"How-to's": "Voice Chat" - "Improving Video Hitching, Glitching.."

[DaDaDaDaDanny]

I am at a loss to what my problem is. I have a AMD FX-62, with two evga gts 8800 OOC KO 640mb cards in SLi. I am only getting 30 FPS max and my problem is it keeps hiccuping to 7 FPS (in that area) for 2 seconds or so. I did not always have this problem, seems like after the latest patch i started getting these issues. I tried removing my creative sound card because i was getting crackling and thought maybe that was the cause, but that has not done any difference. I have been playing around with pretty much every option in the game and nvidia control panel (including the stuff listed in the guide) and got nothing accomplished. I'm wondering if anyone else has any more suggestions?

[ElectricEye1]

Has there been any feedback from Turbine on what they're doing about this issue? It seems odd that I find reports of hitching all over the web still and this sticky has had several thousand views...I really don't think its a user hardware issue.

I love this game but I'm not willing to just tolerate an annoying glitch when my system has no problem running anything else, including the mighty (boring) AoC.

Core2Duo 2.13ghz, 4gb ram, 512mb 8800gt, Vista 32.

I'm going to have to agree, this is still an issue a year after launch and yet my system runs the poorly optimized AoC at a steady 70fps with no hitching at the same general settings (1680x1050, high/very high with 2xAA/16xAF).

[usc50]

for me, my mic keeps echoing when i do mic test. how do i fix that? im using a logitech mic too.

[Skeeterxi]

I'm gonna copy my post from another thread. People running in Dx10 might find it interesting.

Update, I decided to try switching from Dx10 to Dx9, and it seems DX10 might have been the culprit. Downgrading to Dx9 actually seemed like an upgrade, my visuals are much better, everything looks better, my combat animations more details..etc. I only played around for a couple minutes but it seemed smooth as a baby's bare- you get the idea. In dx10 I was running everything maxed out in ultra, but I couldn't turn on post processing effects because it gutted my fps by like 25. When I made the switch down to Dx9 I decided to turn it on just to see, now everything looks way way better and it didn't dent my fps at all. I think my problem had to do with Dx10. I had tried reinstalling directx like I said in my other post but it detected I was already up to date and canceled. Dx10 is new to lotro though right? Maybe its poorly optimized? I dunno, seemed really wierd, not sure if its on my side or not, you guys at turbine might want to look into this.

[Schreik]

When I set FakeFullScreen=False I get color distortion like red clouds, character skin is blue and green and other strange happenings. Below is my system:

AMD Athalon 64 X2 5000+ (Dual core 2.6GHz)
Radeon HD 2600 XT 512MB x2 in Crossfire
4GB RAM
Vista x64
7200 RPM Seagate Barracuda with 32MB Cache

Anyone ever found a reason for this happening, or am I the only one with the problem?


***Note
My wife has an identical system and has the same issue. I think that it may be related to our graphics cards, but would love to know how to fix.

[Silmeore]

Hey Arvaen! I got mine to work! In my case, I played around with the Latency and Voice Capture Threshold bars with the mic test on and suddenly it started working. My Latency is really low and my Capture Threshold is not quite at full. Try moving those a bit with all Voice Enabled and with the Mic Test on. Let me know if that works.

I found this worked for me too. I had to enable hands free chat to get the mic test to work, then I just turned it off once I had all my options set. I'll try it in a party tonight and see how it goes.

Just for reference, I am also using a logitech headset. ^_^

[Doruu]

I know i have only been playing about a week. But I had alot of annoying hitching. And I think...Think I may have got it ironed out.

The good news is that The changes are all simple changes to the config file. The bad news is It is working incredibly on my laptop but im going to try it on the desktop too before I tell you guys.

I want to make sure that This all works as much as I can here as to not make an *** out of myself.

Please hang in there. I promise Ill be back in afew hrs. sometime this evening to let you guys know.

Believe me i know this has been ike this for years and I understand your apprehentions. Thats why I want to test further on my other and main system.

[Doruu]

Ok guys. I got upstairs earlier.

If you got hitching, This should fix it for alot of you.

Now Some of these settings are for feel. Much better response from the keyboard and mouse. Give it a try remember to save your settings. Make a backup config file first.

