Hi guys, I have a question and hope some light can be shed on this:

Q: Is it normal for cutscenes or intro scenes in games to stutter (i.e. doesn't show smoothly) although there are absolutely no problems at all while playing in-game?

I'm currently using a GTX260 with a Dell LCD 27" in 1920 x 1200 resolution, Q9550 with 2GB RAM and my PSU is Vantec Ion 2+ 550W.

I was previously using a 8800GT and noticed the stuttering while watching the intro scene from The Witcher. I thought maybe playing the intro scene in 1920 x 1200 resolution was pushing the 8800GT. In game I didn't have any problems although I didn't max out the graphics quality.

So when I upgraded to the GTX260 I thought that the stuttering from the intro scene would be gone but it's still there. Of course when playing the game I maxed out the settings and it still performed nicely. I have since installed different games and noticed the same thing happening i.e. stuttering from intro scenes. And this happens whether it's an older game like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. or a newer one like Dead Space.

Am I having a problem with my hardware or is this quite normal?

I'm using Windows XP. I've always been under the impression that in-game gameplay is more resource intensive than the intro scenes or cut scenes, which is why I've not been bothered too much since gameplay is fine. It's just annoying that intros or cut scenes don't play smoothly and I don't know why that happens.

Change to Vista? Uh, I'd prefer not to, based on some of the stories I've heard.

Anyway, it looks like it was just a vsync issue. After I turned on vsync it solved the problem.


Do video codecs impact on game performance? I though those are for video playback only. Anyway, I'm using CCCP for all my video codec needs.