Stuttering and freezing issues on a high-end PC. Any way to solve it?

[RodroG]

First I'd say that I really like this great proyect and game. Years ago I played Black Mesa Source and my experience reliving Half-Life was fantastic. Few months ago I made and bought a high-end PC build and weeks ago I got Black Mesa game to enjoy it again.

System specs:

• OS: Windows 10 Pro 64bits (AE up to date)
  
• CPU: Intel Core i7-6700
  
• MOB: MSI Z170A Gaming M7
  
• RAM: 2x16GB DDR4-2133 (Kingston HyperX Fury)
  
• Storage: Seagate Desktop SSHD 2T
  
• Graphics: Gigabyte GTX 1070 G1 Gaming 8GB @ OC 24/7 (+115/+476)
  
• Audio: Realtek ALC1150 Codec (on-board)
  
• LAN: Killer E2400 Gigabit LAN controller (on-board)
  
• Screen: Samsung S24D300H 24in @ 1080p FullHD 60Hz
  
• Speakers: Logitech 2.1 Z213

So what's the problem? Nothing except stuttering and micro instants where the image freezes and the sound gets choppy. This phenomenon occurs mainly moments after a new map is loaded and when there is an explosion by the firing of the shotgun at close range or when I receive the impact of some type of acid that certain creatures throw me. It is not a problem that prevents me from playing the game at all, but at certain moments it slightly affects the gameplay and is unpleasant when repeated from time to time.

Please, is there any way to fix this issue? Do you know if it is planned by developers a patch to fix all this?

From what I could read here and through the Internet I wouldn't be the only one who has experienced this game behavior, being a frequently commented issue. I sincerely think that with my current System specs and with the high frame rate I'm getting (~ 200 FPS avg.) Black Mesa should work perfectly, without stuttering or freezing. Therefore, I would greatly appreciate any help to solve it and thus enjoy the game even more. Thanks in advance!

[CONCASICO]

I'm also having this issue with the game. I think the problem is in the source engine itself because I've experienced some stuttering in every source based game except for Portal 2,
not that the games run awful but you can clearly notice the stuttering and framerate drops. My rig is not as powerful as yours but with 8GB on RAM, a 970GTX and a FX-8320E this games shouldn't be a problem.

[elderstyx]

Maybe you should lower some settings like anti-aliasing. See if that works for you.

[sikejsudjek2]

Same here on gtx 1060 and i3 6300 with DDR4 2666. Mostly with explosions and headcrab jumps I get stutters. Must be a game thing because the graphics card and cpu aren't anywhere near maximum. Even when OC'd the gtx 1060 hasn't even triggered its fan and running at 45C.

[RodroG]

The truth is that this problem is strange ... Please, could some game developer help us on this?

[Myth[Alex]]

@ rodronat; @ sikejsudjek2: you guys have video cards from the GTX 1000 series. Also, the recent nvidia drivers are really bad... Figure that out.

Here are my suggestions:

> revert the graphics driver to a previous better version (and see if the problem still occurs or not).

> you can also update it to the latest one - 376.33 - as it seems to be fine. Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/5ib16p/driver_37633_faqdiscussion_thread/

> update your BIOS to support your video card (in case you haven't done that) !!!

[RodroG]

Thanks @Myth[Alex], I'm using driver 375.95 which is one of the best in performance and temps according to last Pato 9 (youtube channel) drivers benchmark, so I'll keep on this. And my MOB BIOS support my graphic card from day one and is at its last version 1.G0 too.

[thray]

Here are some things to try and experiment with.

Some issues with Windows 10 are fixed by running the game in windowed mode. Try opening the launch options, and setting the following switches:

-windowed -noborder

What do you use for sound. HDMI, onboard or a soundcard.

The following is from the VERY old wiki for the legacy mod, it might be worth a read. sites down for me but I used the internet archive. https://web.archive.org/web/20161025033445/http://wiki.blackmesasource.com/Troubleshooting_FAQ#Performance_Issues

Lot of “freezes” in-game: sound stutters and game does not reacts on keyboard/mouse input.

After a second or two the game unfreezes continues on normally.
There are several known causes for this problem. First of all, make sure to update the soundcard drivers to the latest available version. Then, configure your default sound output device to use “Stereo speakers” or “Headphones” mode and make sure you have the same setting chosen in the game audio settings dialog. If this doesn't help – time to start experimenting. Try adding “-nosound” to the BM command line parameters and check if the game freezes the same way without sound. If not, try specifying “-primarysound” in the command line parameters instead of “-nosound” and check if that helps. If not – try “-wavonly”.

I have a multicore CPU and I'm experiencing low FPS and/or lots of stutters in BM despite my system being way higher than the requirements.

Try changing the CPU affinity for the hl2.exe process in the Windows task manager. Some people report that setting affinity to use 3 out of 4 cores on quad core CPU had “fixed” stutters problems for them. Some other report that limiting hl2.exe to only use one CPU core works better for their case. Latter one has some ground with last generation of Core i5/i7, AMD Phenom II x6 and AMD FX CPUs – ensuring that OS won't endlessly move the execution of the main game thread from one CPU core to another might allow Turbo Boost/Turbo Core technology to do it magic effectively reducing in-game CPU pressure.

[RodroG]

Thanks for your help @RedEye, I'm going to try all these tips. For sound I'm using my on-board Codec Realtek ALC1150 with 7.1 as default sound output device in-game.

[[BMS] Adam-Bomb]

I have heard people are able to fix stuttering by turning off GPU controlled csync and/or turning off vsync in the game.

[RodroG]

@Zaxx thanks, but what I need to do with RTSS exactly? Only OSD monitoring? FPS capping?

[RodroG]

Thank you! Well now I'm going to test your tip and some of the other and then I'll tell you how them works for me. I really appreciate your help!

And if someone or other BM developer has more tips or a different one to solve this issue, please, don't hesitate to comment here.

[Luky]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=821636508

AMD FX 8300
GTX 1060
16GB RAM

any solutions?

[[BMS] Adam-Bomb]

Originally posted by Luky:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=821636508

AMD FX 8300
GTX 1060
16GB RAM

any solutions?

What exactly is your issue?

[RodroG]

@[BMS] Adam-Bomb if you check the OSD data of the screenhoot you can identify a huge FPS drop in this area. OGL shows a frame rate of only 18~ and if we look at its System specs it doesn't seem something really good when we're talking about game optimization...

There are two logic CPU cores (7 and 8) which aren't working at all (no load %) while the other stay over 40-60%, so I think it could be related with the engine and the CPU multi-thread behavior... Anyway I have no idea how to solve this issue, may be you of some of your dev partners?

EDIT: Even GPU load at 13% ... that's sad...

[[BMS] Adam-Bomb]

Try turning your MSAA and filtering to 2x or off. I notice it crushes my machine (quadcore, 16gigs, 2GB GPU). If it significantly improves the frame rate it is something we can look at when we do a performance pass.

We are locked to DX9 so I am not surprised the engine is not utilizing GPUs like the 1060.