[SOLVED] Weird Processor Occupancy Problem

Hi guys,

I just compiled a cars.wad for the 2013 season - thanks again to all authors, they made a great work. It got HUGE, some 900 MB tho - last time I modded cars.wad was around 2009 and it used to have a 200 MB benchmark back then. Technological progress, I guess.

Still, my processor handles it well.... most of the time. It is a steady 30-60% during a race, but (...and here comes the really really weird thing...) every 8th or 10th second it just increases to about 160-ish for half a second. It kind of destroys every flow a gameplay could have.

It is very strange, I've never met with this before.

Can you help me?

Thanks in advance.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/13/2013 06:41AM by Atticus..

I don't know whether it's related or not, but some cars have textures 4 times as big as they should be (E.g 20 Mb instead of 5 Mb) My guess is that they haven't been "properly" downsampled (or rather, have NOT been downsampled). So I open them in Slim Tex and make new properly downsampled tex files. My 2013 cars.wad is "only" 392 Mb. And everything runs smoothly on my 10 year old system in 1280x720@30 fps. And I don't know if those "super" textures make PO higher too.

Couldn't it be your anti-virus scanning files in the background ?

Thanks for the quick replies.

As for the anti-virus, no, that does not seem to be the source of the issue. I stopped it altogether while I played and the problem persisted.

As for your advice, Briere, I definitely apply some downsampling, but its getting late here and - as we know - its FP1 soon, so I will try this solution out later as it will be quite time-consuming, I think.

Thanks again, and keep them coming, if they could. It might require a solution as simple as Lo2k's idea.

I had the exact same problem.

Check the textures in Slmitex and you'll notice that they are not the usual quality but superhigh quality.

I don't have any GP4 files or Slimtex atm so I can't explain what I mean in much detail, but what I did was open the files in Slmitex then batch saved them in the usual quality.

It was one of the settings on the right side of Slmitex that I changed.

Compare a file from 2010 or something like that with one of those new files and you will see the difference on the right side of Slmitex.

My apologies, but that is the best that I can explain it without any files or Slimtex.

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Races: 163 - Wins: 23 - Pole Positions: 24 - Fastest Laps: 22
Season 9: Constructors' Champions

To get a lower PO, don't force lod_0 only in game and use lower lods. It allows to reduce your PO when the cars are far away or at the other side of the track (even if your cars.wad is bigger, the game will be fluid)
But don't copy lod_0 from the cars to get the 10 lower lods otherwise, your PO will stay high...
Also, you can disable video walls, all objects in mirrors (just keep the cars)
Set the replay to 5 min. max.
Set the shadows to middle
Also, try to reduce the reflections on the car.
As Brière said, reduce some main textures in 2048x2048.

All these little things can keep your PO under 100% ....

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/11/2013 11:36PM by Excalibur.

and don't use vesuvius 2012 3D rims with very High texture !!!!! unfortunately I can't use them...too much PO !!!! I use 2D rims and apply what Excalibur said before and my game is smooth at 30 fps at 1680*1050 on my 10 years old computer !!!!

I use them lol

I think the very high resolution cars causing this problem. Every settings are same than in my 2012 cars wad, and I had the same exact problem.
I will re-build my cars wad....

@ Briere : yes but your PC spec are better than mine...and do you play race with all AI cars or do you simple play free pratice ?

Indeed, I only play in free practice mode

Well, a huge huge thank you to all of you for your help and attention.

Especially for Briere, Ferrari2007 and laci0303, because their suggestions, which practically moved along the same lines, solved the problem in 99%.

I slimtexed the huge 20 MB tex files and created fairly standard 5 MB ones out of them. I still get the pikes, but much less often than before. I guess it's just one or two remaining mammoth tex somewhere, I'll dial them out. Cars.wad is now a lot slimmer, but still frightening 730 MB.

Thanks again.

Great !

Maybe a disk defragmentation could help here then...

Yess! I solved it too!
No, this weird PO problem is not depending on virus scan, fragmentation or other programs, the very high resolution cars are causing this issue.
I had re-build my cars wad, and I don't use the new hi res 2013 cars. If you use new 2013 cars (they have 90 megs textures) and very high res Helmets, you will get this problem.
My new cars.wad is 420 MB, and I don't update the cockpit, it stayed on 2001 version. It's not interesting, most GP4 players are playing in T-Cam mode. I don't have 2013 Williams Fw35 yet, but i think, it will not increase my cars.wad to 900 MB

Use 2007 generic steering wheels, use this rims: Enzojz's 2D Rims Advanced tyre shape (narrower front with camber), 1,3 MB sized helmets.

When I re-build my cars.wad, the game runs smooth and fast (1280x1024) 60 FPS.

Glad to hear. Thoroughly successful case this has been then.