PCI latency timers are a method to allow PCI bus-mastering devices to share the PCI bus so that PCI devices won't use such a large portion of the available PCI bus bandwidth that other devices aren't able to get needed work done.
If you have problems with your audio (usually onboard) clicking (while overclocking especially) then setting PCI latency timings to a more mid-range can help set the PCI bus fairly and allow for concurrent requests to be handled in que, giving the audio a better chance to respond to the signal reqeust and hence data delivery.
Hence the audio and other PCI bus issues that can be problematic, and especially so in an overclocked system which can often be attributed to the PCI latency settings.
If the Latency Timer is set too low, then PCI devices will interrupt their transfers unnecessarily often which will effect performance. If it's set too high, devices that require frequent bus access may overflow their buffers and lose data. This is where you will hear crackles in sound and dropped packets in Lan data transfers or web access.
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I have applied a value of 192 to 'pci latency' in my bios, default 64 on my system, and VOALA! no more .00000000666 frames per second when viewing large complexes. i haven't been in any big battles yet but from what i've seen so far all i need to do now is a little tweaking of the 'pci latency' number to avoid dll errors on one side and choppiness on the other.
BTW all those sound clicks and crackles are gone even on my 'onboard' asus sound, which doesn't even support vista x64.[/b]
Last edited by SirMerlin860 on Sat, 11. Apr 09, 01:32, edited 1 time in total.
NEVER EVER EVER BUY GAMES FROM STEAM THEY WILL TAKE YOUR MONEY AND WALK AWAY LAUGHING!
I first tried changing my soundcard to 192 which improved it but then tried 248, which made it perfect. I still have to study this alot, but so far its alot better. Like you said when viewing high poly Terracorp or other objects, there is no slow down now. Its like having an extra video card or something!
Why couldn't professional programmers at Egosoft or who post on this forum come up with this solution. It may fix most people's problems ... may everyone has to try it for themselves.
Thanks Merlin with your wizardry.
Last edited by SpaceSquirrel on Wed, 8. Apr 09, 21:36, edited 3 times in total.
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Messing with this value won't have any detrimental effects on other programs and games, will it? I might try this but I want to know that it's safe before I do anything I might regret.
ie each hardware item requesting pci bus time to calculate a sound/network packet/etc will hold onto the bus until the counter reaches 0. by default most motherboards set this to 32 or 64. increasing this will allow each device more clock cycles to finish their task.
this will increase frame rates if you lower the number because the devices requesting bus time will give up their priority to the bus when the counter reaches 0 even if not finished. this allows the faster pci-e to move onto the next cycle even if the bus devices aren't ready, in turn forcing the bus devices to abandon their tasks to catch up with it. this produces pops and crackles in the sound.
by no means will this make your computer faster!
this will force pci devices to spend more time on their tasks before giving up their priority to other devices. in turn this will cause less incomplete sounds to be produced. the pci devices will still skip ahead to catch up with the pci-e but with higher settings these skips will come at the end of a sound instead of half way through one.
hope this makes things clearer..
NEVER EVER EVER BUY GAMES FROM STEAM THEY WILL TAKE YOUR MONEY AND WALK AWAY LAUGHING!
Why couldn't professional programmers at Egosoft or who post on this forum come up with this solution.
well this is one of those 'out of the box' fixes.
they are trying to get their program to work with our computers.
i am trying to get our computers to work with their program.
NEVER EVER EVER BUY GAMES FROM STEAM THEY WILL TAKE YOUR MONEY AND WALK AWAY LAUGHING!
SirMerlin860 wrote:
this will increase frame rates if you lower the number because the devices requesting bus time will give up their priority to the bus when the counter reaches 0 even if not finished. this allows the faster pci-e to move onto the next cycle even if the bus devices aren't ready, in turn forcing the bus devices to abandon their tasks to catch up with it. this produces pops and crackles in the sound.
this will force pci devices to spend more time on their tasks before giving up their priority to other devices. in turn this will cause less incomplete sounds to be produced. the pci devices will still skip ahead to catch up with the pci-e but with higher settings these skips will come at the end of a sound instead of half way through one.
