Cutscene slowdown + Fraps

[DrAmar]

Hi all,

About 6 months ago I built my first computer (thanks for your support guys) and everything works great except that during game cutscenes I experience noticable slowdown, even though the game itself actually runs great on all setting set to max. (It happens with newer games like Farcry + Codename panzers demos as well as with older games like Homeworld)

Can anybody tell me why that it is the case, and what can I do to help it. My vague theory is that my CPU is perhaps somewhat behind my other comp. spec. and that the cutscenes are maybe very CPU intensive, but at least the 1999 games like Homeworld schouldn't be impacted by that.

(I have AMD Athlon 2500xp stock, Sapphire Radeon 9800pro, Corsair XMS 512 Mb runing dual channel, Asus A7N8X-e Deluxe,
160MB SATA Seagate HD, Win XP Professional)

Also I bought the RAM refurbished, and I was wondering if that might be another possible reason.

Another question I have is about the program called FRAPS (http://www.fraps.com/downloads.htm) which supposedly measures you FPS for games. I am thinking about dowloading it but I want to know how it works. Will it always run in the background when I am playing games (+ If yes will slow down my games by sharing CPU power etc.) or do I somehow enable it before each game I want to benchmark and otherwise it won't bother me ?.

Thanks


I don't even believe in JEBUS!
Homer, you are on the flight to a remote island where you will be doing some missionary work.
SAVE ME JEBUS!!!!!!

 

[Mr5oh]

On Fraps, yeah it works great. You can set it to only run for a certain length of time. It is a program that you start before the game, and seems pretty accurate. I don't notice any slow down even running Doom3 (I have it set to refresh once a second, and run all the time).

Obvisuly it is going to take a way some resources from the game, but this is very, very minimal. I have never noticed a difference. If you don't want it running, just don't open it. I usually use it briefly with new games just to see how they are running on my PC, at different quality settings.

My Desktop: <A HREF="http://Mr5oh.tripod.com/pc.html" target="_new">http://Mr5oh.tripod.com/pc.html</A>
Overclocking Results: <A HREF="http://Mr5oh.tripod.com/pc2.html" target="_new">http://Mr5oh.tripod.com/pc2.html</A>

 

[DrAmar]

Thanks Mr5oh,

Ps. Any idea on the cutscene slowdowns?
Funny enough, when I play the game (which I assume schuld be much harder on the comp.) I notice no slowdowns at all.

I don't even believe in JEBUS!
Homer, you are on the flight to a remote island where you will be doing some missionary work.
SAVE ME JEBUS!!!!!!

 

[Cybercraig]

The newer games like FarCry and Doom3 can use more than 512mb of memory. I have a friend with 512mb that has noticed this and is upping to a gb. I am assuming, of course, that you have also updated your Catalyst drivers. When I bought my 9800Pro it came with 3.8. It's running a lot better now with 4.9.

Abit IS7 - 2.8C @ 3.4ghz - Mushkin PC4000 (2 X 512) - Sapphire 9800Pro - TT 420 watt Pure Power
Samsung 120gb ATA-100 - Maxtor 40gb ATA - 100
Sony DRU-510A - Yellowtail Merlot

 

[endyen]

Cutscenes are stored on your hdd. Yes, your drive is very fast, but it is slower than memory, so it will seem to run a bit slower. I kind of like that they do, a bit of a break is good.

 

[DrAmar]

Hdd, yes that makes a lot of sense!!!

However i just ran Fraps on the games with "slowdown" (and there are many) and it is ridiculous because it is actually a slide show!!! (sometimes 5-7 fps on the games I easely run with 60-70 fps during heavy gameplay)

I think you might be right with the HDD because I had nothing but trouble with my Seagate 160GB Barracuda 7200.7 Model ST3160023AS. The first one malfunctioned after only 3 days, so I am not very confident with the new one either.

Another thing that makes me think you are right is because my motherboard (Asus A7N8X-E deluxe) has SATA interface but it is not native and I had to manually install Silicon drivers from a floppy before I could even install Win XP (It was a major pain in the butt, since I had no idea why Win is not recognizing my HDD). Maybe that whole SATA technology was just not very well worked out at the time and I am feeling the consequences. Also every time I start Win XP it askes me if I want to enter the Raid utility manager even though I didn't do it the first 1000 times.

Anyhow, back on topic, what can I do?
Is there a benchmark or something where I can see if HDD is a problem (Like MemTest for Ram) and what to do if it is?
I will defrag the hdd, but when I tried to download newest Silicon SataRaid controller the Windows update recommended, it failed to install for some reason?
I think something is probably wrong there.

Thanks




I don't even believe in JEBUS!
Homer, you are on the flight to a remote island where you will be doing some missionary work.
SAVE ME JEBUS!!!!!!

 

[DrAmar]

Ok, I just found and run HD Tach (http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/index.php?request=HdTach)
and according to the data my hdd works very good. (Burst speed, acces time and everything)
Also I now succesfuly updated my SATA driver but I still have the same slideshow.

I don't know, maybe it is something else after all, lol


I don't even believe in JEBUS!
Homer, you are on the flight to a remote island where you will be doing some missionary work.
SAVE ME JEBUS!!!!!!