Vampire the masquerade Bloodline. Plz help !!!!!!!!

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I recently bought bloodline. My PC superseeds the recomended specs. (as you can see from my sig). However when playing the game there are times (quiet often) when the game stutters badly making it unplayable until the stuttering has stopped. I have updated the game and frequently de-frag etc.My PC is in good order. I have done some reserch into this problem with the game and while i have read posts stating others have stuttering probs i havent come across any solutions as of yet. Anyone here able to play this game without it stuttering at times ? Or is it just a case of rushed game development =s bugged up to hell ??. Id like to play this game the way its intended to be played and my PC is more than up to it so any ideas will be tried out and appreciated.

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I take it no-body cares if i can play this game stutterlessly. You harsh,hard Malkavian's (There the mad,lunatic types)

[DABhand]

Onboard sound I take it?

If so that could be your prob as it will use up memory and also runs in software mode, which isnt a good thing.

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@ DABhand. Yeah you got it.

Onboard sound I take it?

Actually to be honest i can't belive i diddnt give it any thought
However to be honest the K8N NEO4 is a good M/B. (i did my home work before i shelled out). Seeing as my system is only running on 512MB of RAM and im using on board sound it could explain the probs i guess. The on-board is 7.1 Channel audio but compliant with AC97 2.3 (It has multi speaker 3D audio support etc etc). So would you suggest my stuttering problems (which are not only audio stuttering but the whole game as such) are down to using on-board sound with only 512MB RAM ??. Im intrested to know what you reckon. Thanks.

[DABhand]

Ive yet to see a game running smooth with an onboard soundcard, they always cause a bit of lag in games, especially the high end games like doom3 etc, they just cant cope with the traffic being sent to them since they are in software mode and not hardware like PCI cards.


Your memory is fine, but I know Bloodlines was a bit laggy anyways for me, but only if I played it for more than 2hrs then Virtual memory started to kick in more and eventually the game got very laggy. But it shouldnt lag so much from start.

Other things you can try is turning down the GFX a bit, not a high resolution etc.


Also Your GPU it may overheat, later Nvidia cards had a habit of this, you can put on a small fan on it, about 30mm'ish (thats 3 cm :P) and that could help cool it down.


But I would even try with an old PCI sound card just to try it out before buying one, if you see a performance boost doing that then go get one, the SB Live! 24bit is reasonably priced (but lacks the gameport since controllers are coming more and more with USB connections)

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@ DABhand.

with an onboard soundcard, they always cause a bit of lag in games, especially the high end games like doom3 etc

I have DOOM3 and have no probs @ all when playing (sound related or anything else). In fact the only game i have any kind of probs with @ all is Bloodlines. I have quiet a few high spec games yet only bloodlines gives me trouble. (i thought half-life 2 may of if any but no probe there). I think what im gonna do is try a sound-card (ive got one knocking about someware) and see if i get a performance increase with bloodlines. Thanks for your reply

[DABhand]

Must be that Bloodlines is just pants :P


It was bad for me lagging but usually with onboard cards is they tend to cause lag as they cant cope with high level of traffic hence why I asked you.


An idea, check Bloodlines settings and turn off EAX if enabled, also if it is set to hardware mode well you know what im going to say

I have no idea with the soundcard on your mobo, so I couldnt say for sure.

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I just fired up Bloodline's to check for the EAX option (as i couldnt remember seeing it in the Audio option's) and its not there. The only option's avaliable are as follows........Enviromental effects
High quality Audio
No EAX option's. I have other games with EAX obviously (DOOM3,Halflife 2 etc). Unless one of the above option's cover EAX in Bloodline's its not there. (i wouldnt expect it to be tied in with Enviromental effects or High quality Audio as it SHOULD be a option on its own in its own right). Do you have the option to turn on,off EAX in Bloodlines ?. (im running the updated version v1.2 but i cant see EAX being removed in an update ).

PS. Thanx 4 your time

[DABhand]

I dont have bloodlines installed just now will do later on and let you know

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I dont have bloodlines installed just now will do later on and let you know

Ok thanks. (appreciated).

[DABhand]

Nforce™ Audio Users: Some Nforce™ Audio Users may find that they may experience some sound problems while playing Bloodlines. Users who experience this problem should try two things:

- In the Options menu be sure to uncheck the "High Quality Audio" and "Environmental Effects" options.

- Be sure that your DirectSound® acceleration is set to "Basic." You can do this by following these steps:

1.) Click on the Windows® "Start" button.
2.) Click on the "Run" option on your Start Menu.
3.) Type "dxdiag" in the Run Dialogue Box without the quotes.
4.) Once the DirectX® Diagnostic Tool has finished running, click on the "Sound" tab.
5.) Turn the "Hardware Acceleration Level" down to "Basic."

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Hey just finished playing Bloodlines for the night (due to stuttering got unbareable). Thought id check on here and saw your post. Im gonna get off line in a min and try it out. (Thanks DABhand for info in your post). I hope this sorts it out (Be sure that your DirectSound® acceleration is set to "Basic." ). It will greatly improve my playing experience with this game. Ill post back 2morrow and let you know if it solved my problem out of curtesy. (seeing as you went to the lenghts you have). Thanks again

[DABhand]

I also noticed when I played that when you turn off your GFX cards anistropic filtering etc the game gets very laggy, this has to be the first game that runs smoother with the others on unlike other games which run smoother when off :P

And no problem

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Be sure that your DirectSound® acceleration is set to "Basic

Well i have tried this and it made all the difference . What i find surprising how-ever is that i diddnt need to do this with DOOM3 or HL2. (Id of thought higher end games would of gained a performace increase not Bloodlines). Why is it that Bloodlines needed that doing but other higher end games diddnt ? (bad programing ?). Ive been out and got hold of "Brother's in arms.Road to hill 30" today and im wondering how this will perform. Anyway thanks for the tip for us Nforce™ Audio Users. Game run's stutterlesly now. As for setting my DirectSound® acceleration to basic what difference can i expect in quality ?. I guess i'll re-set it to Full acceleration when im not playing bloodlines. (but its something i'll remember for in the future incase i get any other game's stuttering due to direct sound accleration). I wonder why i only have probs with Bloodline's and nothing else. Thanx again DABhand

[DABhand]

No probs, as I said its the only game I know that works better with Anistropic filtering on, usually when you switch off the game performance is boosted alot. It is a strange game indeed :P