24 réponses à ce sujet

[quanzaboy12]

Hey Everyone!

I just got my brand new copy of ME2 a couple days ago and I was super excited to play it! I checked the Recomended System Requirements for the game prior to purchasing it from the official post on BioWare's site, and my computer fits the profile perfectly! Here are my system specs:

Windows XP SP3

AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5200+

NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT (512 MB)

Gigabyte M57SLI-S4 Motherboard

2048MB DDR2 RAM

I installed the game and started to play... stunning graphics... everything is great! However a few minutes into the gameplay it started to stutter non-stop! Every few second it's like it would freeze for a moment and then keep on running smoothly, until the next momentary freeze! So between these freezes it runs perfectly, but they just keep on happening non-stop. It's REALLY annoying to play the game this way! And most of all I don't understand why this is happening since my system should run it perfectly.

I tried reducing all the graphics settings to their lowest, and turned off all the special effects, but that didn't help at all! I also tried updating to the latest drivers for my Graphics Card from the nVidia website, but that didn't help either! So now I am both perplexed and out of ideas! There simply is no reason for this to be happening!

The only thing that seemed to help to a degree is when I set the game from full screen to windowed mode, and that seems to reduce the stuttering a bit, even though it's still there! Also I noticed that the stuttering only begins after you play for a few minutes... so the first few minutes of playing the game it runs smoothly, and then a few minutes in THEN it starts to stutter. It's almost as if some sort of buffer on the Graphics Card is being overloaded, so after a few minutes of gameplay it gets full and it not "emptied" on time... of course this is not based on any techical knowledge on the subject, this is just an analogy to the impression I get.

Does anyone have any Ideas what's going on, and why is this happening? And most importantly, any ideas on how to fix this?

Thanks a lot for reading and for your help!!!

Modifié par quanzaboy12, 15 février 2010 - 01:30 .

[Miriel Amarinth]

Since you only have 2Gb's of RAM and you mention that the first few minutes the game runs perfectly smooth I'm leaning towards this problem being caused by a memory leak in the game, especially since some people have reported ME2 showing signs of it.



The problem with memory leaks is that they cause a program to use up more and more RAM the longer it's running, which causes problems for people with less physical RAM as the program will more quickly reach the limit.



If you're running the game in fullscreen mode you could try alt-tabbing out of the game to the desktop for a few seconds and then alt-tab back in. Sometimes doing so will 'reset' the memory useage of the application to normal levels and you should be stutter-free again for a while. If alt-tabbing turns out to help and relieve the stuttering that would be a clear indication it's a memory leak causing your problem.



If it doesn't it could also be something totally unrelated. The ME games seem to have a penchant for weird technical issues. Your problem ironically sounds kind of similar to an issue I had myself a long time ago with ME1 when I was still running windows XP. In my case however the stuttering/freezing took place from the moment I started the game (so even in the first few minutes) and it would also occur during cutscenes and dialogue, the audio would break up, etc. My issue turned out to be a problem with the Securom copy protection system.



In your case however it sounds more like something isn't running optimally or possibly you're running too much at the same time. Try defragmenting your harddrive, especially if you haven't done so in a while, and also when you start ME2 disable as many other programs as possible. If there is a memory leak then the less you have running on the side while playing ME2 the better.

[quanzaboy12]

Hey, thanks for the advice, but It's definitely not the problem... ME2 takes up around 500MB of system RAM when the stuttering is occurring... there's plenty of memory to spare. Plus I've already tried running it without any programs running at all, and even uninstalled it and re-installed it on a new freshly-formatted hard drive. None of that helped.



Also the recommended sys req's said that 2GB RAM was optimal (1GB was the minimum).



I should mention that Mass Effect 1 is running perfectly on my system with all the settings maxed out.



I'm just wondering if this is some kind of bug in the game itself, and if so maybe a patch release will resolve this. Or if this is some kind of hardware issue... maybe BioWare's "optimal" sys req's aren't so optimal after all and I need to upgrade...

[quanzaboy12]

Anyone else have any ideas?

[quanzaboy12]

Bump

[quanzaboy12]

bump

[Cors Leonus]

I sometimes start stuttering after a very, very extended period of play - upward of five or more hours. It could indicate a memory leak, or heated parts.

[Eurypterid]

Did you try reinstalling (last resort, but worth a shot)? What resolution are you playing at?

[Mooner911]

http://social.biowar...index/905917/14

You didn't list your audio hardware. If you're using Creative SB, see the above post.

At first I thought my game stuttering was an obvious video (driver?) glitch. It turned out to be a Creative fubar that directly affected my NVidia GPU.



hope this helps

[Jax Sparrow]

I have a feeling Mooner911 answered your problem; If not, I would just suggest updating the drivers for your other hardware pieces. I had a computer that had a similar issue once and it was soundcard problem.

[quanzaboy12]

Eurypterid wrote...

Did you try reinstalling (last resort, but worth a shot)? What resolution are you playing at?

Yeah, like I mentioned in my post above, I tried uninstalling, and then re-installing on a freshly formatted hard drive, but that didn't really help. I'm playing at 1680x1050 resolution on a 22" wide screen monitor.

Mooner911 wrote...

http://social.biowar...index/905917/14
You didn't list your audio hardware. If you're using Creative SB, see the above post.
At
first I thought my game stuttering was an obvious video (driver?)
glitch. It turned out to be a Creative fubar that directly affected my
NVidia GPU.

hope this helps

I'm using the onboard soundcard for my motherboard, it's called "Realtec High Definition Audio". Now that I think about it I am also experiencing sound glitches... mainly dialogues cutting off at the end... could this be related?

