Dirt3 Stuttering

[Stringjam]

So.....this game has been a huge thorn in my side.

On one hand, I love to play it.....on the other, it has been an absolute PITA to get working. After fixing the whole GFWL issue with an offline-save mod, it's been running flawlessly for nearly 200 races.

Now....out of nowhere, it is stuttering terribly. It isn't a framerate issue (I have no problem getting over 100 FPS), it just stutters like mad.

Doesn't matter what graphic options are selected.....still stutters even on low settings. I haven't changed a single setting on my computer, and I hadn't had any "Windows Updates" before the issue started either.

My other games all work fine.

I've tried reinstalling the game, making sure my nVIDIA drivers are up to date (and changed every 3D setting possible while troubleshooting), turning off anti-virus......everything I can possibly think of and the wretched stuttering still persists. GAH!!

Any ideas would be appreciated.

 

[HEXiT]

maybe you should buy it... it may work properly then and you wont have to use an offline hack...

 

[Stringjam]

maybe you should buy it...

I DID.

I've never pirated a game in my life......I bought this game just like every other game I own.

The offline-save mod allows you to save games without having to log into GFWL.....something which caused me to lose almost 12 hours of savegame data (and I'm not the only one).

 

[HEXiT]

well in that case you need to patch the game. and run the game in online mode. theres no need to play it offline as i said in your pm...
there is a couple of suggestions in that pm and 1 i forgot. if you have 2 360 controlers plugged in remove 1 of them. other than that the only other time i have heard of this is with a bad crack... so maybe you need to check the dirt forums for a fix but its likely you will get the same answer over there 2.

 

[Stringjam]

well in that case you need to patch the game. and run the game in online mode. theres no need to play it offline as i said in your pm...
there is a couple of suggestions in that pm and 1 i forgot. if you have 2 360 controlers plugged in remove 1 of them. other than that the only other time i have heard of this is with a bad crack... so maybe you need to check the dirt forums for a fix but its likely you will get the same answer over there 2.

Just to clarify . . I could save games without the mod. The problem arose when I got the dreaded "Cannot load profile" from GFWL about 12 hours into the game. There are a lot of other legitimate Dirt3 users who had the exact same issue - - losing hours and hours of savegame files because GFWL wouldn't load the profile. I searched the forums quite diligently (Dirt3 and otherwise) and this mod was the only solution that was ever presented. Codemasters didn't care, and of course neither did Microsoft.

Saving gamefiles should be a local process and they were asking for trouble when they decided to implement this GFWL syncing BS. Of course, this means that backing up your saved game files is useless (I tried) because if you ever put a backup saved game file back into the folder, GFWL will refuse it.

I don't have time for that crap....I was 76 races into the season when I had to start over from race 1.

If I was a developer, there is no way I would show such contempt for my paying customers.


Here's a shot from my profile page.....just in case anybody else thinks I'm a software pirate.

 

[AntiZig]

have you checked your temps and tried vsyncing the game?

 

[Stringjam]

have you checked your temps and tried vsyncing the game?

Yes....temps are fine, and VSYNC didn't change things either.

Thanks for the suggestions, though.


The controllers are something I haven't thought of, though (as per Hexit's post).......even though I don't have XBOX controllers, I have the Logitech wireless units. They've caused some funky behavior in some of my games before, so I might mess with them when I get home from work.

 

[jessterman21]

Man I hate that game.

It is very pretty and a lot of fun, but when I got the Steam version with my 6870, I benched on Ultra with 8XMSAA and got 47fps avg. Then I benched 2 months later and got 35fps, and two months after that (last night) I got 22fps. Same hardware each time, but I'm sure Steam has patched the game, and I've used the 12.1, 12.3, 12.4 drivers, respectively.

The forced-GFWL is super annoying too.

I'm not playing it again until I upgrade my platform.

 

[Stringjam]

Just to update on the situation:

Reinstalled game....reinstalled GFWL. Completely stock install. Still stuttering.

Tried modifying the hardware xml config files in all sorts of ways (core usage, etc). No change.

Installed new batteries and re-initiated wireless controller. Nope.

Went back to the offline mod and messed with graphic settings again, turning on VSYNC (something I tried before) and now it seems to have resolved most of the stuttering.

Still makes no sense to me.....it was running flawlessly at my previous settings for almost 30 hours, and now I have to use Vsync? Hmmmm....