Choppy game flow with directsound

lash · Mon 27/07/2009 18:40:27

Just recently came over AGS, and thought I'd give a cpl of the games a spin. Having tried invoking both compiled games ("Anna" and "Ben There, Dan That") and Demo Quest through AGS itself, the game performance is choppy to the point where it's uplayable. If I turn off all sound, it seems to flow as it should, this I deduct that the sound is the problem.

I have had no other sound problems earlier, have DX9c installed and working as it should (tried to tweak with acceleration as it said in one of the posts here but no effect) and no (visible) hardware conflicts. I've also tried all combinations of sound settings in the game setup menus. I have an ASUS S96S w/ integrated Realtek soundcard.

Any help would be appreciated, as I'm very interested in getting more aquainted with AGS!

Thanks!

Gilbert · Tue 28/07/2009 01:47:02

Hmmm. Can you post the other spec. of your system? Like CPU speed, amount of RAM, OS?

lash · Tue 28/07/2009 08:49:28

Of course, sorry ...

- Intel Corel 2 Duo CPU I7500 @ 2.20 Ghz
- 2.19 Ghz 2 GB RAM
- Windows XP Professional SP 3
- NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS

One thing, though. In the game settings menu I have the choice of DirectX 5(!) and Direct3D 9 for graphics drivers. Choosing D3D9 throws an error saying I can't use it with 256 colors, som I'm stuck with the 5. Any idea why it says DX5? My dxdiag explicitly states DX9c being installed.

BTW: The knowledge base search and the "AGS problems and solutions"-links from the "AGS knowledge base" page seem to be down.

Khris · Tue 28/07/2009 09:58:50

Quote from: lash on Tue 28/07/2009 08:49:28
One thing, though. In the game settings menu I have the choice of DirectX 5(!) and Direct3D 9 for graphics drivers. Choosing D3D9 throws an error saying I can't use it with 256 colors, som I'm stuck with the 5. Any idea why it says DX5? My dxdiag explicitly states DX9c being installed.

It doesn't say "DirectX 5" but "DirectDraw 5". That's the most recent version.

I have no idea though what the solution for your problem is.

Pumaman · Tue 28/07/2009 19:29:28

I've never heard of a problem like this before ... do you get any problems with any other games or applications that use DirectX?

lash · Tue 28/07/2009 20:58:07

Nope. Never had any problem of any kind - at least not on this machine. It's weird, I know!

Pumaman · Wed 29/07/2009 19:01:12

Hmm, you mention that you've already tried tweaking the sound Acceleration settings, which is the only other thing I'd suggest. Have you tried it on every setting, from Disabled to Full?

lash · Wed 29/07/2009 19:22:14

Actually I never tried disabling it (thinking that wasn't a smart thing to do). After disabling it, it seems to run smoother. If it didn't solve the problem, it at least subdued the symptoms. Thanks

I should perhaps mention that changing to "default waveout device" instead of "default directsound device" and "Win32 MIDI Mapper" instead of "default MCI music device" didn't work either, but I gather you assumed as much. Is there a short and painless explanation for the difference between those selections?

Pumaman · Wed 29/07/2009 20:58:28

Hmm, strange. The WaveOut Device is an alternative to DirectSound, which uses the old-style Windows sound routines instead of DirectX.

Do you get the same problem whether you run full-screen or in a window?

lash · Wed 29/07/2009 22:22:52

No difference, sad to say. And when I fiddled around with it a bit more now, the smoother game flow occurring when I turned off the acceleration seems to have been a fluke. The lag is back, whichever combination I try, and even when the both sound and music is disabled (I did mention the gfx and general gameplay also was slow?).

Pumaman · Wed 29/07/2009 23:18:14

I'm sorry to say, I'm completely out of ideas. As I say, I've never heard of this happening before and it's especially strange if it doesn't affect any other games.

I suppose one last ditch effort would be to try temporarily disabling any anti-virus software you have running, just in case it's doing something strange and continuously re-scanning the game files.

Akatosh · Wed 29/07/2009 23:36:51

Have you tried switching between full-screen and windowed mode? I know it sounds crazy, but I had a problem like this with some old AGS game once (I think it was... Platformerius?) and that fixed it.

lash · Thu 30/07/2009 00:10:30

Pumaman: Good idea, but no effect there either, I'm afraid.

Akatosh: Sorry - maybe I'm a bit thick, but can't find the key combo to toggle fullscreen while in play...

Gilbert · Thu 30/07/2009 01:42:52

Fullscreen mode cannot be toggled during gameplay. You need to change this in the game's setup.

lash · Thu 30/07/2009 10:11:44

Ok, I see. Well, that didn't do any good either. I guess we're out of ideas then. Thanks for the efforts!

tzachs · Thu 30/07/2009 18:50:05

Maybe it's a driver related issue.
I would try checking if there is a newer version for your sound driver.
Also, I would look at the device manager to see if one of the driver is not working properly, and if so, installing a proper driver for that component.

lash · Thu 30/07/2009 19:42:09

I have the latest driver installed, and no problems in the device manager.

Ghostlady · Fri 31/07/2009 04:57:41

I have experienced a similar problem when my quicktime player is running in the background (comes one with the pc startup). After I close/exit quicktime, the problem goes away.