Hope this helps at least someone. Good luck


TurnKeySpeed=175.00
MouseLookSensitivity=0.13

********These are the most important********
ConfineFullScreenMouseCursor=F alse
AllowFakeFullScreen=False
AllowDesktopCompositing=True (this one is for vista. It sets Aero off when set to false when game runs. It really isnt needed unless you have a weak system or issues occur)

[Inarion]

Great guide. I did most of the steps and everything runs much better. The AllowFakeFullScreen thing doesn't work for me. Game won't even launch when I made that change. Reverted it and the game fired right up. Doesn't matter, steps still helped out a lot.

Thanks!

[logicbox99]

The hitching got worse for me after Book 14... so bad that I unsubscribed again, and for the last time. Fix your game Turbine.

[EB64]

The hitching got worse for me after Book 14... so bad that I unsubscribed again, and for the last time. Fix your game Turbine.

Way to provide us with some system info to help us possibly solve your problem.

Actually, judging from a lot of your posting history, the game is probably better without you anyways.

[Andy2879]

I am at a loss to what my problem is. I have a AMD FX-62, with two evga gts 8800 OOC KO 640mb cards in SLi. I am only getting 30 FPS max and my problem is it keeps hiccuping to 7 FPS (in that area) for 2 seconds or so. I did not always have this problem, seems like after the latest patch i started getting these issues. I tried removing my creative sound card because i was getting crackling and thought maybe that was the cause, but that has not done any difference. I have been playing around with pretty much every option in the game and nvidia control panel (including the stuff listed in the guide) and got nothing accomplished. I'm wondering if anyone else has any more suggestions?

I have the same stiupid problem, and i dont know what to do.I did not have that hitching problems before, if that is an error of some kind on my end thats ok, but if it is devs fault well, we do pay for this game so maybe you guys should start working on the issue.

[Doruu]

Ok, my previous tweaks helped but did not fix the stutter. But today I did something that seems to have stopped it jsut about entirely.

Originally I port forwarded 9000-9010 and 2900-2910 which settled it all down but only on one PC. You see sometimes I play on my laptop and sometimes I play on my Desktop. It seemed to work on the lappy.

So this morning I went and closed the port forwarding and went to Port triggering instead. I enabled port triggering so that when any pc wants these ports the info is allowed to pass to the proper pc.

Anyway so far testing seems to be no hitching. I will play tonight for an extended period and see whats up.

Anyone else for trying be my guest, and good luck!

[Lothainaa]

Ok, thanx for this guide. FINALLY, after a year and a half I've buckled and am going to use a mic. Was having a lot of problems though, so I'm glad there was a guide like this. Thanx again

[Merlinda]

I have done all of the above, but my voice chat will not work without having to press a button to talk. I keep forgetting to press the button to talk, and its really hard to do that and fight at the same time, that is why I truly enjoy hands free voice, but that part ain't working.

[Talking_crow]

Ok so I had shadow issues with my nvidia 9600gt. Got tired of waiting for nvidia to fix it. So I installed a hd3870. Yes I removed the nvidia drivers and then used driver cleaner pro to make sure they where completely removed. Sigh. Now Im having frame skipping. My fps is a solid 60+. It is skipping frames not slowing down. Ive done everything in this thread with no change at all. my connection is 5megs dl 650 khz upload no packet loss. My fire wall is off. Ive tried turning all setting down with no change at all. I love this game but this is unbearable for me and I really want to play. Are there any other threads on this. Any other ideas at all?

Mainboard : EVGA NF75
Chipset : nVidia GeForce 7100
Processor : Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2400 MHz
Physical Memory : 4096 MB (2 x 2048 DDR2-SDRAM )
Video Card : ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series
Hard Disk : ST3250410AS (250 GB)
DVD-Rom Drive : Memorex DVD-ROM 16X v2 ATA Device
DVD-Rom Drive : ZYVGJ TA7OTYJ4XMRS SCSI CdRom Device
DVD-Rom Drive : ZYVGJ TA7OTYJ4XMRS SCSI CdRom Device
Monitor Type : SONY GDM-FW900 - 22 inches
Network Card : Marvell Semiconductor (Was: Galileo Technology Ltd) Yukon 88E8056 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller
Operating System : Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium Home Edition 6.00.6001 Service Pack 1
DirectX : Version 10.00
Windows Performance Index : 5.0

[Talking_crow]

turning down the game engine speed to very low stopped all frame skipping for me. Its the only thing that works for me.

