Screen tearing when hosting a server

[chapped]

My rig:

XPSP3
Intel E7200 C2D 2.53ghz
4GB DDR2 800mhz
Geforce 9600 GSO 384mb
Cable internet: 10mb up, 2.5mb down

I have been playing Altitude for a week or so without any problems whatsoever. However, last night I setup a server to mess around with. I notice that when I am hosting a server, whether I am playing on my server or in another, I get screen tearing. However, as soon as I stop my server, the screen tearing stops. I have the most current drivers from Nvidia and I have verified that v-sync is forced on. Can anyone shed a little light on this?

[lamster]

Seems strange to me.

Does the tearing still occur if you minimize the server launcher window to the taskbar (file -> Minimize to tray).

How about if you launch the server in headless mode? To run in headless mode pass "-noui" as a program argument to server_launcher.exe -- for example by creating a shortcut, right click shortcut, add -noui after Target:

Note: you will need to manually kill the server process (with task manager or similar) if you use -noui mode.

[chapped]

Yes the screen tearing still occurs when the server window is minimized. I have not tried the headless mode. I will tonight and let you know. Thanks Lam.

[chapped]

Just wanted to post an update. I tried it with the -noui option and the screen tearing sill occurs.

Anymore ideas?

[lamster]

Seems really weird to me. Are you running in fullscreen mode? Try toggling fullscreen. Is it always just the Altitude server process that causes tearing -- e.g. you kill the server, tearing stops, start server, tearing resumes?

[chapped]

I just tried it in windowed mode and it still happens. Yes it is directly related to the server launcher. I can start the launcher, start the game, join a server and it will happen. I can then disconnect, alt-tab, close my server, go back into the game and re-join a server and it will be fine. Also the game just seems to run better when I am not hosting a server. It almost seems to be a performance issue with running the game and hosting a server on the same box. I think I have a pretty good PC to host a server and run a game at the same time. Also my GF noticed when she was playing on my server, she said it seems to be a little laggy. We are on the same connection so her ping was 1-2ms. And when she said laggy, the game just seems slower/choppier, but she doesn't experience the screen tearing.

What do you think?

[lamster]

Hmm -- could be honest-to-goodness CPU thrashing. How many bots run on your server? The current implementation of bots is pretty inefficient--running 10+ can bring even a powerful machine to its knees.

[chapped]

My config is setup to have 2 bots with a threshold of 4, with a total of 16 players. Although its only ever been me, my GF, and the two bots playing.

[lamster]

Hmm! Nothing comes to mind as an explanation... have you tried updating your network card drivers? I've run into a few buggy network drivers that screw up system clocks when UDP traffic gets heavy. Should probably also try updating your video drivers.

[chapped]

I updated my video driver the other day to play the new Ghostbusters game. As far as my NIC driver, I will try that. Thanks for your help lam.