Seriously stuttering videos

from GalCiv2 Forums
Lots of the in game media and videos (tutorials, in game movies but not the main intoduction) stutter really badly. They play in chunks of three seconds, freeze and play again. The tutorial audio is like listening to someone stopping and starting talking.

I've updated all my drivers and I have a respectable system (3ghz pentium 4 processor, 2 gig of ram, 128mb geforce video card, windows xp) so not sure what the problem is and can't find anything in the forum on this issue.

Grateful for any help
11,694 views 12 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Try playing with your anti-aliasing settings. Bink video sometimes have a problem with this.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
My guess is the video card, with a 3+ gig system and 2 gig of ram, me thinks your weak link would be the card. In fact that card is probably slowing your performance down a little. The only other thing would be a driver issue. I'm guessing that since you only have 128 mb on the video card it's an older model.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have the same problem.So why is game play smooth, but the tutorials are all over the place? I would think it's the program. I have enough of everything to play the demanding games (RomeTW, COD2) without a hitch. I don't think the solution is in the hardware.........
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Same problem here. All the videos stutter, though the audio seems ok. Geforce 5200 or so. Anyone tells me to buy a new video card gets the Hal Jordan Treatment.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Bink sometimes doesn't play well with FSAA--there's really nothing that can be done about it since most of the cutscenes and the tutorials are shown inside the interface, and you can't selectively NOT antialias some aprts of the screen if FSAA is on. If you have stuttering problems, the only answer in your case is to turn FSAA down or off.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yes, if you have low end card ( I also have 5200 ) dropping the anti-aliasing usually fixes the video stuttering issue. The default is 4X AA, anything below that works for me now.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top


Do you drop the AA using the game or using the geforce config tool on the desktop?

Thanks in advance!!

(Any ambitious person care to explain what AA is used for?)
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Basically, anti-aliasing smoothes the jagged edges when you are looking at a 3D object. I just went to the options menu in the game and dropped it from 4X to zero. Then I bumped it up to 2X and it still worked. I think my GeForce config utility is set to use settings within each program. I prefer to adjust all my settings in each game individually and rarely have to resort to the utility program.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Do you drop the AA using the game or using the geforce config tool on the desktop?


In the game settings... I turned the AA off and it cleared up all my video issues. Game still looks amazing. I have a geforce fx5200.

Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I followed the anti-aliasing tip and it worked, thanks all! I find it hard to think of a geforce 5200 128 mb card as "low end", though.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
5200 is a PCI card, and since then we have had AGP and PCI express... It is about the highest end PCI card, but pales in comparison to most recent video cards. If my comp had anything other than PCI slots I would upgrade, but it was free, so...

*DEVS* Pretty much every stuttering movie/video thread I have seen is people with the nvidia 5200 card. I have this card as well, and would it be possible to fix this in a future patch? Maybe change the default AA setting to 2X, or whatever fault is residing in the way 5200 handles the video? Thanks either way.