Audio Engine Update & Game Freezes

post update graphics are terrible - it makes the game nearly UNPLAYABLE for me and several of my guildies. we were discussing the problem on vent the other night and we all have the same symptoms.

framerates are down, but the most annoying problem is that every 10-15 seconds or so, if we do something like move the camera rapidly, the engine "hiccups" - by that, i mean the game screen completely freezes for approximately a second and then resumes (like a choppy lag spike). i've tried this playing the game normally with a variety of settings, and also attempting to turn off the audio engine with the -nosound switch. all cases produce the same unplayable result!!

we all have strong PC setups and did not have lag issues like this prior to the update.

my specs:
windows XP SP2, 2.8ghz northwood p4, 2GB dual channel 3200 ddr ram, radeon x800xt +latest drivers, asus p4p800se board, nothing running in the background (all processes closed)

a screenshot of the freeze spikes (pushing SHIFT+F10):
http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/7025/lagkv3.jpg

same deal for me too.

EDIT: Comparison with -dsound switch. MUCH smoother gameplay!
http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/3907/gw228co3.jpg
Sorry my post was so big, I'm done. :P

-Mod Edit: changed IMG to links

Im waiting on an update now,

For a while I had reversed sound and it still cuts off in funny places, though the music is fine.

For example, I killed a grasping ghoul to the left of me, but his dying sound shot out from the right.

Have you double checked speaker hook ups? Maybe you have a channel swap or something and maybe are just now noticing it due to the audio change? <ie. before maybe the audio wasn't directional, and now it is for you>

It's the same thing for me. Things in front of my character sound like they should be, but the audio coming from behind is reversed, left sounding from right. I have no fancy multiple speaker systems, just two of them and all worked fine before this update.

Just want to make sure this isnt forgotten and that everyone is still having problems Anet!

I still can't really tell which sound setting I should use. I mean, I have a Directsound/EAX compatible system, but isn't FMOD supposed to be more efficient?

Hm strange, I have not noticed any difference since the update at all. I use a Logitech Z5300 5.1 system and a creative Audigy ZS sound card.

Yeah I contributed a lot to this thread....

I'm having these same kinds of "hiccup" problems since the big update (especially with your 'move the camera rapidly' example). I've been posting my observations on a thread on GWO about it. I really hope this issue gets fixed soon, because the game is unplayable for me when it gets like this. I'm also someone who's never had problems like this before up until a few days ago (or any lag issues whatsoever, save for that one time in Factions when towns like House zu Heltzer or Maatu Keep were giving freeze-in-place lag constantly, which was eventually fixed by ANet).

So using the -dsound switch fixed it? It's a damn shame that I have to find a way around the default settings just to get a playable game out of gw anymore, but if that's what I have to do, I will. FWIW, I have an Soundblaster X-Fi Gamer soundcard so I've always had the 'Enable Sound Hardware Acceleration' box checked and 'Use EAX' checked. I still have them checked.

I have much the same issue. Ever since the update, I get hiccups. Most commonly I get them when ever I come across mobs or when some sound effects are being played. My frame rates are down, they use to be 60-70 average and rarely dropped below 40. Now my frame rates rarely reach 50 and consistently drop below 25.
If this is an upgrade in the sound system, I don’t want it. I rarely get to hear the music in high quality and only a fraction of the sound effects are actually played.
I have the latest drivers for my sound card, mother board & the latest updates for Windows. As for my video driver, I use the one that gives me the best performance. It is a little old but it is much cleaner than the newer drivers.

System specs:
Windows XP Professional 64Bit
AMD Althon 64 3200+
1GB PC3700 DDR
Nvidia 6800GT
Gigabyte GA-K8U-939 (Chipset: ULi M1689)
Soundblaster Audigy 2 LS

I'd like to know if there is one sound configuration that is best for FPS in the game. I am predisposed to the idea that hardware based sound is superior to software based in regards to impacting FPS.

I realize all systems can have differences, but my thinking: if your system support DirectSound and EAX you probably should be using -dsound switch now instead of going with the software based modes.

Anyone have a comment on that?

The way I read Gaile's post, -dsound activates DirectSound *software* mixer. If you have a good hardware card, then just check "hardware acceleration" and it should use DirectSound hardware acceleration, same as always.

OK, here's a fun one to ponder. I've posted that i'm getting the same crappy FPS after the update as TyrianFury. I've done all of the update drivers, drivercleaner, Vista updates, -dsound, -dx8, AA, etc.. There is still no change.