Regardless, I'll try to uninstall the drivers for my sound card, and re-install the newest ones available from the Gigabyte website, and see if that helps!

Jax Sparrow wrote...

I have a feeling Mooner911 answered
your problem; If not, I would just suggest updating the drivers for
your other hardware pieces. I had a computer that had a similar issue
once and it was soundcard problem.

Thanks! I'll try doing just that!

[quanzaboy12]

YESSSSS!!!!!! Thank you guys!!!! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!! I love you all!!



I completely uninstalled all sound card drivers, and motherboard chipset drivers, downloaded the latest drivers from the Gigabyte website, and then reinstalled (first the chipset, then the sound drivers)!!



Ran the game in FULL SCREEN... perfect!!!! No stuttering what so ever I'm so happy!!!



Thanks again!!! ))

[QuadraQ]

I too have "Realtec High Definition Audio" but I'm running Vista, and Have an HP machine. Where did you get those drivers?

[QuadraQ]

I have a Vista Home Premium 32-bit system with 3 gigs of ram and a nVidia 9600 GT and Realtek audio chip integrated on the motherboard.



I get a lot of stuttering when moving to new areas. If I stand still in an area that's already loaded I can move the mouse around in ridiculous ways and keeps up with me perfectly. But when I open a door, or move far enough in an area that it has to load new stuff and it stutters or even stops for a moment until they are loaded. At that point I can again move around again with no issue until I again move to a new area. I tried updating the Realtek drivers with the latest downloaded from their website but it didn't change anything.



Anyone have any other ideas?

[quanzaboy12]

I just went directly to my motherboard's manufacturer website and got all the drivers from there! I wouldn't go to the realtek website for the drivers, since some drivers are probably motherboard specific. Also check out if there are any updates for the drivers for your mobo's chipset! That's something I did as well, along with installing new audio drivers,so I can't be sure if that has something to do with it or not.



Anyway just put in your motherboard's manufacturer and model in google search, and you'll get a link to download the latest drivers for it. Uninstall previous drivers, then re-install the new ones. That did it for me!



P.S - Also make sure you have the latest drivers for your Graphics Card!



Good Luck!

[QuadraQ]

Unfortunately it's an HP machine so the motherboard is custom and doesn't show any updates for the system on the HP website.

[quanzaboy12]

But it has to have a manufacturer and a model name... last I heard HP doesn't make motherboards!



You can download System Information for Windows and it'll tell you exactly the motherboard that you have:

http://www.gtopala.c...w-download.html



Once you know that, you can the find the appropriate drivers on the manufacturer's website.

[QuadraQ]

Unfortunately it's a custom motherboard, made by Asus for HP only. It's running an American Megatrends Inc. BIOS. Neither AMI or Asus have anything for it, you're supposed to go to the manufacture, and HP doesn't have any updates newer than 2008. This is why bying a pre-built system from one of the major companies like HP and Dell sucks. There are some advantages, but this is the downside. Unfortunately I don't have the money or the time right now to build a new rig.

[quanzaboy12]

Well, If you want I can give you the link to the Realtek sound drivers from the Gigabyte website which I used, but I can't guarantee that they will be compatible with your board if you have a different model of the Realtek onboard sound card. But it's worth a try... at worst you can just uninstall them if they don't work.

Here's the direct download link:
http://america.giga-...ltek_azalia.exe

Also if that doesn't work, try completely uninstalling your motherboard's chipset drivers AND sound drivers, and then re-installing them from scratch from the latest releases you can get. For me, when I installed the sound card drivers without uninstalling the older version first, it didn't help! Only when I uninstalled them completely and did a fresh install - then it solved my problem!

Hope this helps man!

Modifié par quanzaboy12, 16 février 2010 - 07:15 .

[QuadraQ]

Well the Realtek drivers I got directly from them actually uninstalled the old drivers first, rebooted the machine and then I ran the installer again to install the new ones and restarted again. So I think they were installed fresh. I just found an updated version of the BIOS on HP's site and installed it, so I'll see if that helps... Nope. There is an "unlocked" version of the BIOS floating around out there. I might be able to try that but I'm rather nervous about it.

[JamesBurton]

Set 'Default Format' to 24 bits 48 KHz (DVD quality) in 'Realtek HD Audio configuration' (Windows Control Panel), it completely fixed Realtek HD Audio random stutter during gameplay for Mass Effect 2.

[Janitor16]

Try this temporary fix: Start up ME2, Open up Windows Task Manager (Alt+Ctl+Del), Right-Click MassEffect.exe, Go to Set Priority and set it to Above Normal or High.



Smells like a memory leak to me. Still looking for a more permanent solution.

[callmejeed]

I don't have a Set Priority option when I right click Mass Effect.

Modifié par callmejeed, 08 mars 2010 - 03:33 .

[hallivo]

Hey guys. I had the same problem.



Tried tons of things to fix then thought maybe one of the graphics card bundle software from Asus was causing the headache. I uninstalled Asus Gamer OSD (Asus smartdoctor will complain that its missing on next run) and voila no more stuttering!



Running on windows 7 64bit btw.

[QuadraQ]

Wow, thanks Hallivo! I uninstalled the Asus Gamer OSD (which I never understood anyway) and the stuttering appears to be completely gone! What a difference!



I also made the sound changes that JamesBurton suggested above and that seemed to help the audio sync issues. I also installed the latest patch (1.02) and updated by graphics card, so all of that probably helped.



I actually put off playing the game until I could get the stuttering resolved, so I'm extactic that I can now play properly. I also downloaded all the DLC content in the meantime, so now I've got a very rich experience ahead of me. Can't wait!