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Hamr 9 Mar, 2019 @ 3:06pm
Stuttering Issues [SOLVED!!!]
Disclaimer: I posted this in the bugs section earlier, and, after deleting that thread, I'm only reposting here for greater visibility (it seems that the bugs section is unavailable to those searching for Steam discussions online while not logged in). I hope it does not come across as though I'm spamming.

After a few tests, I found that, at least in my case, the issue stems from a problem with the sound. I got a consistent, butter-smooth 80+ FPS with no stutter with the sound turned off during one of my test runs. Obviously, it's not an ideal solution, but since the problem remains largely a mystery, if anyone else could go into config and under [Audio] change Enabled = 1 to 0 and report results, we might be able to get a little closer to figuring the issue out.

The following discussion describes a similar issue, but in Russian: https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/app/384110/discussions/1/1736589519991849743/

Might just be driver or hardware issues - I'm not really familiar with much outside of playing with config files. In any case, I'll leave my specs below.

Windows 8.1
AMD A6-4400
AMD 7520G (512MB-2GB?)
4 GB DDR3 RAM (1x4GB)
500 GB 5400 RPM HDD

Links to my engine and exception logs:
engine: https://my.mixtape.moe/tcycol.log
exception: https://my.mixtape.moe/mretjy.txt (those nulls at the bottom are a bit freaky)

After reviewing my engine logs, I found that the game either uses up 2GB of my video memory or just detects that much (this is because of the way the APU is structured - it uses regular RAM as vRAM, and I think it caps itself at 2GB). So, in my case, it might actually be a hardware limitation. Hoping someone with a more powerful rig can clear things up a bit.

Shot in the dark: Maybe Pathologic's engine doesn't play nice with Conexant audio drivers?

Cheers

UPDATE: Followed advice from another thread and set RefreshRate to 60 and turned on VSync. This decreased the microstutters, but did not eliminate them as turning off the sound did. Also, this significantly lightened the load on my CPU (70%-90% average CPU usage without the tweak, 40%-65% average CPU usage after the tweak; 60%-80% CPU usage without the tweak, sound off), so it seems that a hardware bottleneck can be ruled out. It might be safe to say that something is wrong with the game's sound.

UPDATE: Looked over one of my logs, found this:
OpenAL error, file: SoundManager.cpp line: 528 (Invalid Operation)
Anyone know what this means?
Last edited by Hamr; 1 Sep, 2019 @ 12:39pm
A developer of this app has marked a post as the answer to the topic above.
Click here to jump to that post.
Originally posted by Good Shepherd Entertainment:
Hey all,

Thanks for this creative workaround! We've been attempting to solve this on our end too and are having issues reproducing it. If anyone would like to help, we think this solution should solve things but we need your assistance in trying it out.

INSTRUCTIONS:
There is now a separate steam branch with Eng, Rus, Pol, Ita versions of Pathologic Classic HD with Sounds.vfs unpacked.
Currently, the branch is under the beta access password: erlt67fk23kf
You can switch the branch in steam game properties (by entering the password and switching branch)
Here's a guide on Switching branches if this is NEW TO YOU.

Would you be kind enough to try it and let us know the result? Of course, you will have to remove the fix listed above to make sure it doesn't conflict. Thanks so much!
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Showing 1-15 of 74 comments
Enssra 2 Apr, 2019 @ 5:38am 
i think the gog version doesn't have this issue.

idk how to look what's different with the gog version
#1
eZudo 3 Apr, 2019 @ 8:03am 
The GOG version (the classic HD version, that is) has the same issue. The original pathologic, however, does not.
#2
Hamr 3 Apr, 2019 @ 11:18pm 
Thanks for keeping the thread alive. Hoping one of the devs sees it and could possibly provide some insight, or at least somebody who has the same problem and is more knowledgeable about issues like these, as I've pretty much exhausted any ideas I might have had about what further details to add about this case.
#3
Cryophile 7 Apr, 2019 @ 10:40am 
I'm having the same problems. The game runs super smooth with all graphics options if I turn audio off in the config.ini. If audio is on it doesn't matter what settings I have. It will stutter the entire time, and if music starts playing it will stutter even harder.

I can't really play and enjoy an atmospheric game like this if I have to turn all audio off to play above 10fps. I'm running this on an i7-6700k/1080ti.
Last edited by Cryophile; 7 Apr, 2019 @ 10:42am
#4
AlienHuntinYeti 12 May, 2019 @ 5:23pm 
Same thing here. Weird that turning the sound off in the config fixes the stuttering... couldn't find a solution anywhere, tried messing with the sample rate to no avail. Your advice to set RefreshRate to 60 and VSync on seemed to help a lot though, had VSync off through game, on through the NVidia control panel because of another thread
Last edited by AlienHuntinYeti; 12 May, 2019 @ 5:33pm
#5
beefsweat 18 May, 2019 @ 10:16am 
EDIT: Miraculously, on my nvidia-based machine, clearing out old drivers with Display Driver Uninstaller and reinstalling the current drivers (430.64 right now) seems to have fixed something. The game is now perfectly playable again, somehow!

