Portal Stuttering

aarste · 11-06-2009, 02:43 PM

I've come back to playing Portal again after 2 years, but it stutters quite a lot, even on the title screen when the camera pans across the room.

I've changed all the video settings from its recommended settings (most were on high) all down to low, changed res from 1680x1050 to the lowest possible but the stutter is still there. One thing I've noticed is my CPU Core #1 is on 100% load whether this game is running on low or high settings, Core #2 is hardly doing anything.

The only difference since the last time I played is I'm now on Windows 7 64 and on Geforce 260 SSC, I used to be on XP and ATI Radeon 1950XT.

specs:
2.66GHz Intel Core Duo E6700
Abit AW9D-Max i975X Motherboard
4GB OCZ DDR2 PC2-6400 Platinum Revision 2 Dual Channel
EVGA Geforce 260 SSC 896MB
Creative X-Fi Xtreme Gamer 7.1

gorpie · 11-06-2009, 03:27 PM

have you tried adding -32bit to your launch options?

aarste · 11-06-2009, 03:49 PM

No that didn't do anything, wasn't hopeful it would since hl2.exe was running as a 32bit process already.

But, I managed to fix the stutter by setting the affinity of hl2.exe to use the second CPU core instead. Which is very weird.... I've already checked the activity on the first core in windows with the game closed and its only 3% on average, which is hardly anything to be affecting the game.

Now to find a way to make that change permanent!

nrnoble · 11-06-2009, 08:20 PM

Portal, and most all Valve games AFAIK, only use 1 CPU\core, so the other one will be mostly idle. If the same core is being use by other processes, then there might create a problem such as stuttering in the game. I have 4 cores and I sometimes see stuttering.

darkrai88 · 11-06-2009, 10:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nrnoble

Portal, and most all Valve games AFAIK, only use 1 CPU\core, so the other one will be mostly idle. If the same core is being use by other processes, then there might create a problem such as stuttering in the game. I have 4 cores and I sometimes see stuttering.

Is there any way at all to force it to run on two cores to reduce lag?

nrnoble · 11-07-2009, 11:34 AM

No software, including games, need to be written to take advantage of multiple cores. Doing so makes games (engines) more complex and prone to hard to find\fix crashing bugs. And from talking to game developers, not a lot is gained by having a game run on multiple cores, at least when compared to time\effort\cost involved when dealing with problems of trying to debug crashing bugs. It is a debatable issue as to the pro\cons of multi-core development.

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11-06-2009, 02:43 PM	#1
aarste Join Date: Sep 2009 Reputation: 1 Posts: 41	Portal Stuttering I've come back to playing Portal again after 2 years, but it stutters quite a lot, even on the title screen when the camera pans across the room. I've changed all the video settings from its recommended settings (most were on high) all down to low, changed res from 1680x1050 to the lowest possible but the stutter is still there. One thing I've noticed is my CPU Core #1 is on 100% load whether this game is running on low or high settings, Core #2 is hardly doing anything. The only difference since the last time I played is I'm now on Windows 7 64 and on Geforce 260 SSC, I used to be on XP and ATI Radeon 1950XT. specs: 2.66GHz Intel Core Duo E6700 Abit AW9D-Max i975X Motherboard 4GB OCZ DDR2 PC2-6400 Platinum Revision 2 Dual Channel EVGA Geforce 260 SSC 896MB Creative X-Fi Xtreme Gamer 7.1

11-06-2009, 03:27 PM	#2
gorpie Join Date: Sep 2009 Reputation: 29 Posts: 957	have you tried adding -32bit to your launch options?

11-06-2009, 03:49 PM	#3
aarste Join Date: Sep 2009 Reputation: 1 Posts: 41	No that didn't do anything, wasn't hopeful it would since hl2.exe was running as a 32bit process already. But, I managed to fix the stutter by setting the affinity of hl2.exe to use the second CPU core instead. Which is very weird.... I've already checked the activity on the first core in windows with the game closed and its only 3% on average, which is hardly anything to be affecting the game. Now to find a way to make that change permanent!

11-06-2009, 08:20 PM	#4
nrnoble Join Date: May 2008 Reputation: 6 Posts: 360	Portal, and most all Valve games AFAIK, only use 1 CPU\core, so the other one will be mostly idle. If the same core is being use by other processes, then there might create a problem such as stuttering in the game. I have 4 cores and I sometimes see stuttering.

11-07-2009, 11:34 AM	#6
nrnoble Join Date: May 2008 Reputation: 6 Posts: 360	No software, including games, need to be written to take advantage of multiple cores. Doing so makes games (engines) more complex and prone to hard to find\fix crashing bugs. And from talking to game developers, not a lot is gained by having a game run on multiple cores, at least when compared to time\effort\cost involved when dealing with problems of trying to debug crashing bugs. It is a debatable issue as to the pro\cons of multi-core development.