OpenArena Message Boards

I had Open Arena Downloaded before, but had uninstalled it. Now, im trying to get it again, but when it plays, it acts all "choppy", sound wise, and visual wise. Why is it doing this, and what can I do to fix it?

Try this cvars

/com_maxFPS 125
/com_soundMegs 32

i am in exactly the same boat as you

i dont know what theyve done to it since version 6 - but i appears theyve strapped the game engine onto a table and beaten it around the face and knee caps with big sticks

its like playing Q3A on a dreamcast with a 28k modem (believe me i know what thats like!)

umm i just tried that and it didnt work

would you suggest increasing or decreasing the FPS figure ??

Im sorry, i don't no anything about the consol or anything...so that means nothing to me :P

try hitting it with a large hammer instead then

go on! whats the worse that can happen

if it breaks your computer though - send the bill to the admin of this site

1. Have you got anything running in the background? (and I mean ANYTHING. Weird mouse/keyboard/graphics card drivers can screw things up.)

2. Is something else using all the bandwidth?

3. Try a single player game, any difference?

4. Is your computer powerful enough to run the game? (anything 2003+ should be fine)

5. Have you tried lowering the graphics/resolution settings in the options menu?

i have nothing running in the background

only me uses this pc

this is a brand new pc - pentium 4 - 2.8ghz proc.

ive set it on the shittest settings - even turned off marks on the wall, ejecting brass etc

still choppy

Just to say I could run OA on a 400MHz processor so long as I had a decent graphics card. Make sure you are running a respectably good graphics card. What is your GPU?


What version are you running? Make sure it is 0.7.7, it should say 0.7.7 on the main menu screen in the bottom right hand corner.
If I can remember 0.7.1 was the first version to use SDL inputs which caused a laggy mouse on Windows based machines.

Type /cg_drawfps 1

This will display your framerate if it's above 30FPS you should get a perfectly playable experience.

But i use to have 7.1(?) and it ran fine. why is it all choppy now? And i havn't tried playing any games yet, its just the main menu thats choppy

EDIT: I tried it, single player is choppy as well. It is 7.7, and it says my fps is "0"...why? how can I fix it?

Changed anything to do with your graphics card/drivers lately?
Also while OA is running open task manager and look for any other processes eating up the CPU.

Taskbar doesn't show anything important, and we haven't changed anything for a while.

You didn't happen to buy a new video card recently? I tend to experience some choppy play on some maps after I swapped out my video card for a "better" one. I just blamed it on my card. Another thing is that I was using VGA cable but now im using DVI cable. I dunno if that could've been the issue as well. I think you may have something physically wrong on your machine. It isn't the game itself.

Read this help to get a smooth game -> http://wiki.qwdrama.com/Smooth_Quake

That only applies to derivatives of the first generation of Quake engines. In my case, 125+ fps doesn't equally mean smoother, infact it appears jerkier at higher framerates

Should I have a certain amount of memory on my computer in able to run it? Or ram or something? Im not great with computers, so I don't know how to check RAM, and if this would even effect it.

EDIT: I remember something. I use to get an error message when I first had OA, saying there was something wrong with my display. You could either hit OK or CANCEL, and it would increase my screen size and changed he contrast of my computer, for about 3 seconds before the game loaded. And It worked fine. Now I don't get an error message, it just changes it automatically. I doubt this has anything to do with it...

The new SDL OA 0.7.6/7 binaries do go through some extensive video mode setting often trying 32-bit color instead of what's actually chosen (i.e. 16-bit color). Perhaps this has something to do with it

And how would I fix this? just set it to 16-bit ingame?

BUMP

*waits with baited beath for the answer...*

lol. I don't think its a problem with the console tho, but then hey, how the hell would I no?

i dont know mate

all i know is that last year Open Arena worked supremely well

now its as though its been ass raped to death

give me a call when version 10 hits teh netz

JUST FOR REF :

While there maybe countless reasons for this issue, I get this all the time. On every version or game. I had a browser open which doesnt usually make alot of difference. But I had godaddy.com page open in another tab which had lots of flashy stuff going on :) I closed ff and all was fine.

