Is Steam causing stuttering?

[qubit]

Well that was a nightmare. I got Windows 7 for $80 and am trying it later.

It's so good compared to XP, you'll wonder how you ever did without it. Note that the same key works for both 32-bit and 64-bit versions, as they're functionally equivalent, with the only differences being related to 64-bit benefits.

 

[Aquinus]

Well that was a nightmare. I got Windows 7 for $80 and am trying it later.

Do a clean install, upgrading tends to leave a lot of extra garbage on your computer afterwards and doesn't always work well.

Edit: Actually you have to do a clean install, 32-bit can't upgrade to 64-bit.

 

[AngryMerchant]

I don't have a problem with doing a clean install. But the disc won't be here until mid-week and the downloaded installer refuses to run on a 32-bit system. So I'm stuck.

 

[Aquinus]

I don't have a problem with doing a clean install. But the disc won't be here until mid-week and the downloaded installer refuses to run on a 32-bit system. So I'm stuck.

The download wasn't an ISO?

 

[AngryMerchant]

There's an ISO, option, I didn't think to try that one yet. But I doubt we have any discs large enough right now (3.1GB).

 

[Aquinus]

There's an ISO, option, I didn't think to try that one yet. But I doubt we have any discs large enough right now (3.1GB).

That's a DVD ISO image, that would never fit on a CD. If you do it right if you have an 8gb flash drive you could use that if your rig supports booting from USB.

 

[AngryMerchant]

I don't have any DVD's. I'll just have to wait until Wednesday at the earliest.

 

[ThE_MaD_ShOt]

I also vouch I haven't had a problem with stuttering and steam. But it may be limited to win xp.

 

[fullinfusion]

I've been experiencing Video studdering... Only while watching game trailers and going to full screen... If I right click I get smooth video for some reason...

It seems to be the latest Steam update causing the problems..

 

[Aquinus]

I've been experiencing Video studdering... Only while watching game trailers and going to full screen... If I right click I get smooth video for some reason...

It seems to be the latest Steam update causing the problems..

Works fine for me.

 

[TheHunter]

What LAN port do you use, Realtek or Intel?

Because the latest Realtek 7.058 causes 600us interrupts every 4-5sec (DPC latency checker).. When i reverted to default win7 7.050 it stopped.


Idk could be connected or completely irrelevant

 

[AngryMerchant]

That's a DVD ISO image, that would never fit on a CD. If you do it right if you have an 8gb flash drive you could use that if your rig supports booting from USB.

The ISO image would function the same as the Windows 7 install media, in that I would be able to boot the burned ISO image from the disc drive (I have a DVD drive, not a problem) the same as any Windows 7 install disc? Provided I have at least an 8GB DVD to write it on. Although I haven't much of an idea what the best free DVD burning software would be for something as important as this.
4th of July is messing with my shipping, so it'll take a week to get here, and I figure it'll be worth it just to go get some DVD's.

 

[Widjaja]

Just to add to my previous post, the issue I was experiencing with steam and stutter in games on XP appears maybe be related to a game.

I have not played Saints Row the Third in a while and have not noticed the stutter issue I was getting before.
It's also the only game which has an unusual bug where I need to keep either a browser on a webpage with a flash object or windows media player running in the background or the vehicle audio will lag.

L.A. Noire, DiRT 3, QUBE, Driver San Francisco which are the only games I have been playing all week have all been playing smoothly.

 

[AngryMerchant]

Saints Row The Third has given me a lot of trouble. It stuttered like crazy on my laptop, and I found it was because the game was trying to use the Intel gpu instead of the Nvidia, not properly switching between them, something along those lines. You never know what you're going to get with that game.

I got 7 installed through the ISO, and rather predictably, my wireless adapter has no driver support for Windows 7, so the saga continues as I await the new adapter's delivery.

 

[Mussels]

i'm going to have a random guess that it might be related to adobe flash. flash has a tendency to lock the GPU at lower clock speeds to 'low 3D' clocks, and steams web browser has a bunch of video playback. could be related.


make sure to close the main steam window (and any browsers) and disable hardware acceleration in your browsers/flash?

 

[CaptainFailcon]

uncaping frame-rates is a extremely bad idea
you don't have enough grunt to hold the framerate stable at such high fps
anytime you have spikes in load and are already maxing the hardware because you are letting the game run as fast as it will go it WILL show up as stuttering
for example
playing a game of TF2 if you uncap the framerate it will run the gpu/cpu to 100% load then suddenly the engine decides it needs to swap in a texture or load some other asset guss what it doesn't have enough free cpu/gpu power todo it when it needs to and so it has to wait for some cycles to be available BOOM stuttering plain and simple
I would bet this weeks paycheck that if you cap it to 60Fps or so the problem will go away don't use vsync just set the maxfps var unless you can spare the vram to use triple buffering

 

[AngryMerchant]

We already went over this on the first page. Locking framerate with Bandicam or console commands had no benefit. This also would not explain why the stuttering is just as prevalent in Assassin's Creed II or Arkham City, both games that rarely go above 60fps.

There aren't any suggestions to be made right now, because my desktop is currently sitting at a newly-installed Windows 7 and has no internet connection, so I can't test anything.

 

[AngryMerchant]

It didn't seem to do anything. I have absolutely no clue how any of this is possible. How the problem is limited to Steam, how a new hard drive, new RAM, and a new OS entirely had literally no effect.

 

[Widjaja]

There was an update done around the time you started having issues, so maybe it is the steam update and the system configuration.

A speculation.....

 

[fullinfusion]

I did a clean OS install and still have the problem... weird

oh well no biggy, I dont watch to many trailers unless there's a game Im thinking of buying.

 

[AngryMerchant]

I'm just having a lot of trouble in general. TF2 is now running like it's on a significantly weaker computer, as if the GPU has been severely downclocked (settings in Precision all look normal). Although Source is supposedly CPU-dependent, and even then a Core 2 Duo at 3.00 ghz should be adequate. Windows 7 is also only recognizing 2GB of RAM (XP recognizes 3.5). I've switched the slots the sticks are in, to no improvement. This is all a mess.

 

[Jstn7477]

A Pentium Dual Core E6600 @ 3.8GHz, 8GB DDR3 and a GTX 550 Ti barely did 60FPS VSYNC in TF2 at 1440*900, and it was stuttering almost the entire time. My 2600K with the same video card did 120 FPS VSYNC most of the time at 1080p, but the video card often dropped to 60 FPS so I locked it at 100 FPS and it worked great.

My 2600K with a better video card such as my 7950 could easily do 150-250 FPS without VSYNC enabled, unless I was on a poorly optimized map. It's amazing how much better this CPU is for TF2 compared to that E6600 or even my previous gaming machine's X4 955BE @ 3.8GHz.

A Core 2 Duo is meh these days. I needed a Phenom X4 or greater for a smooth 60FPS in it when a C2D was always all over the place with framerates.

 

[AngryMerchant]

Last edit: It's still having difficulty getting the RAM recognized, and I can't find memory allocation anywhere in the BIOS. However, the biggest problem by far was hidden behind my CPU fan. The 4-pin PSU connector only had 2 pins connected. So there's that.