Dual Core & Stuttering fix

[Gwenneth]

Hello peeps!

I just made a nice discovery, and I'd like to get some feedback from others.

I have a AMD X2 6000+ 3Ghz Processor, that meaning I have two cores.
Running AO on windows XP SP2.

Sometimes, I get EXTREME graphics stuttering and lag when I log on, to the point of AO being totally unplayable.
I thought that was because of the Savvis issue, since it happened only a few times per day. However, I just tried something out, just in case it was problems on my end.

Seems this is a processor problem after all.

Sympthoms of the graphics stuttering issues I have:

* Graphics "stutter" to the extreme
* Fps fluctuating wildly between 10ish and 50ish.
* Your jump height are very low compared to what it should be
* The game seems to run at double speed (you can see this when you log out, the logout indicator goes much much faster than normal)

Now, this seems to be a Core affinity issue.
To fix this, start up AO, and before you input password, do this:

* Ctrl + Alt + Del (opens task manager in XP)
* Right click "Anarchy Online" in the task list, choose "Go to Process"
* Right click the Anarchy.exe process, and choose "Set Affinity"
* Deselect one of your cores (doesn't matter which), so AO uses only one core.
* Start the Game

It works for me, the game runs as it "should".
I've yet to puzzle out why this happens only a few times per day, but the fix works for me.

Feedback wanted on this, and if it works for anyone who have the same problem

Gwenn

[Warior]

How to install the AMD X2 drivers, hotfix, the correct way. - XtremeSystems Forums
Have you tried that?

[Egeria]

Hm... this might be nice when running two clients at the same time (dual logging) on the same machine. I don't really suffer from the stuttering you're describing - but my rig seems to have a hard time running two clients at the same time (2.8G dual core P4).

Going to have a try later

[Kenlaar]

The issue reported applies to AMD cpu's only and the fix for it was given above.

[Simoom]

I know this is kind of an old thread, but I found it to be spot-on with my problem.

For years, I played AO without any trouble. Then this last Christmas, I upgraded my PC to an Alienware system. I really went nuts with it, getting a Intel® Core™2 Quad Extreme (4 cores) and ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3870 - CrossFireX video. WOWEE!!

And Anarchy Online played TERRIBLY under it. The mouse was choppy, the sound stuttered, the whole game just seemed to lock up for a second at a time. It was unplayable.

Doing some Googling about, I found that several older games are subject to this on multiprocessor systems. And I remembered years ago that Neverwinter Nights added a INI setting for process affinity. At that time, I was playing on a Centrino processor, one of the first ones. It only had one core, so this didn't mean anything to me. But now, I understand the problem.

I don't really know much about threading models and hypercores, etc. But older games don't handle this technology very well. They like single CPUs. So the fix is to bind the process to a single CPU core. There are two ways you can do that.

The first, temporary way, is to use Task Manager to set it. You can easily test to see if this solves your problem by doing this.

1. Start Anarchy Online
2. At the login or character selection dialog, start your task manager
3. Under the 'processes' tab, find Anarchy.exe
4. Right-click on that and choose 'set affinity...'
5. Uncheck all but one of the CPU cores
6. Now go ahead and log in as normal

If that solves your problem, then you'll most likely want this done automagically for you because once the game is actually running (client.exe), it doesn't seem to help to bind to a single core.

I managed to find two programs that are free that help out with this. They are RunFirst and ImageCFG.

ImageCFG won't work with Anarchy Online because it actually modifies the executable, and the AO Patcher thinks the file is corrupted. It repairs it, leaving you back where you started. That's too bad because it gives you the option of setting which core you'd like.

RunFirst binds to the first core. It seems to do the job just fine, doesn't modify the executable, and lets you write a batch file to drive it. I put RunFirst.exe in my home directory and wrote this batch file to start AO with. I've tested this under both XP and Vista-64. If you installed AO in a different directory than the default, you'll have to update the script to match your system.

NOTE: RunFirst can't handle any spaces in the filename or path, which is why I change to the AO directory before running.

@echo off
set USERHOME=%HOMEDRIVE%\%HOMEPATH%
if exist "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Funcom\Anarchy Online\Anarchy.exe" goto VISTA
if exist "%ProgramFiles%\Funcom\Anarchy Online\Anarchy.exe" goto XP


:XP
set AODIR=%ProgramFiles%\Funcom\Anarchy Online
goto RUN


:VISTA
set AODIR=%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Funcom\Anarchy Online
goto RUN

:RUN
cd /d %AODIR%
%USERHOME%\runfirst ./Anarchy.exe

:END

I've put both RunFirst and my Launch-AO.bat file on my SkyDrive.

I hope this helps!!!

[Megasis]

Hey I tried it and it works awsome!! i lost 70% of the stuttering! everything runs very smoother. APF is now smooth as glass!

I have also done this on my Intel lap top and its a 200% increase in perfomance. Before I could barely run it now it runs perfect.

Thank you soooooooo much for this fix.. wow wow wow wow is all I can say!

I also set the priorty to high and found much faster zoning



Bump for STICKY!!!!!!

[Scape]

thanks this helped me a lot

[Mastablasta]

Odd O.o I've had dualcore and more for the last 3 years and I've noticed no problems with it..