FFDSHOW, worth a try?

[WarpedcowOwnzU]

Just putting this out there for folks to discuss - by no means is this recommended officially by Egosoft...

I had FFDSHOW on my system before X3TC, and as X3TC has always run great on max settings (60FPS+ normally, heavy battles in crowded sectors stay above 30FPS) I never bothered looking at my codecs etc...

On one of the days where I alt-tabbed out of the game, I noticed the FFDSHOW audio icon in the system tray. My game is using FFDSHOW! And it runs great! As an experiment, I disabled FFDSHOW for x3tc.exe and when I did that, the audio quality was MUCH WORSE, I think it was mono and sounded like it was coming through a phone. Didn't notice any change in FPS as I quickly re-enabled FFDSHOW.

Anyhow, point is, to those of you who have performance or audio problems and have never tried FFDSHOW, maybe you should, it might fix your problems. It certainly works great here...

[Tycow]

Where do you go about getting ffdshow from?

[pjknibbs]

Can I please recommend that you do NOT use FFDSHOW? It might work for you, WarpedCowOwnzU, but it does not work for the majority of people--in fact, we hear about more performance issues resulting from people having FFDSHOW on their system than any other, I think.

[WarpedcowOwnzU]

The latest is called FFDSHOW Tryouts:
http://ffdshow-tryout.sourceforge.net/

The original "FFDSHOW" is now 4+ years old and will probably cause a load of problems.

Personally, I run the CCC Pack which includes FFDSHOW Tryouts and a few other nice things:
http://www.cccp-project.net/

I run with this codecs on THREE computers, X3 and X3TC have run great on all of them with these codecs active.

EDIT: Response to PJKnibbs - I believe I put enough of a disclaimer above already. This isn't supported. That said, running FFDSHOW for me is BETTER than not running it. And again, if you want to try this, make sure you're running the latest "FFDSHOW Tryouts" and not the 4+ year old "FFDSHOW" proper.

[CBJ]

It isn't a question of what version of ffdshow you are running. The problem with any version of ffdshow is that it interferes with the already shaky codec selection process. In the process it actively prevents the X series games from selecting the codecs they need to use in order to work correctly.

So far you are the only person for whom this has had a beneficial effect; for everyone else who has posted in any of the Tech Support forums about this it either makes no difference or causes problems.

I would therefore reiterate very strongly pjknibbs' recommendation that people do not install ffdshow if they do not already have it. I'd even go so far as suggesting that anyone who does not actively need the functionality it provides for some other purpose, should remove it from their system.

[WarpedcowOwnzU]

So far you are the only person for whom this has had a beneficial effect

Well duh, how many people come to a "Tech Support" forum in order to say that their game is working perfectly?

[AdrianB1]

WarpedcowOwnzU, the original ffdshow codec wac creating problems to everybody, this was confirmed by so many users it is generally accepted.

The new version you are using looks to be working fine for you, I just installed it myself and I gave it a try for 5 minutes and it looks to be working well - I cannot guarantee that it will work fine for others, but I will keep it installed and active. Indeed one problem I had (with old ffdshow disabled) was the positioning on some sounds on the front center speaker only (5.1 setup, the front center is small and the front edge speakers are 5 times more the power).

I think it is fair to change the ffdshow announcement in the Technical Support area to include a mention like "Classic ffdshow creates problems with X3TC and has to be disabled, ffdshow_tryout works well for some user, you can try it on your own risk!" because this is the reality as we know it so far. The two versions of ffdshow look similar, but they behave quite different, they are different like X3:R is to X3:TC and I've seen no annoucement in the X3:R forums that the unfocused jumpdrive does not work

[WarpedcowOwnzU]

I'm not having any great issues leaving ffdshow on for audio, and music sounds absolutely horrific without it (possibly related to whatever has been previously notice with x64 Vista and Realtek audio chips). ffdshow and video certainly causes instability, though.

I'm in the same boat, I'm running the latest FFDSHOW Tryouts and using the Audio side for X3 and X3TC and everything runs great, FPS are silky smooth on max settings. I tried disabling it once but then the music sounded horrible, same problem you had.

[perpiotrredman]

If music or sound sounds horrible with FFDshow disabled, chances are you have more than one codec installed on top of the default windows ones. This can happen if you've installed several different codec packs of which FFDshow is only one. Once you disable FFDShow, another codec takes over the same task.

Sorry I can't help more than that. I know there's a way to get back associations to the original codecs in XP, but I can't remember where I'd find it again. Except google, of course, but anyone could do that.

[perpiotrredman]

Well duh, how many people come to a "Tech Support" forum in order to say that their game is working perfectly?

