Jerky FMV playback in Emperor

[Fracture]

During the FMV sequences in the sound will cut in and out. While the sound is out the video tends to pause a bit too until the sound can "catch up".

I'm using WinXP Pro and have attached my DxDiag for reference. I wasn't able to install emperor at all until finding out about the EMPENGINSTFIX10.ZIP fix from this forum. After that it installed and ran quite beautifully.

I remember having the same problem when using Windows2000 on this machine when the game was first released. Back then I tried disabling read ahead caching on the CD-ROM drives, although I don't recall if this helped any. I can't find this option in WinXP however. Is it still here somewhere?

Thanks for any help![attachment archived by Gobalopper]

[number6]

You might want to go to this webpage and see if that helps.

[Fracture]

I've tried the +W switch. I found it in the readme after posting my original message.

Anyway, it stopped the dropping of frames in the video, but sound still cuts out for maybe 1 second out of every 10. This is up from maybe 1 out of every 5, plus the Video choppiness before.

Since this morning I've also

-Upgraded to DirectX9.0A

-Upgraded to the March Detonators 43.45

I think I'll attack the sound card angle now. New drivers, tweaking acceleration etc. I have an Audigy and I hear they do cause problems sometimes, so here's hoping.

[number6]

Is this the only game that has this problem? What's the model and type of drive you are using for the CDROMs? Is it a DVD ROM drive? It sounds like a problem with your CDROM drive to me. It can't hurt to update your audio drivers though. I would also be a little careful installing the very latest video card drivers especially if they say "Release Candidate". I always recommend installing "Final Retail" versions of the drivers.

[Fracture]

Hmmm... I think the video drivers were final.

Also no Audigy updates available.

And yes, this is the only affected game. (I might have had a bit of similar problem with RA2. I can't remember for sure now though.)

BuT ;D It seems like it is solved!

I ended up going into DxDiag and playing around with the Acceleration slider on the Sound tab. 'No Acceleration' meant no skipping, but the audio wasn't quite in sync with the video. 'Standard Acceleration' led to the aforementioned skipping and ripped frames, where the top half of the frame was repeated again on the bottom. 'Basic Acceleration' was just right.

So. Ya. Thanks for the suggestions! And maybe this thread will help someone else someday.