Step by step guide to reducing stuttering (with pictures)

[Tycow]

Hey guys,

As per LV's idea, I'm going to walk you through how to reduce stuttering to an lower level. The process involves altering three separate things, and I'll try and make it as easy to follow as possible.

Bare in mind that this is merely a guide, and you may experiment to find settings that suit you better (i.e. a higher resolution than recommended here).



Step 1 - Reducing Sound Overheads

Reducing the sound overhead on your CPU can lower audio and graphical stuttering. To reduce the amount of pressure that your sound card/onboard sound is putting on your CPU, follow these steps.

[ external image ]

Press Start, then navigate to the Control Panel. Once there, you are looking for the Sounds and Audio Devices icon (as shown above).

[ external image ]

Once opened, the Volume tab should be shown automatically. Press the Advanced button under Speaker Settings, to open the Advanced Audio Properties window.

Once here, select the Performance tab at the top, and slide the Sample Rate Conversion Quality slider all the way to the left, so that it shows Good, rather than Best. Once done, press OK, and then OK again to close the Sound and Audio Devices window.

That's it for step 1!



Step 2 - Configuring the Graphical Options within X3:TC

[ external image ]

This is an easy one. Fire up X3:TC, so you are presented with the splash screen as shown above.

Press the Graphical Settings button, and set Texture Quality, and Shader Quality both to Medium using the corresponding drop down boxes.

Make sure to disable Antialiasing and Anisotropic Texture Filtering by unchecking the check boxes above.

Set your resolution to the lowest possible using the Resolution drop down box. The lowest here is 1024x768.

Step 2 done and done!



Step 3 - Stop the In Game Bill Boards Displaying Movies

Some users have experienced a decrease in stuttering by disabling the in game bill boards that work by continually accessing data stored on the hard drive. Disabling them stops the data being accessed, and decreases stuttering.

To disable the billboards, you need to navigate to where X3 Terran Conflict is installed on your computer. By renaming the file that the bill board videos are located in, X3:TC will not be able to find them, and thus will not play them.

[ external image ]

Steam Users

Assuming you have used the default install options for Steam, X3:TC is installed to X:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\x3 terran conflict, where X is the hard drive Steam is located on.

Use Windows Explorer to navigate to said Steam folder.

Once there, access the mov folder, and locate a file called 00002.dat. Right click on the file, and select Rename.

Add something to the end of the file name, such as _old, so the file name now reads 00002_old.dat. In the example above, LV added text to the filename to explain why it was renamed. Close the window, and you're done!

DVD Users

Apologies if this is wrong, as I do not have the DVD version of X3:TC (so a mod may need to correct this ).

X3:TC is installed by default to X:\Program Files\Deep Silver\X3 Terran Conflict. Navigate there using Windows Explorer.

As with the Steam version, once there, access the mov folder, and locate a file called 00002.dat. Right click on the file, and select Rename.

Add something to the end of the file name, such as _old, so the file name now reads 00002_old.dat. In the example above, LV added text to the filename to explain why it was renamed.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bob's yer uncle. Fire up X3, and give it a whirl to notice the difference.

Phew - Cheers to LV for the pictures, homerdog for spotting the bill board issue, and Elucca who spotted the Medium textures fix. Apologies if this doesn't make sense, it's 2am.

[Sandalpocalypse]

Good stuff. I would also mention that Vista users with 2gb of RAM or less may see improvements in performance if they use a ReadyBoost device.

[Italiano86]

I will try this, but I don't see how turning down the settings will lessen the load on a core 2 quad, when I have the best soundcard out there for gaming, supposedly (x-fi with onboard memory). Something is definitely wrong with the stuttering, and it seems to only happen in combat with either missiles or alot of weapon fire.

Does the shockwave generator ring any bells for you guys? This same problem happened in x3 reunion, and I have a feeling it has to do with the weapons, after all, they changed just about all of them while introducing new ones. Thanks for the guide Tycow.

Almost forgot, throughout combat, the stuttering is apparent with constant hdd loading, it's easy to tell and I can hear it like crazy, which I do not like at all.

[Cker]

So the way to play a game which I surpass hardware wise... is to completely gut it? I'll give the lower sample rate a try, medium settings saved no fps, but the .mov saved about 10.

[Tycow]

I'll refine the guide when I get home. Some bits could be rephrased, but due to exhaustion and speed typing last night I missed them. Feel free to make any comments about things that need changing or adding.

Cker, many of us have better PCs than required in the specs, and we're all in the same boat with respect to the stuttering. Something else is afoot, and hopefully, Egosoft will provide a fix/workaround if it's their side of things. Alternatively, if it's a driver issue, fingers crossed an update will be released to fix our problems.

Italiano86 - I have an X-Fi also, and doing this did help me, so it might be worth a try.

Props should definately go to the guys who found the fixes, I merely wrote their collective findings up into a guide.

[BugMeister]

if you've recently updated your Creative software/drivers, don't forget to
go to the Creative Console and switch off the Line-In - it's set to ON by default..

- unless you're using it of course..