Frequent music stutter

[loppantorkel]

So.. this happens frequently. Music starts and stops and game becomes less responsive. I've got a quite old PC - AMD Phenom II X6 1090T, AMD R9 380, 8 GB RAM. Playing pretty standard game I think. Should I assume it's the PC that isn't up for the task or a bug in the game?

[Tilen]

Same here, actually. Frequent pauses as if it were playing off of one of those old "Discmans" (portable CD players), that had like 20 or so seconds of read memory and would stutter if interrupted while reading.

Laptop here. GTX 1070, i7 7700HQ, 16gb RAM. Running off of HDD.

[Martin]

Same, music, leaderscreen voiceovers, sound effects.. all stuttering and cutting out. Really really annoying. Occurs throughout the game, reloading autosaves helps fix it for a few turns until it breaks again.

Pc Desktop - Ryzen 1600x 32gb 3000mhz ram, 10k rpm hdd, on mid range AB350 motherboard. ie cost around £80.

[Aiei]

In my case, this only happen in fullscreen mode and i alt+tab too much.

[surfhick]

It happens on a 4970K with a 1080TI too. It seems like the sounds aren't in sync with the game. Some occasional wierd graphics glitches too.Almost like its trying to render an overlay on top of the main map.

[MILFxxHUNTER]

same troubles with Asus Rog laptop...

[Waez]

I started having audio trouble after Rise and Fall too. Sometimes it will play fine for hours, other times it will wonk out after 10 minutes.

[Unlimited]

I've found what is the cause of my sound issues with music and sounds stuttering - outdated Realtek Audio drivers. I've updated my audio drivers (and a couple of others while I was at it) using Snappy Driver Installer - SDI.

[mondala]

Hopefully anyone in this thread, receives a note of my reply here but they won't if they don't see it or are not subscribed so if you know a civ friend that has had audio stutter issue, pls mention this to them... and if you can still produce the stuttering audio issue that seems to be well noted on various forums/reddit/game forums and here,,,, possibly you can review this with me,,, as I've found the trigger for my install and worry that it might be an epidemic affecting the greater good of civ 6, I see a lot of people struggling with audio stuttering / screen hesitation and was shocked to find out what I thought was helping performance was actually causing the problem.

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Audio stutter / game hesitation civ 6 rise and fall

Culprit: STRATEGY MODE

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Symptom: usually mid to late game, map size wasn't entirely relevant but obviously load related dependant on civ universe,, how many cities, units, etc... the game would start to stutter... primarily an audio stutter... but then the cursor or scrolling will pause as well eventually. Reloading the save game, you'd be good for another 5 to 15 turns... but it'd basically be unplayable.

Research: I see some people on linux with similar issues, some on high end computers,, some reported on all types of windows, audio cards and video cards the exact same symptoms.
The only common denominator seemed to be Rise and Fall update at some point.

Some people seem to have fixed it with launcher setup, realtek updates, geforce experience setup or other issues but nothing worked for me and there seems to be a lot of people out there like me that exhausted all there options. I was about to give up.

I tried:
-updating my hardware
-updating/modifying page file configurations
-different video drivers and audio drivers
-verified all local files
-added network rules and security allowances, tried offline, etc
-different direct x versions
-ineedlegacy access
-2k support
-admin mode, compatibility mode, reinstall dx, vbcrest, turn read only off

I tried everything I could find as a suggestion to the end of the internet... sometimes I think various steps did help but the problem always came back eventually... perhaps just later game or later as the load built up with more involved game but it was to a point where it was running well enough that I started playing games in normal graphics mode where as I was always a STRATEGY mode player irregardless of machine specs or performance concerns,, I just liked strategy mode and always used it.

So the kicker,,, playing a game NOT USING STRATEGY mode, it ran perfect with no stuttering or pauses. I verified on old save games and it's like clockwork... STRATEGY mode the game is unplayable, swap to normal view and the game is fine. I loaded up a huge map, massive 18000k navy armies, tons of civs and units, no stutter whatsoever.

So the reason I ask for you to respond if you can is to possibly confirm this issue. It could be counter intuitive to what people are looking for. I know I wasn't.
I always assumed strategy mode was less resource intensive, yet it's the mode that makes the game completely unplayable. Stategy mode ON my ram usage is around 3gb. Strategy mode OFF, it is the same. I always assumed the 3gb was high and a memory leak because the game would crash and I'd look at it, at that time. ... but strategy mode off and it's using exactly the same memory usage. fps, graphic temps seem irrelevant.

For me, 100% the issue is Strategy view/mode, kills the game,

I do notice that the civ universe is scaled differently in strategy... so I have only two conclusion:

1. strategy mode is actually more intensive performance wise
2. strategy mode has a bug

Anyone still have this issue can test this out? I don't have a high end computer or vid card so I'd love to find someone with a dynamite rig that has the stutter issue that can tell me if the use strategy mode and if the problem goes away in normal mode.

Thanks

[mondala]

Has the stutter issue gone away for everyone?? I'm stutter free for a month with not using strategy view. Large maps, multi civ, late game, no more stutter. Still love feedback from others,,, if you have a stutter gameplay issue, see post above.

[Enigmatic]

happens for me as well.. w/ pulse audio on leader screens. Somwething weird. Maybe it's just lag but I have a 780 maybe it's to slow.

[mondala]

GTX 780 video card?? I only have a 460 and my stutter issues are gone now that I *don't* use strategy view. I used to play primarily in strat view which is where I think a bug exists.

[loppantorkel]

I haven't tried the game for a good while now.

[mmmcheesywaffles]

As I said in another thread.... most these type of issues are hardware based and are resource clashes on the IRQ line.

Many BIOS screens will allow you to reset the motherboard resources and that is usually my first port of call when I hit this sort of issue.

Updated drivers CAN cause remapping in most systems, however, especially in older kit the motherboard keeps a tighter control of them and software such as Operating Systems and Drivers are left fighting over poorly mapped resources. This together with the increased amount of hardware we attach to our machines can mean several bits of hardware sharing a poorly mapped IRQ that one hungry peice of [usually older] kit refuses to share properly.

So if you have yet to try a BIOS tweak you are only left with the hope that it is a software Register error and it gets found and patched or that you find the hungry hardware and remove it.

My bet would be the issue is hardware based.

EDIT: Added 'properly' to clarify paragraph 3

[mondala]

Thanks mmmcheesywaffles,, yes I'm sure there are several performance issue people have with similar symptoms,, ... mine does not appear to be hardware related as I can play fine in one mode but not another.
The symptom I'm interested in and if others have observed is why strategy view produces music stuttering / game hesitations, period, not just mouse moving and why normal view does not. I can't see strategy view having an irq issue and not normal view and if it does, it would still be a bug imo. That said, pretty sure my particular bug is not related to irq/hardware assignments, surely applies to some which is unfortunate considering it's 2019, I haven't had to worry about assignments for over a decade but my computer is pretty simple. Thanks

[old fart at play]

mondala - interesting. I'm getting same problem, usually after about turn 100 and /or 2 hours of gameplay. 4690K, 1050ti, 8 gig ram, normal size map, running off ssd. Will try your suggestion (although I MUCH prefer strategy view to the noisy detailed screen) and post results