Stuttering & Fluttering - New Cure!!

[Poppy]

I read a few postings about graphics cards and the difficultys some guys are having - even going as far as buying more memory. Here's a great cure for flickering screens for CFS2 for those of us who have a dual processor.

If you have a dual processor they will 'argue' with each other over who is going to run the game causing your screen to 'jump and jitter'. You have to 'Change the Affinity' of the game so just one guy gets to control the ball.

1) Either click the Windows tab to reduce CFS3 or if your running 'full screen' then click the Windows button + M (sometime just pressing M will reduce CFS3 to a taskbar icon.) Your game is now minimized to a taskbar icon.
2) Right click on Taskbar
3) Click on Task Manager and click on 'processes' tab

{NOTE another, AND EASIER WAY this will work is to click ctrl + alt + del to bring up task manager and then click the 'processes' tab}

4. A long list of items will scroll down. Look for cfs3.exe and highlight it.

5. Right click on cfs3.exe and click 'set affinity'

6 a box will appear showing CPU 0 and CPU1
(both of them should be checked)

6. Uncheck CPU1

7 Click OK / End Process /

8 You should receive a warning that 'changing the affinity could affect the way windows runs - are you sure you want to make the change etc etc. - well that's why you went to all this trouble in the first place isn't it! Check 'yest' and close box.

9 Run the game.

You should find a drastic, and I do mean drastic smoothing out of the way CFS3 runs. This does not mean that you don't have to update your graphics card drivers, do a defrag, set your config sys. etc etc and all the other tweaks and tricks but I think that if you have a dual processor, this will make a big difference for you.

Good Luck
RCNaye:engel016:

[waco]

If your dual core is AMD, download from AMD the Dual Core Optimizer.

[Potoroo]

Yes, setting CPU affinity for CFS3 has been unnecessary for AMD dual-core users since AMD released the updated drivers. It is still sometimes, althoughly infrequently, necessary on Intel dual-cores.

[Bruce3005]

I was having this same stuttering problem and had tried changing all CFS and graphics card settings - all to no avail. And then I found these excellent forums! I tried the advice above and turned off affinity for CPU1 and bingo! - works a dream now. My machine is a Dell Inspiron 9400, T7200, 2Gb. So maybe its not such an uncommon problem after all with Intel dual cores?

The only hassle is that it looks like you have to do this every time you fire up CFS. Anybody know of a registry or config file setting where this can be made automatic on startup?

Thanks to everybody here for sharing your knowledge with us newbies!

[Potoroo]

For reasons I do not understand, stuttering on Intel mobile dual-core CPUs (those prefixed with "T") seems more prevalent than on their desktop CPUs (those prefixed with "E").

See http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showpost.php?p=210900&postcount=10 about making affinity permanent.

If you have a dual processor they will 'argue' with each other over who is going to run the game causing your screen to 'jump and jitter'. You have to 'Change the Affinity' of the game so just one guy gets to control the ball.
You have profoundly misunderstood the nature of the problem. By default, the XP kernel swaps threads from core to core according to system load. Moving a thread from one core to another is called core drift and it is in fact a good thing. It is completely transparent to well-behaved applications. CFS3 seems unusually sensitive to the tiny timing variations between the cores, hence the stuttering. I suspect it's because of the way its game timer works but without access to the source code I can't prove it.

[maverick-23]

I was having this same stuttering problem and had tried changing all CFS and graphics card settings - all to no avail. And then I found these excellent forums! I tried the advice above and turned off affinity for CPU1 and bingo! - works a dream now. My machine is a Dell Inspiron 9400, T7200, 2Gb. So maybe its not such an uncommon problem after all with Intel dual cores?

The only hassle is that it looks like you have to do this every time you fire up CFS. Anybody know of a registry or config file setting where this can be made automatic on startup?

Thanks to everybody here for sharing your knowledge with us newbies!

welcome to the forums bruce.

see, i like the way you posted your "here's my first post." you hid it in the guise of a question instead of "hi. i'm new here."

not many people do what you did. they take the low road.:costumes:

the maverick

[waco]

Have to thank you, Potoroo, for sorting this all out in the first place. I think I still have the links to your thread here at SOH saved. You saved me a lot of frustration.

[Bruce3005]

Hiya Maverick-23, not quite sure exactly what you meant (was what I did good or bad?). As a newbie, still not quite quite sure of the netiquette on here, but hopefully just being polite and respectful will win through!

As a further update to this thread, I installed it on my son's E6600 desktop and no problems at all with this stuttering. Runs fine shared on both CPUs, seeming to emphasise Potoroo's comments that it's still only essentially a problem with the mobile Intel dual-cores.

best,

Bruce

[Potoroo]

Have to thank you, Potoroo, for sorting this all out in the first place. I think I still have the links to your thread here at SOH saved. You saved me a lot of frustration.
:ernae:

[fcpilot72]

Hello
Im new to this forum but not CFS3. Thanks to MAW I'm getting back into it. Your anserw to the screen jitters problem was what I was looking for.

I have one question this change will only affect CFS3 and not the rest of my system ?

I also fly MFSX and others. It reads like it shouldn't bother any other programs.

Thanks

FCPILOT72:wavey::ernae:

[middle]

Hmmm..interesting...so with a 3GHz dula core Processor does that mean that if half is working then it is only 1.5 GHz? or is it still running at 3GHz?

[OldCrow]

I use an Intel E6600 Dual core also. Not a problem.