--

I've also been having these same issues, regardless of windows or driver updates. Nothing fixes the stuttering at all, the game has been unplayable on my machine for months...

win10, i7-4790k cpu, gtx970 gpu, 16gb ram, tried installing to SSD and HDD to no avail
Last edited by beefsweat; 18 May, 2019 @ 10:38am
#6
Hamr 19 May, 2019 @ 1:56am 
Was hesitant about doing anything with my drivers- my laptop just doesn't want to cooperate on that front- but thanks for inspiring some hope, beefsweat! Will try it when I get the chance and report back.
#7
prof_westman 19 May, 2019 @ 2:16am 
Please report back Hamr! Curious to see if it works.
#8
Hamr 21 May, 2019 @ 12:45pm 
Uninstalled my video drivers. Installed the latest that were available for my integrated card (from 2015) as opposed to my current (maybe 2013). It doesn't seem to have affected anything.
#9
piss 25 May, 2019 @ 10:29pm 
Would like to know about this as I am having the same problem with this game, and as you say, turning off the audio fixes my performance issues. It's quite bizarre
#10
erribl 29 May, 2019 @ 10:33am 
verified my game files; it found 2 missing/borken files and fixed the stuttering for me.
ymmv
also deleted my controls, but that doesn't really matter.
Last edited by erribl; 29 May, 2019 @ 10:44am
#11
Hamr 29 May, 2019 @ 3:35pm 
So, a couple of things.

It slipped my mind to mention at the very beginning that I had the English version, but swapped out the audio for the Russian version, so as to have English text and Russian speech. I was hesitant to verify game files because of this, as that would reset the tweak.

However, after I verified and everything had been reset, and the game was back to English text and audio, I think the stutters were reduced - not eliminated, but reduced (haven't tested this yet, though - might just be placebo). I probably should have seen this coming - one should expect to mess up the audio, at least a little, when messing with the audio files. If anyone else tried what I did, it may be worth it to gauge performance with the tweak and then without it.

Tried turning off the various different sounds to see if I could isolate the problem (if it was the music, the sound effects, or voices) but even though it says "off" in the sound menu when a sound category is at 0%, the engine still seems to try and generate those sounds, so only switching audio to disabled in the config does the job.

Still at a loss. Just hoping against hope that the devs see this thread and give us some answers.
Last edited by Hamr; 29 May, 2019 @ 9:38pm
#12
waveshaper 5 Jun, 2019 @ 1:51am 
+1 to this thread. Having the exact same issue on my partner's laptop. Game runs buttery smooth with sound disabled in the .ini OR if sound.dll is moved/deleted/renamed from bin/Final. If not it lags literally every second inside and even worse in external areas.

I play a lot of older games so I tried my usual sound problem solutions: enabling Stereo Mix (works for a fair few older games), changing the sample rate in the .ini, changing output device, restarting, uninstalling Nvidia HD Audio, nothing.

It's definitely sound related, no question. Moving the sound.dll from bin/Final gave me a warning that the sound wouldn't work, but playing the game was completely smooth.

My laptop doesn't have the best specs but it should be able to run this fine, and it can, when sound is disabled. Still, for posterity, specs are:

Windows 10 Pro
4GB RAM
Game on SSD
GeForce GT 230M
i5 M 430 @ 2.27ghz

I'm subscribing to this discussion, I hope that the devs respond. Otherwise my partner has to play it on my PC instead of on his laptop. Cheers.
#13
waveshaper 5 Jun, 2019 @ 7:27am 
Hey guys so this is the partner reporting back haha. I'm totally inept with PC gaming stuff so this might sound dumb. Instead of starting the game in the steam client, I used the game exe file in its steam folder and ran it as administrator. After I did this the stuttering went away! Hopefully this works for you guys as well!
#14
piss 5 Jun, 2019 @ 1:30pm 
Originally posted by b-f-kenyon:
Hey guys so this is the partner reporting back haha. I'm totally inept with PC gaming stuff so this might sound dumb. Instead of starting the game in the steam client, I used the game exe file in its steam folder and ran it as administrator. After I did this the stuttering went away! Hopefully this works for you guys as well!

I just tried this out and played for a couple of minutes, and it seems like this fixed the stuttering issues for me!

Would recommend anyone else having this problem to try this out.
#15
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Pathologic Classic HD > General Discussions > Topic Details
Date Posted: 9 Mar, 2019 @ 3:06pm
Posts: 74

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