FreeGameDev

Hi,

I've noticed when playing STK 0.8.1, I get a strange stuttering effect on certain tracks when VSync is enabled. It's as if the camera is constantly jumping back a few frames. The only official track this happens on is the Old Mine, but it does seem to happen on quite a few addon tracks as well. The laggy stuttering effect doesn't seem to affect the FPS rate though. All tracks still run at a constant 60ps regardless of whether it gets the effect or not. I'm running a Windows 7 PC with an AMD Radeon HD 6670 graphics card. I also have the latest drivers installed for it too. So yeah, I hope I've explained it well enough. It's just a huge pain for me as it makes some tracks barely playable.

Do you experience something like this?


If not I don't exactly understand what's happening there, and I'm not sure taking a video would show the problem.

Ah no, tearing is a different issue that happens when VSync is off. My problem only happens when VSync is on. I'm sorry that it's hard to explain. It sort of looks like the frame rate is horrendously low, but it's more the camera jumping back constantly.

I used to have the same problem, howevere i'm unable to reproduce it right now. I was thinking it were framedrops, because i had around 30FPS wich is pretty low. but since you say you have 60FPS it may be something else. for me it even happend on the overworld map. however right now i'm running latest development with all effects enabled and it doesn't happen anymore. still around 30FPS

Hi,

this is a known problem, the current camera code uses flawed math. It's on the todo list, we will eventually rewrite the camera code

I wouldn't say 30FPS is low...most games have this as a target...

Funto {l Wrote}:I wouldn't say 30FPS is low...most games have this as a target...

30 FPS is certainly not a good target for a game like STK. We have 60 Hz (or more) screens, let's use them to their full potential...

Calinou {l Wrote}:

Funto {l Wrote}:I wouldn't say 30FPS is low...most games have this as a target...

30 FPS is certainly not a good target for a game like STK. We have 60 Hz (or more) screens, let's use them to their full potential...

For "a game like STK", it is just not possible to have a target, since computers it runs on vary a lot, and depending on what you enable or not in options it can also vary a lot. So you can make it your target, and ensure that your combination of hardware and settings run at that speed

Is it possible a FPS cap such as 30 or 60?

VSync is basically an FPS cap. It caps FPS at your monitor screen refresh rate. Also, the game has an FPS cap of 120 otherwise, which can be changed in the config file (but really there's nothing to earn over using VSync unless you want to set it very low and thus slow down the whole game... slo-mo effect due to the game's internal clock being dependent upon FPS).

Arthur {l Wrote}:Also, the game has an FPS cap of 120 otherwise, which can be changed in the config file (but really there's nothing to earn over using VSync unless you want to set it very low and thus slow down the whole game... slo-mo effect due to the game's internal clock being dependent upon FPS).

Limiting it to something like 61 (to prevent tearing on some 60 Hz screens) reduces:
- power usage (= less expensive to play STK)
- graphics card noise
- graphics card and CPU temperature
- hardware stress (= can last longer)

It'd actually be better to have 61 or something like that (62-65) as a default FPS limit, the vast majority of people have 60 Hz screens.

Calinou {l Wrote}:

Arthur {l Wrote}:Also, the game has an FPS cap of 120 otherwise, which can be changed in the config file (but really there's nothing to earn over using VSync unless you want to set it very low and thus slow down the whole game... slo-mo effect due to the game's internal clock being dependent upon FPS).

Limiting it to something like 61 (to prevent tearing on some 60 Hz screens) reduces:
- power usage (= less expensive to play STK)
- graphics card noise
- graphics card and CPU temperature
- hardware stress (= can last longer)

It'd actually be better to have 61 or something like that (62-65) as a default FPS limit, the vast majority of people have 60 Hz screens.

Agreed, we've been a bit lazy here, it's just that when developing it's easier to spot performance regressions if there's no speed cap. May make sense to change that though