REAL FIX for Stuttering Wonder Movies!

[Xerxes712]

I spent days trying to solve this. I finially discovered the cause. As least for me.

This is the main one: Do NOT turn on the in-game AA option for graphics. EVER.

It will store that data, and all the reloading in the world will not fix it.

If I turn on all high graphics and resolution, and leave the in game option for AA alone - the Bink player will play the Wonder Movies darn near perfect.

If I want good AA smoothing, set the AA manually from you desktop via the display properites.

Do no do it through the ingame option screen.

If you did, restart from the desktop and hold 'shift' to clear the data.

I had sever stuttering after patch 1.09 (always was some). The Bink Player cannot play movies under the ingame software AA.

It CAN play fine as long as you set your AA ouside the game from the cards setting. The game itself will have the nice AA smoothing.

The Bink player is an application playing within an application of the Civ4 engine. The AA does not match up.

Many of you are using AA in-game without even knowing it, since the game stored the data forever until it is cleared, even if you set it back to zero. You must set the AA for your card ouside the game. On your Windows screen cards application.

This may not fix everyone's problem, but it did for me.

I also set my page file for virtual memory as large as possible. About 2 Gig (twice my RAM size).

I have a ATI 9600 pro 128 VRAM. P4 2.8 GHZ. 1 Gig RAM at 400DDR. ASUS P4P800 deluxe MB, plain old SB 512PCI card.

I am playing with full options and my movies are playing stutter free so far. I tested this for this set up.

So review: Turn off AA in the game option to zero. Never touch it again. Exit game. Go into your video cards setting application in display and set your AA manually there ouside the game.

Then restart the Civ4 game with holding the 'shift' key whil booting up the game to clear the Cache.

Now you should have no more stuttering Wonder Movie play backs, even with a save game. Until you get to your cards limit on a Huge map and such.

[Raion]

It has been reported that with Geforce cards and the before the new Technology of PCIe cards that simply put -- the video card is the thing that can not handle AA - or Antialiasing and do not --- simply put, the hardware in the card is not all that good. I probably might expect that also but not as much with ATI cards.

So, that is a weak point in all video cards prior to obtaining a computer that has the new PCIe slot cards!

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Hm. Doing this causes the game to freeze when it tries to draw the map at the beginning of the game (or when loading a savegame.)

GF6600 GT 128MB
A64 3200+
1GB

Good thought, though.

[Xerxes712]

With AA set inside the computer cache, and you cannot even start up, it could be the cause. Go into your INI file and set Movies to = zero.

Then when you load up, the intro and all movies are shut off. It should allow your computer to start the application straight to the Menu screen. (And allow you to change the default settings and clear the cache).

Has anyone had any success at this stopping the "Stutter Wonder" problem for them too?

[Sabre2th]

I changed a few different things, this among them, and my wonder movies don't stutter anymore (a tiny bit jerky, but they don't stutter at least). I don't know if this was the fix or not

[Firecrak]

I've got a 9600XT but I believe it might be the fact that I am running Omega Drivers, almost all my movies play with HUGE artifacts, funky colours and really really slow. I've set all the options on/off, it makes no diffrence :/

[Sabre2th]

I tried Omega drivers back when Civ4 first came out...they didn't seem to get along with it much at all. Of course, I've got a GF4mx....

[Xerxes712]

Firecrak :

Omega Drivers are not supportive of all the latest DirectX 9c features.

For the ATI 9600 pro, I just used the old standard drivers 4.3 that they made before they quit updating them.

I would try the Radeon Catalyst Drivers. Omega was good for some things awhile ago, but not the latest games I have seen on other forums.

The artifacts (graphics tearing) are an excellent sign that the Omega drivers are not working for you for this game.

Koyaanisqatsi : Maybe I should say it only proven to work with ATI cards?? Nvidia is different.

[adamcb]

Turning off AA in the game options worked for me. Bravo! No more stuttering wonder movies!

A quick note though - I had AA and AS set to 8X in my GeForce 5200 and 5900 Ultra settings. Still had stuttering. So I dropped them both down to 4X and everything worked fine. I also just updated to the 81.95 drivers (which just came out) and the AA looked a lot better on the smaller type.

Thanks for the tip, Xerxes712. I was awfully disappointed when I tried out the 1.09 patch and still saw stuttering. But the combination of the patch, the AA off and the 81.95 drivers worked for me!


adamcb

[Xerxes712]

Your welcome! Thanks for another happy customer.

[Garwoofoo]

Well, this has certainly done *something*.

Prior to applying this fix (and on the unpatched release of the game), the wonder videos played, but the sound would cut in and out every two seconds or so.

Now, with this fix applied and on patch 1.09, about half the videos play perfectly (woohoo!). The other half are now the complete opposite of what they were before: the sound plays perfectly but the video hitches and skips.

Very odd. However, I do find performance has increased overall and I'm not too fussed... just a bit perplexed.

[Xerxes712]

Upon my first patching the game to v1.09, the wonder movies skipped much worst than v1.0.

I had to uninstall completely, re-install then apply the patch 1.09. Then with the AA fix, it works perfect.

Why I had to re-install the game for the patch 1.09 to work propper is not understood for me.

[SirSebastian]

In 1.00 I had very severe problems with the movies (unwatchable). After upgrading to 1.09, just minor problems. However, although I had AA set to 0 anyway, I thought maybe I should hold the shift key at startup. Interestingly, I'm back to the very severe problems. So, something must have been cached in a way that helped? Odd.

[SirOsis]

The movies definately got worse with 1.09. So when I get home I'll have to try this out.

[Drachasor]

I think you should try messing with these options, they are about the movies (which are in bink formate). All of them are in the ini. Has anyone tried this? (Telling it to skip frames if it is falling behind might work, though there are many ways to twiddle with the settings).

; Don't skip frames if falling behind
BinkNoSkip = 1

; Copy entire image each frame, not just dirty pixels
BinkCopyAll = 1

; Show movies using hi-color, not true-color (may be faster)
Bink16Bit = 0

; Copy ever other scanline during movie playback (faster)
BinkInterlace = 0