Sudden Slowness, Music Stuttering

[omegaflash]

Running Tron 2.0 + 1.042 Patch + KA_Mod 1.1a on a Lenovo Legion 7 Pro with i9, 32GB DDR5, and an RTX4090; this game should not be choking. (Also, Windows 11 Home 22H2 Build 22621.2134)

Any time enemies enter the field of play, the framerate drops from smooth-as-butter to abysmal, and the music can't decide whether it wants to be normal or "aggravated" and continually switches back and forth between the first stanza of either musical mode (safety or battle). Framerate drops so hard I can't even aim right any more.

[TronFAQ]

This is a problem with the version of the Lithtech game engine TRON 2.0 uses, as well as other Monolith Productions games that use the same version of the engine. Like No One Lives Forever 2, for example.

It wasn't designed to run at framerates above 100 FPS. As soon as you hit 100 FPS, you'll encounter that stuttering issue when enemies attack you. The animations, physics, and collision detection will also slowly start to break, the higher FPS you go.

If you framerate limit the game to 90 FPS, the stuttering issue won't occur. (You could try 99 FPS, but it's too close to 100 FPS and any limiter could let the FPS momentarily creep up to 100 FPS or more and cause stuttering again.)

[omegaflash]

I set both tron.exe and lithtech.exe to 90FPS max in NVidia Control Panel -- no effect at all. I even tried clearing those out and setting the whole system to 60 FPS under both screen refresh rate AND max fps in nvidia control panel. Still no effect whatsoever. These settings don't seem to actually be slowing the rendering engine itself. (Also, how do I get an FPS display to show in-game?)

I see references online to RivaTuner, but that looks very old and I'm more than a little scared to use that on a Brand New 2023 laptop.

[TronFAQ]

I set both tron.exe and lithtech.exe to 90FPS max in NVidia Control Panel -- no effect at all. I even tried clearing those out and setting the whole system to 60 FPS under both screen refresh rate AND max fps in nvidia control panel. Still no effect whatsoever. These settings don't seem to actually be slowing the rendering engine itself.

The Nvidia Control Panel frame limiter option used to work with TRON 2.0, but doesn't any longer. Nvidia made some change that broke compatibility.

Setting your display to 60Hz (or any valid setting below 100Hz) in Windows Settings can act as a frame limiter. But the game's VSync option needs to be turned on for it to work, and it's off by default if I'm not mistaken.

I recommend not using the in-game option to turn on VSync, and instead open the display.cfg file in your Tron 2.0 folder in a text editor, and look for the line that reads "VSyncOnFlip". Change the "0" to "1" and save the change you made.

Be careful that whichever text editor you use, it doesn't append a .txt extension, and the saved file doesn't become display.cfg.txt.

(Also, how do I get an FPS display to show in-game?)

There's no way to show the FPS in the game itself, unfortunately. You'll have to use an external program like GeForce Experience, RivaTuner, or something else.

I see references online to RivaTuner, but that looks very old and I'm more than a little scared to use that on a Brand New 2023 laptop.

I use RivaTuner myself to limit the FPS, on my modern system. However, Windows XP SP2 compatibility needs to be disabled on Lithtech.exe, or else RivaTuner won't hook into the game and limit the FPS.

Right-click Lithtech.exe in your Tron 2.0 folder > Click Properties > Click the Compatibility tab > Remove the checkmark beside "Run this program in compatibility mode for" > Click OK.

[omegaflash]

I use RivaTuner myself to limit the FPS, on my modern system. However, Windows XP SP2 compatibility needs to be disabled on Lithtech.exe, or else RivaTuner won't hook into the game and limit the FPS.

Right-click Lithtech.exe in your Tron 2.0 folder > Click Properties > Click the Compatibility tab > Remove the checkmark beside "Run this program in compatibility mode for" > Click OK.

How do I configure RivaTuner to actually do this? Many of the settings appear to not work because it's too old to detect my drivers for this GPU. I tried a few things but got nowhere...

(Also thank you for sharing all this information!)

[omegaflash]

I use RivaTuner myself to limit the FPS, on my modern system. However, Windows XP SP2 compatibility needs to be disabled on Lithtech.exe, or else RivaTuner won't hook into the game and limit the FPS.

Right-click Lithtech.exe in your Tron 2.0 folder > Click Properties > Click the Compatibility tab > Remove the checkmark beside "Run this program in compatibility mode for" > Click OK.

How do I configure RivaTuner to actually do this? Many of the settings appear to not work because it's too old to detect my drivers for this GPU. I tried a few things but got nowhere...

(Also thank you for sharing all this information!)

So I found out I was at least using the wrong program, and got the "latest" RTSS going, which actaully appears to have the settings I would expect. However, they have no effect at all on the gameplay, even with "Application detection level" at High.

[TronFAQ]

So I found out I was at least using the wrong program, and got the "latest" RTSS going, which actaully appears to have the settings I would expect.

Yes, my bad. Sorry, I should have been more specific. And I should have clued in earlier when you said RivaTuner is old. My fault.

The thing is, people now use the terms RivaTuner and RivaTuner Statistics Server interchangeably. Instead of referring to RTSS by its full name. RivaTuner is shorthand for RTSS, since the original RivaTuner became obsolete.

I was surprised to find the original RivaTuner is even still available for download on the author's site, rather than being archived.

However, they have no effect at all on the gameplay, even with "Application detection level" at High.

Did you disable Windows XP SP2 compatibility on Lithtech.exe in your Tron 2.0 folder? I remember getting frustrated, trying to figure out why RTSS wouldn't work, until I thought about disabling any compatibility setting.

Actually, just to be safe, do it for TRON.exe as well. Lithtech.exe might be inheriting the compatibility setting from TRON.exe, since any executable launched from another usually inherits its properties in Windows.

And if you have the Steam version of TRON 2.0: The Killer App Mod installation should have taken care of this for you, but make sure the file installScript.vdf isn't in your Tron 2.0 folder. Otherwise, this script runs every time you play TRON 2.0 in Steam, and it keeps reapplying Windows XP SP2 compatibility mode to TRON.exe.

[omegaflash]

Oh my word.... I think I found the problem.

The doggone SHORTCUT that was pointing at the launcher had the XP Compatibility settings enforced....... even though the .exe's themselves did not.



Some days I hate computers. Other days (like today) I hate them even more. (And I'm a programmer by trade... so that works out nicely.)

smh

Thanks for the help though, I appreciate your time responding and the pointer led me to the issue after all.