COD4 - stutters in Vista (home premium)...what gives?

billius · 01-02-2008 12:06PM #1

I'm running COD4 on a Dell 720 XPS with dual 8800gt's.
The game stutters every 1-2 minutes; it's hard to explain but stutter is the only way I can! It's like the sound delays and the FPS drop for about 2 seconds. Apart from this the game runs really well. It's very frustrating!!
Does anyone else have this problem?

Any ideas what could be causing this? I've tried turning the graphical settings down, but nothing seems to help!

I've updated my display drivers and sound card drivers, and patched to 1.4...nothing has changed.

The entire system specs are:

Dimension XPS 720 Core 2 Quad-Core Processor Q6600 (2.4GHz,1066FSB, 8MB cache)
Memory Dual Channel 1024MB (2x512) 667MHz DDR2 - I've upgraded using Crucial DDR2 BallistiX PC6400 2048MB (2x1gb). Now have 3gb - reads as 2.8gb.
Hard Drive 320GB Serial ATA non Raid (7200 Rpm)
DUAL 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT card
Audio Integrated HDA 7.1 Dolby Digital capability - I've upgraded this to Creative SB X-FI Xtreme Gamer
O/s is Vista Home Premium.

Please...HELP!

Dingatron · 01-02-2008 01:54PM

First start your own server and run it for a few minutes to see if these stutters still happen. How are you connecting to your broadband router, wireless or utp cable? need to narrow your problem down a bit.

Steffano2002 · 01-02-2008 02:11PM

When I hear: "Dell" "Dual 8800GTs" and "Vista" I tell myself "no wonder it doesn't work very well"! lol

But that's just me... Not a big fan of Dell and Vista... And I think SLI with 8800GTs causes more problems than good...

I would try playing the game with a single 8800GT first. I bet you it will stop stuttering then!

Dcully · 01-02-2008 02:44PM

I could bw wrong but the fact its only every so often makes me thing the actual processing of your pc is ok.
Im inclined to think your hard drive is doing something in the background.
I know vista does some form of pre caching in the background.
Ive never had an issue with vista but this could be your problem.

Try google vista pre caching and how to turn it off, [i know you can] and then play,atleast to rule it out.

billius · 01-02-2008 02:46PM

Thanks for the advice...I'll try turning pre-caching off.
This happens in Single-Player...it's not an online issue.

Dcully · 01-02-2008 02:49PM

np,hope it helps.

KamiKazi · 01-02-2008 03:21PM

Make sure you havent got anti-virus or something similar running in the background

billius · 11-02-2008 10:17AM

...I've found out what the issue was. I have a Buffalo nfiniti USB network adapter hooked up to my machine. When I unplug this COD4 runs perfectly!
In fact all games do. I can now run Crysis at 1280 x 1024 with very high settings.
It seems Vista doesn't like USB adapters. The only way I found this out was because iTunes was stuttering also. I googled it, found a thread relating to Vista and iTunes and the solution was there. Hopefully this will be resolved with a new set of drivers...some time soon!!
The bad thing is that I can't play any online games!! Sucks, but I'm not too worried as at least singleplayer rocks! Happy days!

COD4 - stutters in Vista (home premium)...what gives?

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