Game Video Lag/Delay on Windows 7 x64 & AMD HD Radeon 7850 GFX - Help

[c3]

I recently picked up Quake again after some time and I have not been able to resolve this issue. In-game Video-Lag (Input lag). I attributed this 'floaty, squishy and delayed' feeling to the fact that I haven't played in so long I figured these were the new physics of Quake Live in comparison to Quake 3. I'm a veteran of Q3 so I have a good understanding of how it 'should' feel. Thanks in advance for any help on the matter.

Here's the problem:

I experience a 'floaty and squishy' feel when moving around the map. When jumping, it almost feels as if I'm jumping on the moon with limited gravity. It seems that all movements are slightly delayed, as well as other player's movements. In fights, it feels as if I'm several frames behind as I can never get the first shot in and I often wake up dead not knowing what just happened until it was too late (Yes, enter your jokes here). Keep in mind that this problem also occurs when I launch my own practice game. This is not an Internet latency related issue nor do I believe it's a mouse-lag issue. Its undoubtedly a video rendering/lag issue.

Out of curiosity, I launched Quake 3 and the problem was gone. There was no delay and all movements happened instantly without delay. Shooting rockets came out quickly as opposed to feeling as if I have a 150-200ms ping. Then again, this is Quake Live, not Quake 3.

I have tried several things to fix the issue, so if you can offer a helping hand, please look over my system specs and the things I have tried to resolve this unbearable video-lag issue.

System Specs:

i5-2500K Processor
Gigabyte Z68MA-D2H-B3 Motherboard
16GB DDR3 1333MHz
AMD HD Radeon 7850 (Fairly high end card and it runs everything else without issue)
SSD 248GB Hard-drive (I have all APPS and Games loaded on this drive. Data on a 7200RPM Drive)
For gaming, I use the built in sound and disable my Pro Audio card which I use for music production related tasks.
Logitech G9X Mouse
Saitek Keyboard
Asus VG236H 120hz 2ms/GTG LCD Monitor (Yes CRT is better, but this LCD is great and doesn't produce the same lag in other games)
Windows 7 x64 (BLAH)

Over the span of a month or so, here are the things I've tried:

1) Downloaded RadeonPRO and forced Vsync off, forced Flip Queue to 0 (Pre-rendered frames), turned all graphic related settings to high performance, forced most filter settings off (Anisotropic, tessellation, trilinear, etc).

The above helped quite a bit and eliminated a huge chunk of the video lag I was experiencing, but a noticeable amount remained.

2) Applied mouse acceleration fix to give a 1-1 ratio and ensured 'Enhance Pointer Precision' is unchecked.

3) Tried several different polling rates, 125, 250, 500, and 1000. I settled on 1000, but this did not eliminate any noticeable lag for me.

4) Ensured all Window's power settings are set to maximum (USB, CPU, PCIe, etc). No, I'm not connected through a usb HUB. Tried using different USB ports, 2.0 and 3.0, no difference.

5) I play through QLPrism (Quake Live launch application so it plays as a dedicated application and not through a browser. I also tested different browsers (Firefox, Chrome, IE) with the same problems.)

6) I changed priority of Quake Live to HIGH and also Realtime with no noticeable performance boosts.

7) I tried launching QLive with XP SP3 compatibility selected but to no avail. Even tried to run the game as administrator but that actually increased video lag.

8) Disabled many unnecessary Window's Services. I don't remember all of them but off the top of my head: Windows Event Log, Desktop Windows Manager Session, Window Media Center Sharing related services, and some others I can't quite remember.

8) Tried playing through VGA connection from DVI (Dual and single link cables). Same result.

9) Even tried game booster, but this didn't make any noticeable changes.

10) I have a quad-core intel processor and have heard that many older games don't work well with Quad-core processors so I tried different window's affinity settings: Tried settings QLive to utilize only 1 core as opposed to 4. I also tried setting affinity to only 2-cores for QLive, but this did not make any difference.

11) Formatted my system and reinstalled everything from scratch. Same issue.

