loaded in new sound effects, and scenery.

Anyway, just had a good first go on it, got out of the prison (training level) and am now outside.

Turned the post processing to Vivid too.

V1N.

EDIT: Yep, that got it. Disabling antivirus makes it play smoothly on my system, in Vista x64, in DX10 mode.
Never had that before, but I loaded it with Antivirus running, it was stuttering again. Alt-tabbed out, disabled anti-virus, back in, no probs. Max details on, and V-Sync forced from control panel. Great
(Bloody hard though, or it is for me Just took me a good few attempts to blow the emergence holes up - the first time you see them)

 

[zytok]

believe the AA is the slightly iffy "edge-smoothing" technique rather than "proper" AA. This is an issue with the Unreal Engine in general and most games designed with it either have no or very limited AA options.

 

[V1N]

believe the AA is the slightly iffy "edge-smoothing" technique rather than "proper" AA. This is an issue with the Unreal Engine in general and most games designed with it either have no or very limited AA options.

Fair enough, I have it turned on.
Does something else in the Nvidia Control Panel have to be enabled to use this iffy DX10 AA? Multisampling, or supersampling, or whatever?

I'm not too fussed now.
I'm totally delighted with the performance, now I've disabled antivirus when I play it, it's silky smooth, even at max details, and the tearing is gone thanks to the V-Sync override in the NV CP.

I'm still surprised a game, that loads up, proudly boasting "MICROSOFT GAME STUDIOS" has been let like that though. Bugs ahoy.

I'm playing on my monitor with mouse and keyboard at present, but I keep feeling the temptation to switch to playing on the TV with the XBOX360 pad, and play the way it was originally made for... but it just seems so.. wrong!
Anybody else playing/played the PC version with a pad? Or tried both? Which was better? I'll stick with M&K for now I think, as usual.

V1N.

 

[zytok]

I'm playing through on a 360 pad. It's obviously been designed for it and the rumble support is great. If you're running under Vista, you don't need to enable anything else to use AA, just tick the box in the menu. Don't think it makes that much of a difference looks-wise tbh.

 

[V1N]

I'm playing through on a 360 pad. It's obviously been designed for it and the rumble support is great. If you're running under Vista, you don't need to enable anything else to use AA, just tick the box in the menu. Don't think it makes that much of a difference looks-wise tbh.

No, I haven't noticed much difference either to be honest.
Hmmm, I may try the pad later then.

I'm just having a few problems, sometimes, with the double tapping of the movement keys to get into the cover positions I want to, when I'm already running in the direction I want to take cover in.

V1N.

 

[Artic7]

Is this worth me getting this for my rig or will it struggle?
e2180 o/c to 2.9ghz
x1950 agp card
2 gig of ram
22 inch lg monitor

 

[V1N]

Is this worth me getting this for my rig or will it struggle?
e2180 o/c to 2.9ghz
x1950 agp card
2 gig of ram
22 inch lg monitor

I'm afraid I couldn't possibly comment for sure.
I've only tried it on the rig in my sig, but at 1680x1050 it plays at max details, everything manually set to as high as it will go, and it doesn't drop any frames anywhere. I can just whizz the mouse around in all directions, and it's silky smooth. So fast, I had awful tearing, so had to manually force it in the NV CP as discused above.

So, if it runs this fast, at max details on my card, I should imagine it would run pretty well on a slower card, at least with some of the details turned down.

As I said above, disabling antivirus while playing cured the stuttering problem on my system too.

Sorry I can't be of more help, as I've only tried on my 8800GT, but hopefully it'll give you an idea.

V1N.