Very true. I too am using FFDShow (tryouts, updated regularily) without issues, but on the other hand, I haven't verified whether FFDShow is actually being used as the codec for in-game audio or video) nor have I run any benchmarks with FFDShow enabled and disabled respectively that would be required to determine any improvement or degradation.

I am however running ONLY FFDshow for my codecs, I prefer not to download monolithic packages with more things I do not need than I do need.

Furthermore, I am very impressed that the forums/administrators/support agents have chosen to show how FFDShow can be selectively disabled per application, rather than as most other developers/forums/tech support agents do, only recommend that the codec be uninstalled entirely.

[WarpedcowOwnzU]

If music or sound sounds horrible with FFDshow disabled, chances are you have more than one codec installed on top of the default windows ones. This can happen if you've installed several different codec packs of which FFDshow is only one. Once you disable FFDShow, another codec takes over the same task.

I've never installed codec packs other than FFDShow Tryouts. I have Nero installed, but only the barebones CD/DVD burning components, none of the multimedia crap.

[WarpedcowOwnzU]

Very true. I too am using FFDShow (tryouts, updated regularily) without issues, but on the other hand, I haven't verified whether FFDShow is actually being used as the codec for in-game audio or video) nor have I run any benchmarks with FFDShow enabled and disabled respectively that would be required to determine any improvement or degradation.

You can tell if FFDShow is being used by alt-tabbing while the game is running and checking for the usual FFDSHOW audio try icon that shows up when playing videos, etc...

I'm curious about FPS, I may try disabling sound completely and running the benchmark and see if it improves over running sound with FFDSHOW.

[Carlo the Curious]

Discussion posts from the sticky split and merged to keep it tidy.

[perpiotrredman]

I just checked - I WAS running FFDShow for all mp3 audio. Now trying without, to see if I can notice a difference at all.

You can tell if FFDShow is being used by alt-tabbing while the game is running and checking for the usual FFDSHOW audio try icon that shows up when playing videos, etc...

That icon is not always visible. I don't know what the standard setting is for the current tryouts, but the function of the tray icon is dependent on a checkbox on the "Tray, dialog & paths" part of the ffdshow properties window. My tray icon was disabled.

I'm curious about FPS, I may try disabling sound completely and running the benchmark and see if it improves over running sound with FFDSHOW.

That's a great idea. Leaves more time for me to actually play the game rather than follow up on my own suggestions.

[perpiotrredman]

Well, after telling FFDShow audio not to work in X3TC, I a still playing without any great issues. There's only this one thing where the game will occasionally stop responding entirely for 2-3 seconds and then continue. No in-game time will pass during those seconds (checked a distance meter while in movement) and it's only mildly annoying. Have at least verified that it's not due to FFDShow.

Not asking for assistance with this yet nor can I get you a DXDIAG just now.

[WarpedcowOwnzU]

Well, after telling FFDShow audio not to work in X3TC, I a still playing without any great issues. There's only this one thing where the game will occasionally stop responding entirely for 2-3 seconds and then continue. No in-game time will pass during those seconds (checked a distance meter while in movement) and it's only mildly annoying. Have at least verified that it's not due to FFDShow.

Not asking for assistance with this yet nor can I get you a DXDIAG just now.

Try setting texture res from High to Medium, I bet you it goes away. In addition, try remaming that .dat file that has all the billboard videos on it.

[perpiotrredman]

I'm not all that hot for lowering texture resolution but I'll do the next best thing and use RivaTuner to track video card local memory usage to see if the behavior is due to video card RAM having to fetch textures over PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (which really shouldn't take that much time - but if they have to be read from hard drive, well.. that'll get ya).

What .dat file is that and how big could it be to detrimentally affect texture memory usage?

[Carlo the Curious]

00002.dat in the mov/ directory.

I'm not sure if it's still an issue, actually.

[WarpedcowOwnzU]

00002.dat in the mov/ directory.

I'm not sure if it's still an issue, actually.

Lot's of people (including myself) are staying with 1.3 due to the changes in Patrol and other mission rewards. The removing the dat file allows me to play on HIGH texture settings with very few stutters - a better solution than going to MEDIUM. High + dat file = lots of stutters. Changing either (or both) makes the stuttering go away almost completely. You're right, this might be fixed (or at least better in 1.4) but I'm enjoying making a billion dollars on tripled-up patrol missions a little too much

Anyhow, getting somewhat back on topic, I should have time tonight to run the X3TC demo benchmark on both of my systems with and without FFDShow and maybe a third time with sound disabled altogether.

[perpiotrredman]

00002.dat in the mov/ directory.

I'm not sure if it's still an issue, actually.

Thanks a lot, that's very helpful. Will this work even on the STEAM version - I mean, won't Steam notice the file missing and replace it?

If I run benchmarks, I'll include a plot of the video RAM usage with and without that file.