12) Uninstalled video drivers (Sapphire HD 7850 drivers, along with Catalyst drivers) and reinstalled. I also tried different driver versions, but the video lag was still there. I used driver sweeper when switching between different driver sets/versions.

13) I tried two older video cards: MSI HD 5770 and HD 4350. Both cards yielded similar results, if not worse.

14) As for Quake Live cfg settings, I've tried a lot, but here's what I can remember atm: cg_nopredict 0, post processing is also off. Tried several different resolutions all the way down to 640 x 480, same laggy results.

I'm sure I'm missing some things but hopefully this will be enough for now. As I said, I've tried quite a bit and I'm reaching that point where I don't really want to play anymore. This is an older game that doesn't require that much power to run smoothly. My system is fairly fast, yet this game runs like trash. My Internet connection is packet-loss free, and I generally ping 20-35, yet it feels like I'm pinging 150-200+. I suspect that this issue has to do with Windows 7 x64 or my GFX card (AMD HD 7850). I really don't think it's necessary that I have to buy an NVIDIA based card just to get this game to run as it should. Maybe I'll pick up a cheap NVIDIA, but I know a lot of players use ATI or AMD based GFX cards and run QLive without issues. I really don't want to have to install Windows XP just for this one game, either. At one point, I did mess around on QLive on a fairly old system without this video-lag issue.

Any help will be much appreciated! Suggestions?

-T

[Adderall]

http://benchmark3d.com/ for your ati drivers. I'm using a 5750 best drivers I've find to work with opengl games have been ccc 11.11 beta (they release 11a/b/c one was for rage, that worked the ebst). I'm using these currently they have the most recent opengl driver -> http://benchmark3d.com/amd-catalyst-...e-12-benchmark

your system is fine for this game, probably a driver issues. check out rage3d.com forums to see if anytone is having problems with that card and what is the best working driver for it. your lcd probably requires dvi duel link for 120hz. mine does

[c3]

Adderall,

I will try out those drivers and report back the results. I've tried all 12.x drivers, have yet to try any 11.x drivers. I do recall trying one driver-set which I believe to be 11.x, but the installation was unsuccessful as it was not compatible with the HD 7850.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll give it a shot.

Edit:

My LCD does require a dual-link DVI cable which I'm already utilizing . Also, I had this same problem with previous monitors, so I don't think it's hardware related. I've swapped out as many things as I can from input devices to component cards (Video card, ethernet, etc).

To give more insight to the problem, the movement isn't horrible, but it feels as if my card is pre-rendering frames or something of that nature because all shots fired at me appear to come twice as fast. Rockets appear faster than they should as I'm hit almost as fast as the shot is fired.

Another example is at the beginning of the round. I'd mess around and get in someone's face and see if I could get the first rocket off when I'm pinging 25 or less against someone who is pinging 60-150 (In that range), and I always end up popped in the air before I can get my shot off. Even when testing against bots locally, bots are getting their shots off faster as well, so it seems.

When I shoot a rocket for example, I feel like I'm not seeing the whole rocket trail. The rocket appears somewhat late (IMO) after it's fired. I'm skeptical whether 'RadeonPRO' is working and actually setting my pre-rendered frames to 0. According to my settings and tests, it suggests that it is working, but I'm skeptical. This problem is odd to say the least...

-T

[wannabenz]

hey your not alone i use nvid cards tried everthing almost you have.but the game plays like crap,,,,i too can never get a first shot off,i seem to be hit before the bell goes so to speak..do you get explosions all messed up like a flaring laggy mess? i too am at witz end my 2 pence worth...

[c3]

hey your not alone i use nvid cards tried everthing almost you have.but the game plays like crap,,,,i too can never get a first shot off,i seem to be hit before the bell goes so to speak..do you get explosions all messed up like a flaring laggy mess? i too am at witz end my 2 pence worth...

Can you be more specific with your 'flaring laggy mess?'

[wannabenz]

flarring laggy mess as in if you get a few players all rl at you i get almost i describe as slow motion explosion that seem to linger aroung and disrupt smooth play its a hard one unless your sitting in the same chair

[c3]

hey your not alone i use nvid cards tried everthing almost you have.but the game plays like crap,,,,i too can never get a first shot off,i seem to be hit before the bell goes so to speak..do you get explosions all messed up like a flaring laggy mess? i too am at witz end my 2 pence worth...

