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elishacloud / dxwrapper

Fixes compatibility issues with older games running on Windows 10/11 by wrapping DirectX dlls. Also allows loading custom libraries with the file extension .asi into game processes.
zlib License
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ST Armada Stutter & Mouse Issue #115

Closed amcghee1 closed 3 years ago

amcghee1 commented 3 years ago

Hi there. When using dxwrapper with Star Trek Armada 1.3, I'm getting a lot of small game stutters, audio cut outs & the mouse is laggy like it's running at 20Hz or something. If I try running at a resolution of 1024*768 the game is mostly ok, but at higher resolutions the mouse basically stops working, the game only seeming to register a half second of input every 4 seconds or so & the lag is worse. The frame rate is poor & unsteady as well.

I'm using the latest dxwrapper & I manually edited the config to match the one from the older armadafix.zip (that version wouldn't let me launch the game at all).

Are there any config settings that would get round this? I'm on W10 20H2, 16 core / 32 thread CPU.

dxwrapper-armada.log

As a side note I tried DGVoodoo on another install. There the game runs perfectly for about 1.5 hrs then I get a CTD. The Armada game log shows an out of memory fatal error. Also with that method the menus are barely usable.

Edit: So the cause of the stutters appears to be enabling HDR in Windows Display Settings. I can switch the issue on & off by toggling that setting. Leaving HDR off keeps the game running smoothly up to & including 4k resolution. Unfortunately this didn't completely fix the mouse or audio problems. The mouse mostly works now but cuts out every so often, feels like around 10 seconds. It's as if the mouse goes over an unreadable surface. The cursor also seems to stick at the edge of the screen sometimes. As for audio it seems perfect until there's a lot going on then it cuts out a pops a lot.

elishacloud commented 3 years ago

It could be related to the version of DDrawCompat I am using. Try with the latest build here: dxwrapper.zip

Also make sure that all compatibility options are disabled:

image

amcghee1 commented 3 years ago

Thanks for that :) Unfortunately the newer version made no difference, the mouse still cuts out constantly. I tried a different mouse as well with no change.

I don't have any compatibility settings on.

I meant to say originally that in the game menus, both accessed from an active game & from the main menu after launching the mouse & audio is perfect.

Edit: I've found the keyboard is doing the exact same thing, it's just a lot less noticeable since the mouse does most of the work. The issue also gets progressively worse as a game goes on to the point it's completely unplayable.

Edit 2: I decided to try a full Instant Action game to see how long the game would last. 1st attempt I got about 10 min then CTD, 2nd about the same but it rebooted the PC.

Edit 3: Ok so I've finally managed to completely fix the input problems by disabling nVidia Instant Replay. This just seems to be on by default, should have thought of an overlay causing this sooner! I can also confirm even with this disabled HDR still needs to be off in windows display settings to eliminate the game micro stuttering problem. I managed to finish a single player mission as well as a 4v4 IA match that lasted over an hour so the crashing is fixed too.

I am seeing some bad frame rate drops in high action scenes, not sure if this is normal using dxwrapper but considering the age of the game not too unexpected. The persistent audio crackling is also still present but there is no cutting out anymore.