Widescreen Gaming Forum

this game is amazing.

Wish I could say the same. I'm having very bad stuttering audio that repeats in short loops, which often affects the video too. No audio or video settings make it better. I have every effect turned off with shaders at med and shadows normal, which is well below the auto detect.

Even were I to not have such problems, the game feels very console like in it's movement, aim, look and camera angles. It's also very confusing control wise. I see no way to access the map and datalogs. I press the numbers designated for them and the wheel with the weapons on it comes on screen instead.

Frag ...

I don't think the game feels like a console game at all ... the movement, aim and camera angles etc. all feel innovative, different and a refreshing change.
I also don't think the controls are confusing ... once you get over that they are not like most other games they are fine.

Which makes me think it is something wrong with your setup/game ...
I dunno what it is ... but ... bad audio and video, settings well below the auto detect and controls/keys not working as they should ... all sounds like something is wrong.
Drivers, bad install or maybe the game doesn't like something in your setup ... as I say I dunno.

I also don't know what to suggest on the controls as many of mine are mapped to mouse buttons or remapped on the keyboard.
Did you turn off V-sync in the game as that really helps with the mouse movement.

This is easily my GOTY. (at the mo ... :P )

No offense, but it's common in situations like this that many use the fact that it's working fine on their rigs to discredit the intelligence of those it's not working for. Severely stuttering and/or distorted audio has been reported by others. I also easily meet the only requirements actually shown for the game and have most settings options turned off or fairly low. As well I even tried going to Low shaders and no shadows and it made no difference.

This is not a frame rate problem, something is causing the audio to loop severely and the video hitches a lot when it does. It basically sounds like rebverb on steroids. When there's no audio logs playing or crew talking I can walk or run around just fine. When such audio kicks in it becomes a nightmare though. Furthermore, an indication this is a console priented game is the fact that the files are not in keeping with those of a PC title. I doubt it will be moddable or fixable as far as audio files that are likely causing this.

Had EA beta tested this properly they'd have known it does not operate well on some hardware that's well within their requirements. My drivers including video, audio and chipset are the latest available. I also use AlacrityPC to auto shut off all background progs and non essential services. Like I said, this is not something on my end according to their requirements. I can play Crysis with this rig even with med shaders and shadows and it looks and runs much better than this game.

The character movement, aim, look and camera I could live with, it's mainly the stuttering. I adapted to RE 4's lack of proper KB/M support by using the mouse aim and KB mapping mods available and ended up playing through it several times, and trust me, that is no cake walk control wise. I even managed to get all the bottle caps with the very squirrely aiming TMP.

From the game's Readme:

"System Requirements
===================

Dead Spaceâ„¢ requires at least the following:

FOR WINDOWS XP (SP2) or Vista
* 2.8 GHz processor or equivalent
* 1 GB RAM (XP), 2 GB RAM (Vista)
* NVIDIA GeForce 6800 or better (7300, 7600 GS, and 8500 are below minimum system requirements)
* ATI X1600 Pro or better (X1300, X1300 Pro and HD2400 are below minimum system requirements)
* 256MB Video Card and Shader Model 3.0 required"

Makes me feel lucky. Other than the ubiquitous vsync problem, the game's been running flawlessly for me. No crashes, noticable bugs, or other oddies. The only thing I've seen is a few limbs getting stuck between railings and continualy make a thump sound, but stomping them once more stops it.

I also run forced 8xq AA with almost no slowdown.

I've read many are having problems with AA not working too. I wouldn't know, I never had near smooth enough performance to turn on Vsync OR AA. I know what you mean about the contact physics, esp with corpses, that's a bit flukey too, but the least of my concerns right now. The game desperately needs a patch and I doubt EA being the corporate minded crooks they are will come through with what's needed.

I can't believe after seeing how this game runs that I remarked earlier I was a bit disappointed about Far Cry 2's performance, which plays WAY better than this game. Nor can I believe that so many people complain about performance with Crysis. It's one of the better running games for the graphics you get.

CryTek really came through with their performance beta testing on Crysis. They may have missed some bugs in the game but it DOES run well on single cores and even older GPUs as promised. When EA is at the developing helm you can't expect much. Same thing happend with MoH: Airborne, it ran like crap on systems that are well within the req specs.

Frag ...

No offense, but it's common in situations like this that many use the fact that it's working fine on their rigs to discredit the intelligence of those it's not working for.

Beginning that with "No offence" does not excuse the fact that you are suggesting that I was trying "to discredit the intelligence" of you or others ... so offence taken ! ... in no way did I do that !
The fact that you chose to read it that way does however suggest a pretty paranoid if not juvenile attitude.

I was trying to help ... to point you in the right direction saying ... I dunno what it is but etc. ... just as I was trying to help with the v-sync thing.
My comments were based on the fact that my experience of the game including it's controls is so different from yours that I said I think that something is wrong but I dunno ...

I have no way of knowing your level of expertise etc. (many users use this forum all with different levels of ability) and based on all of what you were saying and my own experience of the game which is so different from yours it does kinda suggest that it doesn't like something on your system.
Hey and guess what ... you say that EA didn't test it properly and it doesn't like some systems ... :wink:

Beta testing only helps so much. As far as I've seen, the game is working pretty great for most people - aside from that silly V-Sync issue. It really sucks that you're having problems, but that hardly means they didn't test it enough. It just means they didn't test it by your standards.

And as I said, that sucks.

If I had to guess, it's probably a bug related directly to your specific sound card(assuming you didn't test that already.) Otherwise I've seen plenty of people running on slower systems who have no trouble with the game, Vsync aside.

I'm not here to enter a bitch fest, but yeah, implying just because YOUR experiences are good with the game that I must therefore not have something setup right IS rather leaning toward calling me inept. As if the help I've given in the hardware forum to earn the Hardware Insider badge was a misplaced insignia.

I am not going by my experiences vs yours like you appear to be, I am going by the many games as sophisticated or more so that my system, including M-Audio Revolution sound card, works fine with and the fact that others as I mentioned have complained about severely stuttering and distorted audio. M-Audio may not be as common a card as Creative, but it's common enough to warrant beta testing for.

This game uses .exa.snu audio files, which are very uncommon. I have read some are even having problems installing the game due to errors regarding these files. There is one file within the audio stream files designated mx_brute.exa.snu, which is the only one not in folder form. This may be the culprit. I'm guessing it's some sort of software mixer and/or extractor for the sound files.