Now, here's the kicker. Don't know if this is server based but whenever i'm in Basalt Grotto, Dzagonur Bastion, Mihanu Township or the very end of the game (with the Keeper of Secrets, etc...) I am getting 85-120 FPS. No, i'm not zooming in on my character or looking at a wall, etc.. it can be from any angle. Now why is it if I go somewhere like Jennur's Horde or anywhere else I only get 30 or less FPS? I know these areas are less populated but it also happens in Abbadon's Gate (average about 90 FPS) where it's been packed the past week since you can now get Razah easier.

Something with this last update needs to be fixed.

Yeah update from myself, still having problems like many others, managed to get 75 fps with 4xAA in cliffs on donjok when using my necro but as soon as you warp to a town or another explorable area its back down to 10 fps. This is weird how one area is fine and others run terribly.

Does anyone know whether the audio update unchecked the hardware acceleration box in gw? I've been having performance problems since the audio update and the -dsound switch didn't help. I noticed the hardware acceleration box was not checked in gw's options, which seemed odd, and I wondered whether it was always that way or not. I checked the hardware acceleration box and the problem seems a bit better, but I haven't played for a long enough stretch of time yet since to know that the issue has been resolved for sure.

After the audio update, I'd been having lagspike problems when moving the camera like another person said, where the game would freeze for a second or two almost every time I made a fast camera move or direction change, and I also unfortunately had the game freeze the same way whenever certain sounds triggered, like a hench using "Charge!" or an enemy ranger using a preparation. Whenever I would get a momentary freeze, when the game resumed my ping would be bad and the traffic light thingy would be red, and then go back to green after a second and I would have a good ping again.

If the "enable hardware acceleration" box in gw fixes my problems and they have not reappeared over the next couple days, I'll be sure to let you all know. I'm using on-board AC97 sound, obviously nothing fancy or awesome or powerful, so if this helps me, it should help most people too

No, even though the "new" default is FMOD, if you had DirectSound/EAX already checked this setting was not changed, and presumably still effective.

Many people are forcing the game to run with DirectSound/EAX by placing the -dsound switch in the command line because there was cause to doubt if the sound mode was being fully engaged...

I have AC97 sound as well, I am getting lag snags as well since the big update.

Computer:
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
OS Service Pack Service Pack 2
DirectX 4.09.00.0904 (DirectX 9.0c)


Motherboard:
CPU Type AMD Athlon XP, 1984 MHz (11 x 180) 2600+
Motherboard Name Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe (5 PCI, 1 AGP Pro, 1 WiFi, 3 DDR DIMM, Audio, Gigabit LAN)
Motherboard Chipset nVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400
System Memory 2048 MB (PC3200 DDR SDRAM)
BIOS Type Award (11/12/04)
Communication Port Communications Port (COM1)
Communication Port Communications Port (COM2)
Communication Port ECP Printer Port (LPT1)

Display:
Video Adapter Radeon X1300/X1550 Series Secondary (256 MB)
Video Adapter Radeon X1300/X1550 Series (256 MB)
Monitor LG Flatron L1920P (Digital) [19" LCD] (140432772)

Multimedia:
Audio Adapter nVIDIA MCP2 - Audio Codec Interface
Audio Adapter nVIDIA MCP2 - Audio Processing Unit (Dolby Digital)

Storage:
IDE Controller NVIDIA nForce2 ATA Controller (v2.6)
Disk Drive Maxtor 6Y080P0 (80 GB, 7200 RPM, Ultra-ATA/133)
Optical Drive SONY CD-ROM CDU5211 (52x CD-ROM)

With new engine and Vista + Creative Labs Audgy 2ZS...

I've found (and shocked) that the sndasio swtich runs... better but only buy 1-2 fps... It runs 1/2 the speed as it does in xp but that is due to my hardware, not GW.

In xp (same system / hardware), the new sound engine (dsound + EAX) with everything max runs at 60fps (capped via vsynch, higher if off) and sounds great.

Hi, first post.

Since the update on Thurs April 5, I too have experienced these horrid problems with the new sound engine. Specifically, the freezes being caused by turning, which were previously referred to as "hiccups".

The place where this occurs most markedly is in the FOW on the plain north of the Forgemaster. I fully expected this to be fixed by now; of the random groups I play with in FOW, approximately 50% of all the players I play with exprerience this phenomenon. I admit that a lot of the players simply complain of "lag" and do not realize the cause, but what is occuring is very specific. In that area (and many other areas of the game but here it is easily isolated), people who have the problem can turn around and will freeze for about 3 seconds out of every 10. It is that bad. And it started after the Thurs April 5 update. The issue occurs not only in FOW; it is also very prevalent in Factions.