PCI and PCI-E are not even connected to same chip atleast not in 975X so I can't really think any reason why they would care about what the other one is doing and certainly not why either would wait for the other to complete.
However, X3 has alot of sounds to produce and low latency would mean that it can't do all those at one go so it would make sence to increase it.
if your sound card falls out of sync because it takes longer to perform its task it is told to move onto another task that is in sync finished or not.
this tweak mearly tells the pci devices when to check.
instead of checking in the middle of a sound/packet/etc. check at the end.
the speed of the pci-e is alot faster than the pci bus and the pci-e doesn't have to wait for other devices to release the bus.
your monitor should be about 60hz (max 60fps) while your videocard can produce a much higher fps. this is why v-sync reduces tearing by limiting the video 60fps. which forces the monitor to produce entire frames before moving onto the next. your video card is still producing fps higher than 60fps but only 60 will go through the monitor buffer.
the monitor gets frame, render frame until new frame is found
vs
the monitor gets frame, render frame then asks for another.
again this is only to make the game smoother not faster or at higher fps.
i ran the demo at 32, 64, 96, 128, 160, 192, 224 and 248
my overall fps range was +/- 1.6fps
but the number of lockups ingame were reduced to zero, even looking at complexes. mind you my machine still slowed down looking at them but it didn't become a slideshow.
NEVER EVER EVER BUY GAMES FROM STEAM THEY WILL TAKE YOUR MONEY AND WALK AWAY LAUGHING!
my moniter can go up2 75hz
im using a agp gpu and got a xfi elite pro on the Pci
i get the choppy scenes with them pbe's
using wind xp with 3 gig of ram
so which way do i change the latency setting?
ive seen it in my bios settings
I tried this too - well in over-over-over crowded sectors the frame rate drops, but there are no more hiccups. I set it to max (248) to give it a spin - gonna try lowering them a bit and see if that changes.
Oddly enough the only PCI device that shows up in PCI Latency Tool is my Creative Sound Card Audigy 2 ZS Gamer ... maybe gonna give that board up for good ...
So I should use that tool to change the latency in the very first column to 192? The one that says something like "Intel PCI bridge"? BTW if this works you are my hero, I haven't been able to play this game for the longest time.
arcana75 wrote:Most if not all motherboards have PCI Latency options in their BIOS; u don't need this program.
Also, PCI Express does not have PCI Latency. So if ur graphics card is on the PCI-E bus or u have a new soundcard on the PCI-E, this won't help.
Oh thats too bad, I use a PCI-e card and on board sound, but I get that same issue of stuttering near big stations and ships. Does anyone know of a possible fix for that, or am I out of luck?
arcana75 wrote:Most if not all motherboards have PCI Latency options in their BIOS; u don't need this program.
Also, PCI Express does not have PCI Latency. So if ur graphics card is on the PCI-E bus or u have a new soundcard on the PCI-E, this won't help.
Oh thats too bad, I use a PCI-e card and on board sound, but I get that same issue of stuttering near big stations and ships. Does anyone know of a possible fix for that, or am I out of luck?
Solution described thoroughly in FIRST post of this topic, not in bla bla below... Just try it!
No software required -- PCI latency can be changed in BIOS during reboot.
If this wouldnt works -- you always can return default value.
P. S. I have PCI-E graphic card, on board sound -- and PCI latency tweak works fine for me.
Ok I guess Im just stupid but I cant figure out how to change my latency timers. In bios theres an option that says "PCI performance" or something and has "latency timers" underneath but when I enter it theres nothing, only a list of settings from 1 though 13. I tried the tool too but it doesnt tell me where my soundcard is, it just gives me a list of universal host controllers, so I dont know what latency setting to change. Can anyone help?
I have a PCI-E graphics card (2 actually) and onboard sound. I don't see any options for PCI latency in my bios. I saw someone said that the PCI tweak works for them. Where would it be located in the bios?
