Stuttering frames

[mianiak]

I have stuttering frame issues with my track, It's a ~4km long uphill track. I tried a few other different tracks and I didn't get any stuttering on them. I have also tried adjusting a few different settings on my system but no change. I have even stripped my track down to a bare track with just terrain, no objects and I still get stutter. Any idea what might be causing it?

Here are my system specs if they are needed
http://project-torque.pastebin.com/f743fe18b

[ED] Forget the bit about the sole track, I never got to that stage, I only thought about it, please excuse my confusion. At that stage it was just the track and the terrain., the bare track is fine.

 

[mianiak]

I'm still trying to fix this, any help would be appreciated.

 

[Kytt]

I get stuttering frames in RBR when BTB is open, close it before running your stage.

 

[mianiak]

Thanks for the reply, I tried that but it didn't make a difference. It's all good though, I'm starting again from scratch.

Cheers

 

[banger]

try changing the vsync on, in your graphixs drivers application. this should be the same has your monitor refresh rate.

 

[mianiak]

try changing the vsync on, in your graphixs drivers application. this should be the same has your monitor refresh rate.

Thanks for your reply banger. I always run vsync on @ 85hz and I have set pre-rendered frames to 1 Without vsync on I'm getting 250+ fps.
As I said, I have started again from scratch, I'm thinking it is either a big piece of terrain I had or something to do with the textures I made. A friend has been helping me giving me some tips on texture making and since talking to him I am more so lead to believe the issue lays with the textures I made.

 

[banger]

if it a big piece of terrain, then no need to redo from scratch,just split it with the terrain tools.

 

[mianiak]

I think I found out why I was getting so confused. Its a 4km long A to B track, there was a piece of terrain at the end of the track that was linked to a piece at the start and I couldn't see it when I had zoomed out because it was so far away. I believe this is what was causing it with just road and terrain. I fixed that and all went well with just the road and terrain.
Now with the full track, trees objects, walls etc all on the map, I have the stuttering frames back (back to the real reason why I'm getting them lol) and I know what it is. Tree shadows... Unfortunately, this track requires lots of trees and lots of shadows to give it the effect it needs for realism but there is just no way I can achieve it with the way everything works.
Weird thing is, when I Made this wip video

everything worked fine. But you might notice the way the shadows fall on the terrain and the weird lighting the terrain is receiving? It might have something to do with the way the smoothing works etc etc and I'm still trying to understand all this.
I don't know what to do now except to do it with no shadows and just make the terrain real dark. Either that or sculpt the terrain with dark and light shades.

 

[Emery]

Compromise. Draw shadows on the ground texture, but only remove 50% of the tree shadows. Not every tree needs to cast a shadow and they can be light shadows rather than full.

To me, the realism comes into play when the shadows move depending on the time of day.

 

[Kytt]

Im getting some stuttering frames in some places on the track. Using bumper cam it's smooth with now frame drops but when car is visible (in or out) while driving then some places i get stuttering. Im talking about RBR.
Any ideas what could cause this?

 

[mianiak]

Thanks Emery, I'm still contemplating how I am going to do this. The drawing will work for terrain bits but not so much for the road. I was thinking of a wall like thing similar to skidmarks and grid lines but with shadows. They don't really have to move they more so have to create the tree tunnel effect.

Here is a video of the track irl.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-e4H1bnFBM[/ame]

 

[mianiak]

I made a video of it @ 60 fps, fraps slightly exaggerated it but what it did is pretty well much what I get. I did 2 runs and you can see it did exactly the same thing in exactly the same places.
http://www.3rdgearmotorsports.com/files/stutteringframes.wmv

For the record, I just updated my video drivers (uninstalled old ones used driver sweaper) but it didn't change a thing.
In the rf setup dialogue, I set AA off and left all the settings in the nvidia control panel at default, ran a 3dmark test and got 11287 3dmarks. I created a new profile in the game also, incase it was a corrupt setting I had, but still I get these stuttering frames. It's like it's stopping and having to catch up or something, weirdest thing is, other people don't get the same thing when they try the track.

Here is the track if anyone has the time to check it out and see what's going on.
http://www.3rdgearmotorsports.com/files/Duryea.rar

 

[banger]

you can also use a shadow effect using alpha channels, like they do in scgt.
same has the skidsmarks piddy made.
just hope you got an artist flair,when doing all those trees.

 

[banger]

just took a look at your track through 3dsimed, and did notice that some of your trees aren't not show shadows textures at all.

Instance=obj_7
{
MeshFile=obj_7.gmt CollTarget=False HATTarget=False ShadowCaster=(Static,Solid,32,32)
}
: this is the static shadow :


Instance=obj_8
{
MeshFile=obj_8.gmt CollTarget=False HATTarget=False ShadowCaster=(Dynamic,Solid,32,32)
}
this is the dynamic shadow; this is effected by light.the 32,32 is the size of the texture.

some of your trees where missing the what type of shadow was implented.and i just re ran your track with the changes and all seems to be a lot smoother, with 21 cars running@ 21-35 fps, i only done a few along the route.also check the gdb, lat/long command,and try rechanging that to make it more darker

 

[mianiak]

Thank you! for taking the time to look into this for me, I very much appreciate it. I will have a look at all that and get back with the results.

 

[mianiak]

Case closed! I found the culprit! I am so happy!!!
What I had done was added panels to the side of the track to make the curb. so instead of it being 4 panels wide it was 8, I can't believe I even missed it, It just hit me when I stopped to think how it was ok in the first stage, but what had I done since, then I realised I had added extra bits to the track. Anyhow, took them out, took it for a run and it was smooth as. Thanks for everyone's help anyway, I learnt a few things in the process

 

[banger]

great m8,

 

[mianiak]

[ed]
nm all is good