Low framerate with ATI card on Windows 7

[zookman]

I'm having a bit of a problem running W:A in Win7.

I'm using the latest update. with wormkit and wkcolorfix.
when i first installed it... It ran very joltily with a low frame rate... but then i pressed insert to play with a black background it at ran a lot smoother.

but now for some reason it's happening again and pressing INSERT doesn't do the trick.
I'm sure the spec of the computer isn't an issue.

any suggestions?

[CyberShadow]

Have you checked if any program running in the background could be causing this?

[zookman]

Restarting the computer seems to fix it temporarily.
But It'll start to happen again mid-game.

I've compared the Tasklists before and after the problem occurs, and they're the same; all the same processes consuming roughly the same memory.
So it can't be a background process.

[CyberShadow]

Well, if restarting your computer (but not W:A) fixes it temporarily, then the problem can't be in W:A either.

[zookman]

So problems that manifest themselves in W:A but not caused by W:A, aren't of concern?
I guess I can't expect much from a support forum for a decade old game.

thanks anyway.
If I find a solution I'll post back.

Edit:
I believe the problem I'm having is graphics related... Disabling and renabling the display adaptor in the device manager also temporarily fixes the issue.. unfortunately it can't be done mid-game because it causes w:a to be unresponsive.

Captains Log:
further investigation into GPU usage.
GPU-Z monitor shows 'GPU Core Clock[MHz]' and 'GPU Memory Clock[MHz]' both shoot up to maximum values of 750MHz and 799.9MHz respectively.
Incidentally CPU clock speed seems to stay relatively tame; a nice change from the lap burning experiences of XP.

[CyberShadow]

Consider that what you're experiencing isn't a common problem (or we'd probably have a solution otherwise).
I'll stick to my original suggestion: try closing all background programs that aren't required for the game to run.

[KRD]

I've had similar issues in other games when the graphics card in my old notebook got too hot and caused the driver to fail. But it always came with an error message detailing what had happened or at least one of those notifications in the toolbar.

After it happens to you, try running the display tests in DxDiag, I couldn't pass those until I resterted. But it never manifested during WA sessions for me.

[franpa]

The direct x display tests and audio tests aren't there under Vista/7 at least not for me which is pretty gay :/

[zookman]

I ran DXDiag (64bit), I don't get any errors except some files are not 'digitally signed' by WHQL; which I guess isn't relevant.

I did do some GPU monitoring during bad framerate gameplay and good frame rate gameplay, with some interesting results:

This is a screenshot of GPU-Z showing activity during GOOD framerate gameplay:
http://i43.tinypic.com/20jom1h.gif
As I said before the GPU Core and Memory clocks are continuously at maximum values, but notice the 'GPU Load' stays low.

This is a screenshot of GPU-Z showing activity during BAD framerate gameplay:
http://i40.tinypic.com/2r2p543.gif
the GPU Core and Memory clocks are now varying.
But what's more strange is the GPU Load which was staying low before is now spiking between 0 and 100%.

I don't really know what any of it means... but GPU load at 100% on a new graphics card on an old game seems like it could have something to do with the horrible gameplay.

I have log files showing the actual values if it's of any use.

[franpa]

Disable any power/energy saving features for your video card and see if it still occurs.

[tellisk]

Just thought I'd chime in here. My stuttering/pausing issue (game would halt for up to 10 seconds at a time (at the worse, every few seconds, making a turn nearly unplayable)) seems to be resolved by disabling the background.

Does that give any indication of what the problem is/was?

[CyberShadow]

No, that's a more common problem that has to do with how modern drivers don't like how W:A draws the background. We expect it to be resolved in the next Beta.

[zookman]

Disable any power/energy saving features for your video card and see if it still occurs.

I disabled 'PowerPlay', feature of Catalyst Control Center that controls graphics performance for better battery life.
With that disabled the Core and Memory Clock speeds are at constant maximum values (even when W:A is not running), so I thought that must have done the trick.
But no.. the laggyness continues, but this time (with powerplay disabled) the GPU load doesn't spike as before.

I was thinking maybe it's got something to do with graphics memory.. perhaps it's running out of memory which is causing the laggyness, and disabling and re-enabling the device (or restarting) clears out the memory.
Trying to find a graphics card memory monitor but havn't, they prob don't exist.
RAM for the records stays low.

I'm at a loss now.

[CyberShadow]

Running out of graphical memory would indicate a (video) memory leak in ATI's drivers.

I would suggest you try an older driver version, and let ATI know about the problem.

[zookman]

Running out of graphical memory would indicate a (video) memory leak in ATI's drivers.

I would suggest you try an older driver version, and let ATI know about the problem.

It appears they already know:
http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/17966/65/

Hopefully i've got to the bottom of it.
I think i'll just have to wait for the next driver version.

[CyberShadow]

Ah, nice find.

I'm going to split your part of this thread to a separate thread, so it'll be easier to find.

[KRD]

As a future AMD GPU owner, I've looked at some graphs related to that problem in the past and I don't think WA should be using any of the features/shapes where their performance suffers greatly [namely the drawing of vector lines, 2D polygons and Bézier curves]... it should at least be able to match the 2D performance of Nvidia and Intel's integrated solutions, really, and I'm having zero problems running the game on one of those.

But this is pure speculation, based on little more than gut feeling. I do hope it turns out to be this simple and that the next driver release fixes your issues.

[franpa]

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/ATI-Catalyst-10-4-Hotfix.aspx

Give these drivers a go, they may fix your problems if not then wait for the final version 10.4 drivers

[KRD]

I wouldn't recommend doing that, seeing as the 2D fixes aren't included at all.

[zookman]

Using ATI Catalyst 10.7 drivers and yep my problem has gone away.

After 10.4 failed to deliver, I got depressed for 3 months and thought about kamikazeing ATI HQ.

Worms is back in my life. I no longer care that the menu screen appears the size of a postcard... or colours aren't what they should be... or even the occasional crashes resulting from minimizing.

I love you all.