'Wink' of performance after 2/10 update

[ViRUS]

After 2/10 update, every 10 or so seconds (it seems to start happening as soon as the game has to move the objects when you go past them) I have a 'wink' of performance.

I'm sure it's not my Windows install, as it's 3 weeks new, and I have all my drivers updated too, so I don't know what can be happening.

EDIT:
UncFester seems to be having the same problem.

[Lavos^]

As I said in the other thread, isn't anything new for me, had it with my old computer after one of the updates. Made playing in windowed impossible, but it completely disappears in fullscreen even when using way higher settings than windowed.

Does yours go away in fullscreen? If so, it's just purely down to performance issues. Dylan mentioned in one thread that the game periodically loads/checks something using your graphics card, so, it may have something to do with that.

[ViRUS]

It never happened to me before the last update, but it does now, both in fullscreen and windowed.

[Punkgast]

Yeah.. I've got the same problem. Everything was perfectly fine before the 2/10 update, but now the screen stutters for a microsecond every now and then.
It's very, very annoying and makes the game unplayable for me..
My rig's good enough: Core 2 Quad Q9550, HD Radeon 4870X2, 4GB DDR2 Ram. So that shouldn't be the problem.
Does anyone have a solution for this problem?

[ViRUS]

Well, at least it seems to happen on high-end PCs too...

EDIT: I'll be testing if it happens on Win7 today...

[Loofiloo]

This happens to me as well, though I have noticed that it only happens on premium graphics. If I go down a notch, it'll be as smooth as ever.

It's so annoying, I just have one problem after another keeping me from using premium mode ever since I got hardware good enough to do so. =(

[UncFester]

EDIT: I'll be testing if it happens on Win7 today...

I just tested it on my Win7 install and it does it.

In my post to the other thread about it, I said it seemed to happen in all the graphics modes except "minimal."

That was probably wrong, but I'm going to have to switch back to XP to find out. My testing for the past few minutes in Win7 only seems to create the issue in "enhanced" and "premium" modes, not in "minimal" or "normal."

I'll post my results later on today.

[Dylan]

Does the time between Winks go up with graphic detail (Is the time between winks greater on Premium than on Normal)?

[ViRUS]

OK, I tried on Win7 and it seems that (as UncFester said), the winks only appear on Enhanced and Premium, not Minimal nor Normal.

Dylan, the time between the winks are not affected by graphic detail on my end, it looks like they appear as soon as the game moves an object further (which would make sense if it weren't of the fact that they appear on WinXP using Normal, where there isn't any objects :-/).

[Dylan]

I've created test files to try and narrow down the problem. I'd appreciate the help from any of you that want to try playing with each of these. Just copy one of the files from the zip into steam\steamapps\common\audiosurf\engine\Render and see how the performance is. Then quit Audiosurf, copy in a different one, restart Audiosurf, and try again. You should probably make a backup of your existing "Render_IndustrialTunnel.cgr" file before over-writing it with any of these test versions.

Which, if any of these, eliminate the performance wink on your system?

http://www.bestgameever.com/WinkTests/WinkTests.zip

[Punkgast]

I'll test those ones right now. Hold on.

EDIT: Dylan, did you update anything or something? Because I noticed when you play a song the title is now in the middle of the screen, and not in the bottom left.
Also, I didn't have the stuttering issue anymore! I've got no clue how it got solved, because I didn't do anything.
Would you still like me to test out those Render_IndustrialTunnel.cgr files for you?

[Dylan]

Hmmmmm....

The song name has been in the middle since the 2.10 update. I guess there's no reason for you to try the test version since you have no problem.

[Punkgast]

Hmmmmm....

The song name has been in the middle since the 2.10 update. I guess there's no reason for you to try the test version since you have no problem.

Oh my.. That was a bit stupid of me xD Sorry!

[ViRUS]

OK, I made some tests, WinXP SP3 32 bit, here are the results:

No Background: It started without winks, but after half of the song, they came and stayed until the end as 'normal'.

No Cliff: The best of them, almost no winks, and the one or two that appeared weren't that notorious, only if you search for them or if you're following the track closely you would notice them.

No Floaters: No difference, winks all the time.

No Rings: No difference, winks all the time.

No Big Swirling Spacevagina Thing Squid: Winks every now and then, and they're as notorious as always, I would say 50-50 here, I mean, less winks but as 'strong' as always.

Hope this helps you Dylan

[UncFester]

I'm just now downloading the WinkTests.zip file and will try them out in my Win7 install first (will have to swap drives for XP later).

I'm only testing on a single MP3 file (my Mindless Primate Mix) so that I can see if it occurs in the same places as well as timing when the winks arrive.