[notebene]

In looking at your sync to refresh rate option, I'm noticing (using Windows 7 with the prerelease nVidia drivers that Windows gave me for my 9800 GTXOC) that while my refresh rate is 60, there is 'not' a 60 option in LotRO.

Is that a concern? Guess I have to leave mine on auto.

I also noticed that I took a huge frame rate performance hit when I went with Windows 7 and DX10. Is that a DX10 thing, or perhaps a Windows 7 + pre-release nVidia driver thing? Did people experience that with Vista?

[Polvere]

In case this helps anyone, I found that the AMD Fusion utility helped reduce my systems hitching alot (thanks manooly for the helpful post):

- Download and install the AMD Fusion Utility...
http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_fusion.aspx?p=1

For some reason this tool really helps me out! I always fire this up and turn on the EXPERT mode (in the Advanced menu) before playing LOTRO. I see big changes in performance.

[Fox_Mulder_XP]

I also noticed that I took a huge frame rate performance hit when I went with Windows 7 and DX10. Is that a DX10 thing, or perhaps a Windows 7 + pre-release nVidia driver thing? Did people experience that with Vista?

It's a DX10 thing. On average DX9 mode runs 2-3 times faster than DX10 mode. If you've got the video card for it, DX10 mode is simply fantastic and you won't ever be able to play in DX9 mode again after you've seen DX10 mode with the settings cranked to max. The difference is quite literally night and day, especially with the distant landscape effects and the dynamic shadows casted on everything by everything. In DX9 mode, LOTRO looks like WoW with better textures. In DX10 mode, there are times when it looks like Oblivion, but with better textures.

[Fox_Mulder_XP]

Ok so I had shadow issues with my nvidia 9600gt. Got tired of waiting for nvidia to fix it. So I installed a hd3870.

The irony here is that there was an older Nvidia driver which had non-broken shadows, 178.64, and now there is a beta drivers which fixes the shadows and adds performance improvements as well, 182.05. My advice would be to return the HD 3870 to the store where you bought it and go back to the card that worked for you.

[Aeshec]

I was having a problem with my Vista 64 and my headset (non-usb). I guess lotro (on vista (or for some other reason)) defaults the recording device to be your digital imput, which was not my mic. So the fix for me was to change the last combo box in the Audio setup setion within lotro from...

Realtek Digital Input -> Microphone

A stupidly overlooked mistake by me (seeing as I wasted a lot of time on it). I hope it can help someone else.

[Tezlin]

Thanks you saved me a ton of time with your Window vista default input tip. YOU ROCK!

[Draxosjkk]

Ok guys. I got upstairs earlier.

If you got hitching, This should fix it for alot of you.

Now Some of these settings are for feel. Much better response from the keyboard and mouse. Give it a try remember to save your settings. Make a backup config file first.

Hope this helps at least someone. Good luck


TurnKeySpeed=175.00
MouseLookSensitivity=0.13

********These are the most important********
ConfineFullScreenMouseCursor=F alse
AllowFakeFullScreen=False
AllowDesktopCompositing=True (this one is for vista. It sets Aero off when set to false when game runs. It really isnt needed unless you have a weak system or issues occur)

In case this helps anyone, I found that the AMD Fusion utility helped reduce my systems hitching alot (thanks manooly for the helpful post):

Quote:
Originally Posted by manooly

- Download and install the AMD Fusion Utility...
http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_fusion.aspx?p=1

For some reason this tool really helps me out! I always fire this up and turn on the EXPERT mode (in the Advanced menu) before playing LOTRO. I see big changes in performance.

Both of these suggestions seems to have absolutely eliminated my hitching problem. Before I was running LOTRO on about medium settings and I was still getting those annoying seemingly random hitches. After both of these suggestions I can now run the game on ultra high and it runs wonderfully. I get a slight hitch in bree but that's pretty much to be expected. Just wanted to thank both posters for their suggestions, thank you soooo much! This was so frusterating. <3


Edit: Well, the hitches arn't completely gone but they are not NEARLY as noticeable as they were, really the only solution in my eyes to completely eliminate them would be to get more RAM. about 6 gigs would work well, I have 4 gigs right now, but still thank you for the suggestions =-P.

[Polvere]

Both of these suggestions seems to have absolutely eliminated my hitching problem. Just wanted to thank both posters for their suggestions, thank you soooo much! This was so frusterating. <3

Horrays! *hobbit cheer*