Jerky mouse fix

[acrh2]

(The mouse handling is still pretty broken in the game. As soon as the framerate in game drops below MaxSmoothedFrameRate, mouse becomes very jerky.)

 

This fix addresses the issues for people who already improved their jerky mouse issue by lowering

MaxSmoothedFrameRate.

 

Asset (textures and other things) streaming makes the game drop the framerate severely in certain spots on the map. This fix works by minimizing the streaming, so the framerate and consequently the mouse are much more stable and smooth.

 

In APEngine.ini (C:\Users\username\Documents\Alpha Protocol\APGame\Config), change the following settings:

 

UseBackgroundLevelStreaming=false

OnlyStreamInTextures=true

 

 

This made the game almost entirely jerky free for me at MaxSmoothedFrameRate=62, but I do have a very high end system.

(I also changed some cache size values in the same file, but I'm not sure that they are needed.)

[acrh2]

And the final fix:

 

OneFrameThreadLag=False in the same file.

 

This should fix all mouse issues, it seems.

Edited May 31, 2010 by acrh2

[PwNinat0r2000]

Excellent work, this seems to have completely fixed the mouse stuttering issue.

 

Thanks!

[DaniDE]

Ohh...I gonna try this asap. Thanks alot in advance!

 

 

 

Edit: I confirm this has fixed all stuttering for me. I can even snipe now. I use smoothing min=20, max=62 and finally have a fluent gameplay :D

Edit 2: I have not changed any cache settings, just fyi.

 

-Dani

 

PS: You should get a medal or something.

Edited May 31, 2010 by DaniDE

[Lexx]

"OneFrameThreadLag=False" worked for me. Thanks for the tip.

[Oner]

It's..it's beautiful..

[blackwolfe]

Thanks, I'll give this a try

[cesko]

Is this also a sort of fix for those framedrops?

[Tigranes]

Sounds great, adding to known issues thread (which will be up soon) now. Thanks for working it out!

[blackwolfe]

Still experiencing jerky mouse issues after the fix.

[PwNinat0r2000]

Still experiencing jerky mouse issues after the fix.

 

They've crept back for me too. Managed that first "Bug the Airbase" mission fine but the next one where you go underground and upload some data has been really sketchy. Time for another thread about that mission though, it's got completely different problems as well as the stuttering.

[acrh2]

Still experiencing jerky mouse issues after the fix.

 

They've crept back for me too. Managed that first "Bug the Airbase" mission fine but the next one where you go underground and upload some data has been really sketchy. Time for another thread about that mission though, it's got completely different problems as well as the stuttering.

 

I noticed this too. In the last few missions (last Rome and the final mission), there's momentary mouse lag. I'm guessing that the map designers didn't optimize their "streaming materials" for the last few missions. The mouse jerkiness was fixed, but excessive load of textures was still there, resulting in some general framerate drop.

 

Nevertheless, I've reloaded some older missions, and they were mostly smooth as butter.

 

I'm pretty much done investigating the quirks of the Unreal Engine. At this point, Obsidian needs to step up to the plate...

[Tokie]

The fix made the game MUCH better. Thanks for posting it!

 

Though it still stutters at some places, at least it's less frequent now.

[PwNinat0r2000]

I'm pretty much done investigating the quirks of the Unreal Engine. At this point, Obsidian needs to step up to the plate...

 

Agreed.

[poolofpoo]

still stutters for me but maybe not as much, now the menus are slow instead and i've made a complete mess of my .ini-files

 

great fun

[blackwolfe]

I cant even remember what I did to my ini files, but there are tons and tons of changes in search of a fix. The stuttering aint there, but the mouse jerkiness is. So... they are a complete mess at the moment.

Edited June 1, 2010 by blackwolfe

[player1]

It should be noted that bUseBackgroundLevelStreaming=False increases memory load (level segments are preloaded, instead streamed during play), so while it helps with short lag that happens from time to time (when game loads stuff), it can actually be bad for configurations with small amount of RAM (1-2GB).

 

On the other hand, OneFrameThreadLag=False addresses constant mouse shuttering, if frame rate is not perfect 60. Without it, when I tested with FRAPS, with perfect 60fps, there was no shuttering, but when it dropped to 55 or less, it would shutter when moving mouse. With fix, it doesn't happen anymore.

 

 

My preliminary testing shows that OnlyStreamInTextures=True is not needed.

 

.

 

Anyway, for now, I use these two only:

bUseBackgroundLevelStreaming=False

OneFrameThreadLag=False

Edited June 1, 2010 by player1

[Calax]

Oddly enough, the stuff is in different places with XP I can't find anything like this in the "DefaultEngine" ini, or "DefaultGame", "DefaultUI"

 

Edit:Whoops, was looking in the program files directory rather than my docs.

Edited June 1, 2010 by Calax

[DaniDE]

Yeah sadly the jerkyness came back on later levels, it was especially bad in moscow / braykos villa. But the settings above made it much better most of the time.

 

-Dani

Edited June 2, 2010 by DaniDE

[Reg1.1]

And the sniper spazz has still not been fixed, and Obsidian aren't breathing a word to the community about anything.

[acrh2]

And the sniper spazz has still not been fixed, and Obsidian aren't breathing a word to the community about anything.

 

They probably are overwhelmed or just decided not to do much.

 

Consider how much of a consolized port this game is, and how much work it would require:

I just started a second playthrough on Hard specializing in Assault Rifles, only to find out that the main AR skill is nearly useless when you play with a mouse. It's actually detrimental to aiming with a mouse.

[blackwolfe]

I got stealth, sabotage and assault rifles as my main skills at the moment and only pull out the AS if needed. But when I do I can really feel the mouse issues.

[Tigranes]

Hrm. I guess it doesn't really affect me at all, since I've been using AR fine. Sucks that the ini fixes don't work for everyone. :/

[player1]

Update on fix testing I did.

 

bUseBackgroundLevelStreaming=False helps a lot to reduce momentary shutters that happen from time to time (by preloading levels), but even with it, textures are still streamed and sometimes their loading will produce shutter. Good place to test this is in Greybox, in area where you get your clothes and can customize Thorton. Going from one side to another side of area will almost always produce shutter at specific point, even with all fixes applied.

 

Texture streaming is something that just can't be turned off in UT3, so there is no good way to remove that kind of shutter.

 

Still, many other games with UT3 engine stream everything, and have no issues with shutter, so these things are pretty much a band aid until Obsidian delivers a proper fix.

Edited June 3, 2010 by player1

[Reg1.1]

Borderlands runs fine and has streaming as well, and has to stream so much more in comparrison, and on my crap rig, that has so little po-in, while AP has always on pop-in.

[fkldnhlsdngsfnhlsndlg]

Texture streaming is something that just can't be turned off in UT3, so there is no good way to remove that kind of shutter.

 

Still, many other games with UT3 engine stream everything, and have no issues with shutter, so these things are pretty much a band aid until Obsidian delivers a proper fix.

A lot of games have ways of covering up the streaming. If you disable the loading movies in Gears of War, for example, you'll see that the game actually streams in all the textures the same way that it does in any other game, but uses the loading movies to mask it. Meanwhile, a game like Borderlands doesn't have much pop-in, but it does have some. The wide-open levels coupled with a more gradual LOD system likely goes a long way towards hiding the texture popping, but it's still there. It all comes down to clever optimisation methods, like pre-loading characters into memory that you are absolutely sure are going to appear in a scene, using cutscenes and camera angles to hide streaming transitions, etc.

Edited June 3, 2010 by sea