Blur Busters Forums

Thanks for reply lexlazootin.

Been doing some more testing. And I don't know at this point. Sometimes I think the system it's self has a fault, other times, I think there are just tweaks you need to make on a game by game basis, to fix these issues. Kinda feeling a bit overwhelmed to be honest, as i'm trying to understand the feedback i'm seeing in testing the rig, but I think maybe i'm just not smart enough to intuitively understand what all the little quirks you see in testing mean.

Anyway. l4d2 "seems" to be better now, although i've been at this point before where I think i've fixed issues, but then it turns out the problem is still there after much more testing.

What I did was add these steam launch options:
-novid -high -nojoy -heapsize 1572864 -threads 4
(not even sure what some of them do, but they popped up a lot as fixes in other forums)

Add this console command:
cl_forcepreload 1
(force's pre-loading of many level components at start rather than on the fly)

Set FPS limit to 119 for l4d2.exe in rivatuner. 115 limit increased the stutter in normally stutter free area's. 119 seems to be the best level over all, but it doesn't eliminate stutter when there are lots of zombies spawning.

The most effective fix for the stuttering, especially when that are lots of zombies spawned is to set core affinity to the bottom 4 cores (cores 4 to 11) in task manager, as I figure any background processes running will usually default to core 0 and/or core 1, so that way the game can have it's own set of 4 core's as it were.

I don't know whether it's a combination of all these tweaks together or just the core affinity on it's own, but the stuttering has been very much reduced and it's a very much playable now. The only stutter that remains now is the normal "whole frame" tiny micro stutter that, as I understand, is a normal level of stutter for g-sync. This tiny micro stutter is best observable whenever you are close to and facing a 3d object in a game and you use the keyboard and mouse to rotate around the object, whilst moving the mouse in tandem to keep the object in the center of you field of view. V-sync did the same thing, although triple buffering reduced it.

I don't want to jinx it, as knowing my luck, i'll think this has fixed it, but then tomorrow it''ll have issues again. What I don't fully understand is why reducing the number of cores the game can use gets rid of stuttering. Surely giving the game less resources to work with would only make things worse ?

Anyway, looking forward to going back to shooting some zombies in the face again and not dealing with stutter.

Multicore rendering makes it so that there are two or more cores working on different frames at different times and with my experience it's not as good as single core goes but i will download L4D2 and see how well i can get it. On CS:GO anyways i run it at 1080p with all the settings down to the lowest, with single core rendering i can keep a stable 140fps with ease so no need for more then one core but now thinking of how much stuff is going on in l4d2 you probably want WAY more then one core. The best way to max your system would be to use these launch options...

-novid -high -nojoy -threads 12 -nod3d9ex -high (Valve said don't use heapsize)

When the game launches the console will open, type in these commands...

cl_forcepreload 1
mat_queue_mode 2
fps_max 110

If this is not smooth also try fps_max 100

For some reason Gmod only has a smooth experience using gsync at 100fps... no idea why but it might be the same with l4d2

Use the ingame FPS limiter as you will probably have a better experience then using any other, so disable the other ones. So gives these a go and I'll check out for myself how well my system can run it because there seriously isn't enough people talking about gsync ATM.

What the actual fuck... They disabled fps_max in L4D2... I have no words.

Edit: Dude, i just tryed L4D2 with the RivaTuner capping my fps to 130 (I have 144hz gsync monitor) and everything was perfect. With everything max out it ran super smooth and with everything turned down and multicore off it ran super smooth. I feel like you need to update your drivers or something because it's running VERY well on my system and your system should reck mine. I didn't even have to change any launch settings or anything.

4690k (Standard clock)
970 Strix (Standard clock)

lexlazootin wrote:Multicore rendering makes it so that there are two or more cores working on different frames at different times and with my experience it's not as good as single core goes but i will download L4D2 and see how well i can get it. On CS:GO anyways i run it at 1080p with all the settings down to the lowest, with single core rendering i can keep a stable 140fps with ease so no need for more then one core but now thinking of how much stuff is going on in l4d2 you probably want WAY more then one core. The best way to max your system would be to use these launch options...

-novid -high -nojoy -threads 12 -nod3d9ex -high (Valve said don't use heapsize)

When the game launches the console will open, type in these commands...

cl_forcepreload 1
mat_queue_mode 2
fps_max 110

If this is not smooth also try fps_max 100

For some reason Gmod only has a smooth experience using gsync at 100fps... no idea why but it might be the same with l4d2

Use the ingame FPS limiter as you will probably have a better experience then using any other, so disable the other ones. So gives these a go and I'll check out for myself how well my system can run it because there seriously isn't enough people talking about gsync ATM.

lexlazootin, thank you for taking the time to install l4d2 on your rig to test it, much appreciated.

One thing you mentioned that I wanted to ask you about, was you mentioned that "Valve said don't use heapsize." When was this ? like what did they say exactly in relation to the use of heapsize switch ??
Dose it not work in l4d2 or will it cause problems or something ?

Teran wrote:Dose it not work in l4d2 or will it cause problems or something ?

All it does I'm pretty sure is change the amount of memory the game can use. and I remember reading somewhere I can't find ATM, that the game will take care of it and you don't have to worry.

http://store.steampowered.com/news/4371/

This is a update notice for source 2010.

lexlazootin wrote:

Teran wrote:Dose it not work in l4d2 or will it cause problems or something ?

All it does I'm pretty sure is change the amount of memory the game can use. and I remember reading somewhere I can't find ATM, that the game will take care of it and you don't have to worry.

http://store.steampowered.com/news/4371/

This is a update notice for source 2010.

Thank you lexlazootin, that might explain why i've had crashes using the heapsize switch. Thank you for finding that link, much appreciated. Because what I was seeing in my testing over the past few days it appeared as though there was an issue.

Basically it seems like the game can't address more than 1.5/2Gb of memory. So if you set a corresponding heapsize for 1.5Gb, then when the game hits that memory allocation, it just causes a system wide hard crash or a crash to desktop.
But if you lower the heapsize to say, 1gig or 512mb, the same thing happens. Soon as the game hit's that memory mark it crashes.

I'm going to do some more testing with all new tweaks except for the heapsize switch and cl_forcepreload command. And see if that stops the crashing.

Thanks man, appreciate all your help.

i was just testing gtx 780 sli with a gsync monitor and there was still noticeable micro stutters. Some games seemed to work well like battlefield 4 but i assume its because that game has had a lot of driver support. most games ran a lot worse with sli and not even gsync could fix the stutters. gsync really works its best with a single gpu.

Multi-GPU tech is at present still little more than a cash grab from my point of view. Greatly increased cost (price of second GPU + supporting mobo + supporting PSU + power usage/heat/noise) for a rarely amazing performance increase (it's very rarely more than or even just equal to 40-50%) and you either get micro-stuttering or a strict minimum of 1 frame of latency (that would only change if they started using SFR again).
Add to that the potential driver issues (I remember specific g-sync related bugs early on)... meh, might as well just go for a Titan X since you get a shitload of VRAM as a bonus (and now THAT can certainly help a lot stuttering-wise as games will be able to cache plenty of data, even if they don't actually need 12Gb).