My best explanation to my issue is that I feel like I'm pinging 150-200 despite a ping of 20-35.

[Lorfa]

Do you have the same issue on localhost as you do online? I ask because when I was on a server with you you were warping just a tad.

I thought you told me that you had fixed it by not using isabad's config but your own, and were going to have me look at the files to find the culprit. Was your lag there and you didn't notice or was the solution temporary or?

Do you have the same issue with the default config on localhost? As in if you just bind your movement keys and run around a bit vs. bots?

[c3]

Lorfa,

Unfortunately, the problem resides both locally and playing online. On 2-3 separate occasions I thought I resolved the issue, but the issue continues to come back. At this point, I can't say the issue was ever gone... This is what brings up many interesting questions, because if I did resolve it in the past, and it continues to come back... what would cause this?

This is one of the reasons I looked into Window's services, as some services many have became active without my knowing that could possibly be introducing input lag, or some type of system disturbance... who knows. There are services such as Window's Event Log that are known to cause game lag.

I've also reset my CFG to defaults several times and retested against bots, but to no avail. I have a feeling it's driver related because I have tried several different driver sets, some better/worse than others. As for the warping, I have heard that before but I don't believe that's an issue anymore. It's been awhile since I've experienced that.

Edit:

Lorfa, I may have misplaced your email. Next time you're online or see me online, please PM me back your email and I'll send my cfg on over. It's mostly default as I just reset it once again... the primary ones off the top of my head are below:

rate 25000
cl_maxpackets 125
com_maxfps 125 or 120 (I recently tried using 120 to match my refresh rate of 120hz and it feels smoother)
Packetdup 1
cl_timenudge 0
cg_nopredict 0
refresh rate 120
vsync OFF globally, by profile, and in game (Off at all times)
in_mouse 2 (tried 1 and -1 out of curiosity)
cl_mouseaccelstyle 2 (1 was absolutely horrible and actually increased input lag, weird)
Turned off all buffering bilinear and trilinear
Tried all resolutions but i refuse to play in 16x9 for this game
All post processing turned off
hunkmegs @ 96 I believe
r_picmip 3 or 4
tried all lighting settings to see if that would make a difference, absolutely zero.
All texture-related video settings are set @ low/medium or performance

I'll send you my cfg when I get the chance, but the vast majority of the settings will be default at this time.

This is ludicrous. I remember playing q3 back on my dual cpu celeron setup with great success...

-T

[Lorfa]

Lorfa, I may have misplaced your email. Next time you're online or see me online, please PM me back your email and I'll send my cfg on over.

mklabyrinth@gmail.com

It's mostly default as I just reset it once again... the primary ones off the top of my head are below:

rate 25000
cl_maxpackets 125

Try cl_maxpackets 120

com_maxfps 125 or 120 (I recently tried using 120 to match my refresh rate of 120hz and it feels smoother)
Packetdup 1
cl_timenudge 0

Try timenudge -10 or so.. I am using -10 for all weapons besides the rail which is at -6. The reason is that timenudge 0 feels very laggy to me.

cg_nopredict 0
refresh rate 120
vsync OFF globally, by profile, and in game (Off at all times)
in_mouse 2 (tried 1 and -1 out of curiosity)
cl_mouseaccelstyle 2 (1 was absolutely horrible and actually increased input lag, weird)

cl_mouseAccelStyle doesn't exist. Of course it will be created if you use set or seta, but it will have no effect. It's an old cvar that was removed from the game a while back so still appears in some configs.

Turned off all buffering bilinear and trilinear

Shouldn't be necessary but I suppose it makes sense to try.

Tried all resolutions but i refuse to play in 16x9 for this game

:-P

I have a 4:3 love :-)

All post processing turned off

Also shouldn't be necessary but something to try as well.

hunkmegs @ 96 I believe

Hunkmegs is actually locked at 128. It's possible to change it to 96 with a trick but it's extremely unlikely that this will have any effect on anything unless you had an ancient machine.