Picture of the spikes in FOW, on plain North of Forgemaster. Each of those yellow spikes is about 3 seconds long and about 4 seconds in between them, occuring simply by spinning.
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d1...ame_freeze.jpg

I have tried the -dsound switch and it has had no effect. Most people that have this occuring have no idea it is even sound related - instead they complain about "lag spikes ever since Easter" and essentially suffer in silence. "Ignorance is Bliss" is not the way I like to play video games, however.

Frankly, I am at a loss as to how a major change like this was implemented this late in the life of a game as mature as Guild Wars. There was nothing wrong before, but there is definitely something wrong now, and it needs to be fixed. Introducing major bugs like this is not an "Optimization". I refrained from posting earlier because I fully expected it to be fixed by now. Especially since there has been at least two patches since. Apparently, changing the damage and duration of Conjure Flame is a more important issue to Anet than constant discontinuities during gameplay.

For the record, I have an older system with
nvidia card
512 mb ram
sb live
win xp pro
hardware/eax check boxes = either. I use headphones so these switches never seemed to produce a noticeable effect.

But my specific setup really does not matter, as the problem is SO widespread that there are thousands of possible hardware combos affected similarly...that worked fine prior to the April 5th patch.

I encourage anyone that has these issues to take the time to screenshot that graph (shift F10 to bring up graph, TAB to cycle graphs, PRINTSCREEN to dump a screenshot to you guildwars directory) and post them either here or send directly to ANET by using this link:
http://help.plaync.com/cgi-bin/playn...nduser/ask.php

Thank you
Concerned gw addict

Well, I am experiencing the lag snags as well since the update, and from what I have noted, the people having these issues don't have identical hardware.

Initially, I forced DirectSound with the -dsound switch but that doesn't seem to have improved anything. After suffering through the crashes I experienced after the update, I can live with the lag snags until ANet figures it out.

Just advise everyone experiencing this issue to open a trouble ticket and keep this on the radar screen.

I'm also getting this alot, but for me it is not location specific. The freezes will start to emerge after about an hour of playing, increasing the longer I keep Guild Wars running. When closing the two hour mark, the freezing happens almost constantly. At this point it doesn't matter where I am, even in an empty guild hall facing a wall it freezes like hell while spinning.

Then if I restart Guild Wars and log back to my character (takes a bit under 30 seconds), everything is just fine, for the first hour at least. So these days that "You have been playing for 1 hour." message makes me want to close Guild Wars much more efficiently than any "Please take a break." could.

I've been getting a problem where, randomly when a sound starts to play the entire sound system will crash and I won’t get any sound until I restart the client. It isn't just effecting GW either, as it stops whatever I'm listening to in windows media player as well. The only way to get sound working again for other apps is to go into the control panel and change the sample rate of audio and then back again.

It is however being caused by Guild Wars as it only started since the update and only happens when GW is running. My guess is it’s a driver problem, but I've updated to the latest sound drivers so not a lot I can do about that. Will have a try with -dssound and see if that fixes things.

My System:
Windows Vista 32bit
Creative Sound Blaster 2 ZS

Any of you tried Dominar's recommendation posted here
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10143863
It solves my fps problem, as least in certain area of the map.

I found a reason for the scratchy sound I was getting, feel like an idiot: at some point after the patch my Sound Quality Level setting in the Guild Wars Options got turned down to about half way. <doh>

I still use -dsound switch because it appears to improve my FPS by 10-12 and I feel better forcing it to use my Hardware and Eax

Another thing I did <that's is hotly contested in some geek forums> that gives shows me results, is reduce my Pagefile size to 256-512 MB. I wasn't brave enough to get rid of it completely although my system ran fine without it. Since I have 2 gigs of RAM this keeps a lot more stuff working out of memory versus paging to the much slower hard drive. I certainly notice an improvement to Windows XP's "snappiness". Minimizing and alt-tab is a lot smoother with less disk thrashing. But, you don't want to try this if you have a low memory system.

At the end of the day, all these things aren't fixes so much as attempts at work-arounds or compensation for a general performance decrease since the last update. Now, some folks got the better part of the deal but not all of us were so lucky. I think the audio engine may still need some fine tuning due to particular issues with certain machines, but that's just my opinion, of course.

I too have been suffering from terrible performance since the audio upgrade.

