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Help with freezes, stuttering, fps drops after 1.5

Forum Index > Tech Support
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AiHEADHUNTER
Profile Blog Joined July 2012
Czech Republic19 Posts
August 25 2012 10:07 GMT
#1
Hello guys, after patch 1.5.0 I've been experiencing little freezes and stuttering like many other people did. I have read some advices suggesting me to delete Starcraft 2 related folders from C:\ProgramData\ also I felt like the UnitPreloader helped a little bit (every time u start SC2 go Arcade mode - find map "UnitPreloader", play it, it loads all the units and effects into your cache), so eventually the problem was "almost" solved.

But here comes the more interesting part, few days ago I put my laptop (which is my main gaming PC) in service and I started to play on my old desktop computer (single core Athlon 3200+ CPU from 2005) and the freezes and stuttering were back. They were so massive on this computer, that when I was clicking on the mouse/keyboard during them, the computer started beeping via PC speaker (the warning beeps like when u fu*k up something in BIOS etc.), It was really unplayable here, I got about 3 of those huge freezes per minute. Obviously the blizzard support is useless, they just suggest you to update your drivers, cause they might be 5 minutes old, clean your computer from dust and sh*t and turn off all the other applications.

Long story short, after some experiments with HW/SW I discovered the problem is not the graphics, new textures or shadders, but the problem lies in the sound, which is surprising. When I turned off the SC2 sound I suddenly had zero freezes, no stuttering, no sudden fps drops, the game was completely playable! I mean still, on this kind of PC I'm playing on 10-20 fps, but at least they are constant and gameplay is fluent. I continued to experiment with the sound, switching soundcard from the integrated AC97 (disable in BIOS) to SoundBlaster Audigy didn't make any difference, so it's not about one piece of faulty hardware. It's just somehow on some computers the sound effects make the game stutter and lag for 1-3 secs.

After some final adjustments in settings, I am able to have "sound effects" and "error sounds" enabled. So I still hear most of the Starcraft effects and sounds like "we are under attack", which is important. The most "screwing up" options seemed to be "response sounds" and "play in reverb" (so have those turned off). Interesting thing is that the number of "sound channels" didn't matter for me, whether it is 16 or 64 doesn't make a difference for my particular computer.

So my final advice is, if you still experience some freezes, stuttering, fps drops and lags after 1.5 patch(es), try to turn off your sound and then experiment with what sound options u can turn back on, while your game remains fluent. I created this thread after few people already verified that sound was the issue for them too, so I hope I can help several more people.

If this article was helpful for you, consider subscribing to http://www.youtube.com/h34dcz and/or follow http://en.twitch.tv/h34dhunt3r
Jedi123
Profile Joined August 2012
Czech Republic1 Post
August 25 2012 10:21 GMT
#2
Great idea! Thanks for it and I subscribe your youtube channel.
IlIlIlIlIlIlIl
Profile Joined August 2012
Slovakia1 Post
August 25 2012 14:05 GMT
#3
May be thats the reason Mvp plays the game without sound oo
"There's no better feeling than being manner-muled and end up winning." -Day9
AiHEADHUNTER
Profile Blog Joined July 2012
Czech Republic19 Posts
August 26 2012 08:48 GMT
#4
On August 25 2012 23:05 IlIlIlIlIlIlIl wrote:
May be thats the reason Mvp plays the game without sound oo


Haha, I really don't think they have freezes or fps drops at tournament computers. Mvp said he doesn't like the english sounds, that's why he played without it.
PlateCaptain
Profile Joined February 2012
United States26 Posts
September 02 2012 19:05 GMT
#5
Thank you! It's been so frustrating going from smooth gameplay on High/Ultra settings to under 1fps on Low settings just from a stupid patch. The unit preloader helped a little bit, but I still got under 1fps in most games I played.

Turning off the volume put me closer to 45 fps, and 20-30 in enormous 4v4 battles, which is still kind of annoying, but at least playable.

Seems like a stupid reason for slower gameplay, but thanks again for pointing it out!
Danger_Duck
Profile Blog Joined March 2008
Burkina Faso571 Posts
September 03 2012 03:56 GMT
#6
On September 03 2012 04:05 PlateCaptain wrote:
Thank you! It's been so frustrating going from smooth gameplay on High/Ultra settings to under 1fps on Low settings just from a stupid patch. The unit preloader helped a little bit, but I still got under 1fps in most games I played.

Turning off the volume put me closer to 45 fps, and 20-30 in enormous 4v4 battles, which is still kind of annoying, but at least playable.

Seems like a stupid reason for slower gameplay, but thanks again for pointing it out!


Did you turn off music, etc., too?

I guess better question, what did you still leave on?
TBA
PlateCaptain
Profile Joined February 2012
United States26 Posts
September 05 2012 23:29 GMT
#7
On September 03 2012 12:56 Danger_Duck wrote:

Did you turn off music, etc., too?

I guess better question, what did you still leave on?


I just turned everything off, and I haven't experimented yet to see what I can leave on and what should stay off. It just seemed easier to do everything and see if that helped.
Marcus Arcadia
Profile Joined May 2010
Philippines92 Posts
November 01 2012 15:07 GMT
#8
The sound remedy worked for me for about 3-4 matches. Also deleted the SC2-related folders in "C:\ProgramData), which also worked for a few games.
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