Far Cry randomly pausing?
07-31-04 | 06:04 PM
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Far Cry randomly pausing?
So I got the DVD version of Far Cry from a friend (it was bundled with his Geforce 6800). During gameply it freezes constantly. I've only noticed this "pausing" while I'm not in a vehicle. This occurs during a cutscene (in game, not video) or when I'm on foot. The pauses last about 3-5 seconds. The audio still plays as normal (no looping). I'm running an AMD 2200+, 512mb RAM, MSI Geforce4 Ti 4600, under Windows XP Pro. I've patch Far Cry to V1.1 also. Any suggestions? Do I need to upgrade my hardware? And if so what? Thanks in advance.
07-31-04 | 06:12 PM
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I had a little problem with pausing in Far Cry as well. I think it's probably a RAM issue. I also have 512mb RAM and I think it pauses when Windows has to access the hard drive for virtual memory. Maybe you could fix the problem by increasing your system RAM? Just a hunch, I'm not 100% sure that would fix the problem.
07-31-04 | 06:33 PM
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I have 1G of RAM and the game runs perfectly. However, I heard on "Pulse" (on G4techtv) that the patch from Crytek causes problems and bugs, especially with ATI video cards.
Could it be that maybe?
Cheers!
Could it be that maybe?
Cheers!
07-31-04 | 06:40 PM
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I don't know how the cutscenes are shown technically during the game, but one possibility is that if they use the DVD playback, I know that software dvd players take alot of cpu cycles and ram and can cause pausing or stuttering if you have low ram or lots of things running at once. I didn't have this problem, so I'm not sure.
07-31-04 | 07:04 PM
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The cutscenes are the same in-game graphics, but with a 3rd person view of your character. So I don't think its neccessarily a playback issue. Its odd because the graphics pause but the audio conversation continues like normal.
07-31-04 | 08:57 PM
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I did a little bit of research about your problem (I was curious because I had the same problem and never really found a solution for it). I found a couple of websites that could be very helpful to you.
First, The Far Cry Technical Community Help Forum
Then there's The Far Cry Tweak Guide
Here's a few excerpts from the latter that are relevant to your problem (emphasis is mine):
It seems that my theory of it being a RAM/Virtual Memory problem could have some merit. But before you run out and plunk down your cash on a RAM upgrade I'd recommend you go to that Far Cry Tweak site and try all their recommendations first...maybe it'll fix the problem and save you some money.
First, The Far Cry Technical Community Help Forum
Then there's The Far Cry Tweak Guide
Here's a few excerpts from the latter that are relevant to your problem (emphasis is mine):
Background Programs: Disable all background applications, especially virus, trojan and spyware scanners and messaging utilities. This is a very important tip. These applications can and do use up valuable CPU resources, take up precious RAM, and raise ping, but far more importantly they interfere with read/writes to your hard drive effectively slowing it down and causing more in-game pauses, decrease FPS, increase load times. They can also cause memory conflicts with games like Far Cry and hence lead to crashes/lockups/reboots.
RAM & Virtual Memory: Far Cry is extremely memory hungry. This is evident from the long loading times and in-game loading hitches and freezes some people are experiencing. Aside from buying more RAM (1GB or more is ideal), one critical thing you should do to help with this problem is to optimize your Virtual Memory settings following the step-by-step instructions on this page of my WinXP Tweak Guide, and also use Cacheman as detailed on this page of my WinXP Tweak Guide. Combined with the tweaks covered later in this guide, this should help reduce most of your problems. Note that with less than 1GB of RAM there will still be some loading pauses, but they should be less severe.
Hard Drive Speed: In conjunction with the virtual memory tweaks above, it's important to remember that Far Cry is a massive game taking up more than 4GB of hard drive space. Quite obviously a lot of that will need to be loaded up at some point. On a modern operating system like WindowsXP, memory management is quite good, however it can't work miracles. The whole process of continually loading information from your hard drive into RAM and back onto the drive is dependent on both the speed of your actual hard drive, and your Windows Memory Management settings. You can optimize your Windows memory management settings as covered in the tips above, but if you have less RAM (i.e. 512MB or less) and a slow hard drive then expect a lot more hard disk activity and hence longer loading times and in-game stuttering and freezes as Far Cry data loads back and forth.
Defragging: Make sure that after you've installed Far Cry you run through the system maintenance procedures detailed on this page of my WinXP Tweak Guide. In particular it is vital that you run the Windows Defragmentation utility after installing the game. Defragging ensures that the game's files are all on the same place on your hard drive, greatly reducing loading pauses/freezes and loading times. The longer it takes to defrag your drive, the more good it's doing you!
08-04-04 | 08:49 AM
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I checked the sites, changed my Virtual Memory around. I even uninstalled my video drivers and installed them again. I still get the pauses. The odd thing is that I don't hear any hard drive activity during a pause and sometimes objects disappear during a pause. For instance All the trees and bushes will disapear until the pause is over, or the water will disappear and you'll just see the landscape under the water.
Another thing I noticed is that I'll get artifacts like flashing triangle spots on occasion. Nothing on my computer is overclocked, so I don't think that is the issue. Could it be that my video card is bad or going bad? The only other game I seems to have this problem is Deus Ex Invisible War. During a conversation with a NPC it will pause and the audio will repeat a portion of a sentence 3 to 4 times and then continue. This is really getting on my nerves.
Any additional ideas are always appreciated.
Another thing I noticed is that I'll get artifacts like flashing triangle spots on occasion. Nothing on my computer is overclocked, so I don't think that is the issue. Could it be that my video card is bad or going bad? The only other game I seems to have this problem is Deus Ex Invisible War. During a conversation with a NPC it will pause and the audio will repeat a portion of a sentence 3 to 4 times and then continue. This is really getting on my nerves.
Any additional ideas are always appreciated.
08-04-04 | 06:34 PM
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The odd thing is that I don't hear any hard drive activity during a pause and sometimes objects disappear during a pause. For instance All the trees and bushes will disapear until the pause is over, or the water will disappear and you'll just see the landscape under the water.