My PC specs are:

Core2Duo E6700
2 gig ram
Geforce 7950GT
Creative X-Fi Extreme sound card
Windows XP

Basically, before the update my PC would run everything totally maxed out at 1650 x 1050 with 4xAA perfectly.

I also had Vertical Sync enabled as the PC would easily manage the required 60 FPS. (I personally much prefer the smoothness of video with Vsync enabled at 60 FPS without any video tearing, to 130+ FPS with a fair degree of tearing.)

After this update I am suffering from jerky video and frame rates falling to as low as 20 FPS.

I have tried downloading a new gw.dat, tried the various sound switches, updated all my drivers, deleted and recreated my paging file, defragged, chkdsk, and other general maintence all with no effect.

Even taking off the AA still does not guarentee a constantly good frame rate.

I have not as yet tried the "LargeSystemCache" fix suggested in another thread and will give that a go later, however, having to change registry entries to make a game playable should never be required these days! (God, that reminds me of having to make game specific boot disks with custom Autoexec.bat and Config.sys files for some games back in the days of DOS! - Wing Commander anyone? LOL)

I am really hoping that a real fix to these issues is released soon as I am not really enjoying playing the game at all right now.

After playing for 20 hours this weekend, I dare say the lagspike problems are either from the GW servers, or sound problems caused by specific skills triggering, or sound effects in certain areas of the game.

I played for 10 hours straight on saturday and I played in the shiverpeaks the whole time, specifically Tasca's Demise, Mineral Springs, Frozen Forest, Icedome, Ice Floe, and Talus Chute. The lagspikes were horrible, I had death penalty left and right because I would get a lagspike while I was running around and then appear in the middle of an enemy group, or I would get a lagspike right when I drew aggro with my bow or first engaged an enemy group and then I couldn't do anything for a couple seconds and my party would get beat up pretty bad when it shouldn't have happened. I would also usually get a lagspike almost every time Little Thom used Charge!, I wished he was a hero so I could disable it. I was pretty pissed off and it wasn't very fun to play. I noticed that the lagspikes seemed especially bad when encountering ice imps and stone summit, and not so bad around avicara, trolls, or jades. After I killed all the enemies in a zone and ran around, the lagspike problems almost went away completely.

I played for 10 hours straight on sunday and I played in every area of the crystal desert in prophecies besides Dunes of Despair and The Arid Sea. I had almost no lagspikes, and whenever I did get lagspikes it seemed to be related to being near scarabs or sand giants. Little Thom does not have Charge! in the desert so thankfully I didn't get lag from that either. As it was on saturday, after I killed all the enemies in a zone and ran around, the lagspike problems were all gone.

All of my settings were the same for both days of playing. I have windows XP, AC97 sound, the february directx (haven't bothered to get april's yet) and I'm using the -dsound switch to run the game. I have the Use Hardware Acceleration box checked in GW, but not the Use EAX box since that has made problems for me before. I have the GW sound quality set at the first notch, i.e. not the lowest setting but the next-to-lowest setting.

I find it interesting that without changing any settings on my computer, and only changing the areas I played in, there were huge differences in the occurence of lagspikes. Last weekend when I was also having bad lagspikes, I played in Snake Dance, Dreadnaught's Drift, and Lornar's Pass. Seem suspicious that there are rampant lagspikes in the shiverpeaks and a lower and more tolerable amount of lagspikes in the desert? I'm betting this is something on ANet's end and there will be a fix like the old "Fixed and audio issue that was causing performance problems in the Ring of Fire islands" patch coming to us soon. At least, that's what I hope

It's the same subject but a different approach to what may be causing the lag-snags.

Dominar has a thread topic about how there may have been some change in the game's memory management system when the -heapsize switch was removed from the game.

It is an interesting theory, and he has a proposed tweak to counter it if you feel adventurous.

Hi,

just wanted to say that i tried everything suggested in this thread (and also that tweak with the syscache) and i'm still getting those lags and freezes. But the really annoying thing is, everytime i get those lags, the music i'm listening to (wether ingame music, or mp3 played with winamp) also gets "laggy" means getting slowed, and distorted. If anyone has another idea, pls tell me, or what would be better, anet should release some sort of a bugfix that will solve that problem

thx and i hope will get better soon!

OpenAL is altso supported by later Creative sound cards drivers. But I think enabling hardware mode and EAX in game applys to the hardware.
Running GW on XP64 with SB X-Fi, and sound still works fine with full 5.1 surround after the update.