I obviously do not have much ram, then all the little things that dont normally cause choppy play will bite ya and you will feel it :D

You could try this.
Click Start=>Run, then type msconfig click Ok, Click the start-up tab.
You should see a list of stuff that starts up when your machine boots. None of the stuff in this list is critical to machine function so if u have a lot of stuff in this list then
un-check some or all of the boxes to free up resources. This will help improve the performance of your machine anyway.
XP with sp2 installed likes to have 512mb of ram as min. If 512mb is all u have then u definitely need to edit your start-up list.

Freed up a lot of space, but still, choppy play. Looks like I'll have to go back to Unreal Tournament...

Does Unreal Tournament run on your pc.
i tried to reproduce your situation and the only way i could was to start the pc in safe mode, which means no drivers loaded.
Also i would like to know how you un-installed/installed OA coz it runs straight from the unzipped folder on my desktop, no install necessary.
it seems as though your video drivers are messed up in some way, installing them again when these situations occur is usually a good idea.
if you need help to re-install the drivers then let me know.

ive got gig's of space on my (empty) machine

and i have next to nothing running in the background - except for the usual essentials

makes no difference

play will be fine for a while then you will look in a different direction and the screen will stay looking at the same direction for a second before finally catching up and changing!

anyone who plays oa, quake 3 arena etc will obviously know split seconds count and delays like this totally ruin the game for you

what i dont understand though is that i personally never ever experienced this problem on much older versions

i dont know whats been changed lately but its ruining an otherwise excellent game for me

Im have trouble with UT as well....One of the Drivers (Direct3D I think) doesn't work, it says its missing something. But you can choose another driver, and it works fine, but the game is windowed, and Im unsure how to get it full-screen. This is also bizarre, for I had UT on my comp before as well. Still the game is just as playable, just windowed.

I installed OA by saving the installer to the desktop, and installing from there. And if I havn't said this before, neither 7.6 or 7.7 works.

I would LOVE to know how to re-install my drivers!

And Rancid, is your main menu choppy as well as the actual game?

nope

just during play

but when im on CTF games other people say they experience the same thing too

so i guess i just have to put up with it!

oh, everything is choppy on mine, the main menu, the little "intro" the sounds all choppy, and the mouse is laggy. this is in every form of play

Ok lets start to diagnose this.
Click Start=>Run then type (dxdiag) click Ok
This utility should be able to tell you whether you have any video or sound driver problems.
Click on the tabs and run the tests, i want to know whether you have sound problems too.

There are many ways to re-install video drivers but the easiest way is to put the driver CD that came with your video card or pc into the CD drive and let it auto run.
Then click on the driver install button.

If you do not have your original driver CD and you don't know the name of the manufacturer then things get a little harder but not too hard.
You can download a tool called EVEREST home edition, for free from here. http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4181.html[/b]]http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4181.html (http://[b)

Look at the middle of the page where it says Free Downloads Fromthen click on one of the flags to start download. Please don"t click on anything else here or download anything from this site unless you know what you are doing or have been told to.

After you install EVEREST, run the program and click on the Display icon then the GPU icon then look at the top of the page it will show your video card name, make a note of it then look down the page to Driver Download and double click to open your browser at the drivers download page. Use the drop down menus to enter your cards information and download the driver installer to your desktop.
Once you have downloaded the installer just double click to run the program.
What i have told you here should do the trick, just let me know if you have any trouble or need me to clarify something.

Rancid,
i too have been experiencing the same thing as you describe and i believe it is not related to Mr Roboto's problem.
The whole feel of this game has changed with the new release, true but development is a one way street and there is no going back.
i have been fortunate in that the mouse thing does not affect me enough so i have got used to it but the sudden stopping thing is hard to swallow.
Damn.
it seems to me that it  may relate a lot to your config as i messed around with /rate and cl_maxpackets and i think it got better or even cleared up I'm not sure, i haven't played for a week or so (i hurt my hand playing at a lan) lol.
There are people here with much more knowledge of these things than i have though and if they put their heads together on this one i bet they could get to the bottom of it.

i messed up the link it should be
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4181.html (http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4181.html)

Woah! Thanks! But I got stuck here-
http://support.intel.com/support/graphics/

My Graphics card is a Intel 82810E GMCH

I searched for it, but I couldn't find it?

