Hiccups during the game

[Kalgon]

Hi guys,

First, thank you for this beautiful game, everything, from the visuals to the controls, is amazing...

I have an issue, though:
After playing a while, the game started to have hiccups... You know, not really a slowdown, more like the game stops for a split second, then continues.
Arrived to one of the bosses (the trigger-the-laser-to-kill one), it began to be unplayable.
I found out that de-activating the Framebuffer Effects and the Mipmap made the hiccups go away.

Here are my specs:
Core2Duo E6320
2 Gb RAM 1066Mhz
GeForce 8800GT 512Mb
Windows Vista Home Premium

I made my cousin try the game (he loves it, but couldn't understand english to save his life, so make a french version and you'll have another buyer :p) and he experiences the same things as me.

The only things we have in common:
GeForce 8800GT
Windows Vista Home Premium

Maybe that's the start of an answer ? Could Windows Vista influence the performance of your game ?

Thanks again.

PS:
I forgot to mention: For our GeForce 8800, we use the ForceWare 169.09 drivers.

[Quemaqua]

Vista sucks.  It wouldn't surprise me to discover that as the problem.  I realize this post isn't helpful exactly, but Vista seems to cause a significant decrease in performance for most games when compared directly to XP (and seems to cause some other arbitrary glitches with certain applications), and given what I've seen of it I personally refuse to move on from XP as a gaming OS.

[Kalgon]

Lol, no it doesn't help at all 
Anyway, it's just a small annoyance for me, I disabled Mipmap and Framebuffer effects, and the game runs smoothly.
But surely I'm not the only Vista user on the planet, and most people don't look for a solution when something new comes out and don't work properly.

I hate the idea of someone trying this game and saying after a while:
"Hah ! It doesn't even work on my 2000$ machine ! Let's uninstall it !"

Granted, someone like that wouldn't deserve Aquaria, but still 

[stahlej]

Aquaria runs at a solid 60FPS with all effects on and I use Vista 64bit.

I got:
Q6600@3,1GHz
8800GTS 640 ForceWare 169.12
4GIG RAM

The only "tweak" I have done to Vista is to turn off SuperFetch since it thrashes the HDD non stop.

[Kalgon]

Ok, so it may not be Vista... I'll try the latest Forceware drivers, and turn off superfetch too, I don't need that...

[Lim-Dul]

Vista sucks.  It wouldn't surprise me to discover that as the problem.  I realize this post isn't helpful exactly, but Vista seems to cause a significant decrease in performance for most games when compared directly to XP (and seems to cause some other arbitrary glitches with certain applications), and given what I've seen of it I personally refuse to move on from XP as a gaming OS.

Sorry, pal, but these are myths spread mostly by people who aren't on Vista. Read some performance tests - yes, Vista is slower but by a couple of percent at most. A significant slowdown is only seen when using DX10 but there's no comparison because WinXP doesn't support it at all and even the most modern cards support it poorly as well.

I've been on Vista since February and haven't experienced any major problems (e.g. not a single system crash) once new drivers etc. appeared.

[Kalgon]

Ok here's a small update:
Installed Forceware 169.12, disabled Superfetch.
I launch the game, 1280*960*32 , all options on.
No luck.

I still have some hiccups, but less, that's strange.

I try launching the game in 1024*768*32, and voil

[Nev]

I had the same problem as you, I fixed it by enabled VSync in the config menu. I don't know why that makes the hitching go away, but... it does. Try it!


Edit: Nevermind, the problem persists. It seems like it's determined on game start whether it will be hitchy or not, based on some seemingly random circumstance. Has nothing to do with vsync or resolution.

[Kalgon]

What are your computer specs ? And OS ?

For me, up until now, the problem seems to be solved by playing the game in 1024*768, without mipmap, framebuffer effects or Vscync.
Oh and I had to update my video drivers...

[Nev]

I have about the same specs as you. However, I am quite sure I solved it.
Try running the game from the config screen, using the "Dive" button.
If I do that, I never get any slowdowns. If I run the executable/shortcut, I always get slowdowns.
VSync/Mipmap on/off does not matter, it all works fine.

I hope it'll work for you too.

[nambit]

Sigh, seems my intel GMA x3100 isn't enough for this game.  The laptop
is fine (Dell XPS 1330 with Core2Duo @ 2.0 Ghz) but I think the game doesn't
like gma drivers.  Anyone else have any luck?   It runs better on my desktop
(much less powerful but has an Nvidia card.. forgot which one but it has 128
megs of ram and is considered a budget card). 

Thanks.