FF8 stuttering/drivers?

[bchan009]

I've heard that any Geforce drivers past 94.24 make FF8 stutter/lag while ingame - however, I'm playing this game on a system with a Geforce 8600M GT, and 94.24 drivers don't support my card.  Does anyone know of a driver (custom or otherwise) that will make this horrible stuttering issue go away?  I've finally been able to conquer the black boxes, and now I'm running into this issue... 

Thanks a lot!   

(And to those of you who don't know what I mean by "stuttering", it's similar to having a low-frame rate...the characters move for a bit, stop a little, stop a little, then move a bit...it's lagging in some way.  It's really irritating. >_<;; )

My system:

2.33 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB RAM
Geforce 8600M GT 512MB
Windows XP SP2 32-bit

[Terid__K]

Did you try the lastest Beta driver?

http://downloads.guru3d.com/ForceWare-171.23-XP-(32-bit)-download-1852.html

or, for an older Beta:

http://downloads.guru3d.com/ForceWare-171.17-WHQL-XP-(32-bit)-download-1848.html

Keep in mind that these are Beta drivers. They SHOULD be alright, but I haven't tested them myself. Use them at your own risk. If you feel insecure, try looking at the Forums of Guru 3D for users' experiences with the drivers.

Anyways, if these do not solve the problem, I'm afraid there will be no way for you to play it for now. Best thing to do is contact Nvidia about the issue.

I'm also tired of being stuck with the 90 series. The newest drivers fix profile issues in my Video Card, but if I update to them I'm no longer able to play FF7/FF8 without the major lag issue...

I hope Nvidia does something about it as soon as possible, because I believe every game that uses an old version of DirectX has this problem.

This is what happens when they keep releasing a new card every month... It's starting to get ridiculous.

Anyways, let me know if it works.

[bchan009]

The most recent drivers I could find (174.14 I think) don't help. 

Looks like I'm stuck playing FF8 on my PSP for now.  By the way, does this stuttering also occur in FF7?

[Terid__K]

I'm assuming it happens with FF7 too, but I haven't tested it.

I don't feel like testing it, this whole driver installing thing is tiring. There's one way for us to know though. Try playing FF8 without using the launcher by magixts.

Test it both in Hardware (w/ black boxes and all) and Software. If it runs at normal speed even after playing for a while, then it's probably the launcher's fault. If so, then at least you'll be able to play it using Software Renderer.

[bchan009]

Well, I was trying it without the launcher to begin with, so I know for a fact that the launcher isn't to blame.    Playing it in software mode makes it look like it did on the PSX...in which case I might as well play it on my PSP, 'cause it'll look the same. =(

Damn you FF8!  ::sob::

[Raystorm]

I have the same problem, but I have an ATI card rather than an NVidia card.  I'm stumped as to what's causing it, but for me it's rendering it unplayable.  One thing that keeps banging away at the back of my mind is the fact I'm running a Core 2 Duo.  I know that I had a similar problem on Deus Ex which was caused by SpeedStep.  I've disabled all of that though, and the problem is still there    At least this may help show that it isn't a NVidia specific problem.

[Terid__K]

Never heard of any ATI user having this problem. You may be confusing it with actual slowdowns. Does the game eventually stop after playing for a while or it just plays slow? If it does stop, then try a different set of drivers, since they are always at fault.

[Raystorm]

I've found a fix to the problem!  It looks like FF8 doesn't like multiple core CPUs.  The fix is to force it to use only one CPU core, and once you do this, the game runs absolutely fine.  You can do this though task manager, but you have to do this everytime the game is run.  I've found a couple of apps that you can use to force a program to use only one core.  The first (which I've tried) is ForceCore, and can be found at http://www.kalme.de/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=44&Itemid=35 .  The second is Launch n Set, and this is at http://www.geocities.com/edgemeal_software/LnS/Index.htm  It seems that CPU affinitiy is 'inherited' from parent applications, as I used FF8 Launcher to start FF8, and it worked fine.

Hope that this helps!