Try this one.
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/confirm.aspx?httpDown=http://downloadmirror.intel.com/4665/eng/win2k_xpe67.exe&agr=N&ProductID=798&DwnldId=4665&strOSs=All&OSFullName=All%20Operating%20Systems&lang=eng (http://downloadcenter.intel.com/confirm.aspx?httpDown=http://downloadmirror.intel.com/4665/eng/win2k_xpe67.exe&agr=N&ProductID=798&DwnldId=4665&strOSs=All&OSFullName=All%20Operating%20Systems&lang=eng)

No such luck, it downloads right but an error appears says its missing something when i try to install it :(

Ok let's have a look in Device Manager to see if things are as they should be.
Click, Start then right click My Computer=>Properties, click the Hardware tab, select Device Manager. If you see any yellow exclamation marks here then you have a problem with that particular device. Let me know if you have any problems here or not.

Also we can take a look at system info.
Click Start=>Run, type msinfo32=>OK
System Information should open
let me know how much Available Physical Memory you have, just scroll down the list to see it.
Next, click Components=>Problem Devices to see if there is something doing what it shouldn't.

Run EVEREST and click Motherboard=>Motherboard and make a note of the Motherboard Name, let me know the name of it.
Click Display=>Open GL and tell me if here is good.

Also let me know if your computer is showing any other odd behaviour.

 

Device Manager is A-OK
i gots 1.39 GB of Virtual Memory
and Ill cheak my motherboard in a sec

physical memory isn't virtual memory

oh. :P oops
44.65 MB of Physical memory

This is not good for running XP.
At start up Windows loads stuff into memory to allow fast access. When it has no more memory left  it will use your hard disk as memory and this is much slower than using RAM, so your programmes will
run more slowly. XP with sp2 needs around 512mb of RAM to function properly.

How much RAM do you have installed and what is your CPU speed. You can check this by right clicking on My Computer and select Properties. There it tells you how much RAM you have and the CPU speed.
What anti virus program are you running.
i am asking all this to get an understanding of the pc you are using because it seems like a low memory problem possibly caused by some resource hogging app running that you are unaware of.

Running chkdsk at this point is a good idea too. To run it click Start=>Run then type (cmd), you should see a black box, in the box type (chkdsk) it will check your disk for errors. Read the output and see if it finds errors.
If it finds errors type (chkdsk c:/f) it will say the following.
Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restarts? (Y/N)
Type Y, and then press ENTER to schedule the disk check, and then restart your computer to start the disk check.

Defragment your hard disk as well by clicking Start=>Run then type (cmd) Ok then type (defrag c: -v) then let it do its thing, could take a while so be patient if it does.

it would also be a good idea to download the following programs and run them to clean things up a bit.
http://www.ccleaner.com/download/downloading (http://www.ccleaner.com/download/downloading) use this to clean up all the junk that stays around when it shouldn't.
http://download.sysinternals.com/Files/PageDefrag.zip (http://download.sysinternals.com/Files/PageDefrag.zip) with this one select Defragment at next boot. This is different to the previous defrag.

i know this seems like a lot to ask, just stick with it and you will get to learn a few tricks too.

Mr.Roboto, I'm also curious about what drivers OpenArena is using.  Can you try either of these two?

• Run C:\Program Files\OpenArena\openarena +logfile "1" and then exit the game.  Use (Start -> Find Files) to look for qconsole.log, and tell us what you see (probably use WordPad).
  
  (or)
  
  
• Run openarena as usual.  Go into the console (press ~) and type the following:
   
  • \logfile 1
  • \gfxinfo
  • \logfile 0
  • \quit
  
   Use (Start -> Find Files) to look for qconsole.log, and tell us what you see (probably use WordPad).

kr3am could be onto something so far.