Articulate Vlish Petoffen Posted June 15, 2008 Share Posted June 15, 2008 I'm playing the demos for A5 and G4, and while on an older computer (AMD 2600+ 1GB RAM), especially after playing for a bit, the games frequently get 'mini hangs', lasting 2 to 5 seconds, and sometimes about 30 seconds. It gets very annoying, as they're complely random - every time I go to walk half a screen, or talk to an NPC, or whatever activity, every 5 to 10 seconds, it stutters like the threat topic. I don't think it's just the machine, as it plays many other games without that (e.g., World of Warcraft). It does seemsort of disk/swap related; the cursor freezes during the hangs as well. Any ideas? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Lilith Posted June 15, 2008 Share Posted June 15, 2008 Does it mostly happen when you're travelling outdoors? There are noticeable pauses when the game loads a new map area. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Articulate Vlish Petoffen Posted June 15, 2008 Author Share Posted June 15, 2008 It happens anywhere at any time once it starts. It was happening last night for hours; today, it's not. No reboot, no other programs (it is acting a bit like you might expect if you were installing a program in the background too). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unflappable Drayk John S Posted June 16, 2008 Share Posted June 16, 2008 Originally Posted By: Petoffen It happens anywhere at any time once it starts. It was happening last night for hours; today, it's not. No reboot, no other programs (it is acting a bit like you might expect if you were installing a program in the background too). Are you on a Windows machine? Maybe you could use Task Manager to start closing programs at... random. It sounds bad, but maybe it'll eliminate the problem? Originally Posted By: Petoffen It does seemsort of disk/swap related; the cursor freezes during the hangs as well. Any ideas? Just because I'm superstitious, I would also check the CD drives and make sure there's nothing running in there. When the skipping starts, does the sound coming from your computer change? Not the speakers, mind you. The actual computer. Can you hear more fans running, or more loudly? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Articulate Vlish Petoffen Posted June 16, 2008 Author Share Posted June 16, 2008 Originally Posted By: John S Originally Posted By: Petoffen It happens anywhere at any time once it starts. It was happening last night for hours; today, it's not. No reboot, no other programs (it is acting a bit like you might expect if you were installing a program in the background too). Are you on a Windows machine? Maybe you could use Task Manager to start closing programs at... random. It sounds bad, but maybe it'll eliminate the problem? Yes, Windows XP. There was really nothing to close. If it were some background program, I'd see it in other games, too, but I don't. I don't have a lot running. It's the sort of slowdown you see when the computer is having to swap a lot, but with 10GB free disk space, 1GB RAM, I wouldn't think this game is stressing the hardware. Originally Posted By: Petoffen It does seemsort of disk/swap related; the cursor freezes during the hangs as well. Any ideas? Just because I'm superstitious, I would also check the CD drives and make sure there's nothing running in there. When the skipping starts, does the sound coming from your computer change? Not the speakers, mind you. The actual computer. Can you hear more fans running, or more loudly? There's a Turbotax CD in the drive, but the CD wasn't being accessed. I do notice disk activity during the pauses, not fans. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Randomizer Posted June 16, 2008 Share Posted June 16, 2008 It sounds more like the game is accessing data. Either new map information or graphics sprite files. You don't always see what is happening. I have it happen on my machine and it's a Mac. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast The Mystic Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 One thing that really helps me is to defrag all hard drives (or at least the one the game is on), followed by rebooting. Things tend to run faster afterwards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unflappable Drayk Toby-Linn Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 Sometimes my games run slow when my virus software is updating itself in the background. I use avast antivirus software. I've also noticed games run slow when I have Firefox open in the background. I am also Windows XP for reference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk Hydromedia Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 It might be that you keep minimizing and re-opening it. If you're native resolution isn't 800x600 that can cause problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unflappable Drayk Toby-Linn Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 My games run fine, thank you Hydromedia. I was responding to the issue in the thread with tactics I use. I was only stating that I would close Firefox when it makes my games run slow, and that sometimes my antivirus program makes games run slow as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Articulate Vlish Petoffen Posted June 20, 2008 Author Share Posted June 20, 2008 Thanks, it's an intermittent thing. I don't think it was a background download going on, but I did have Firefox open. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unflappable Drayk Toby-Linn Posted June 20, 2008 Share Posted June 20, 2008 Just thought of something else that could cause your games to slow down: Windows Update -- wuacdl in your task manager process list I think Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyshakk Koan La paix Posted June 30, 2008 Share Posted June 30, 2008 Any ideas why Firefox does that? I'm running a iMac G5 on OS X 10.4.11, and I have iStat menus installed. I notice that the firefox-bin process sometimes inexplicably begins to eat all the processor power. As far as I can tell, it has nothing to do with the tabs open, because it starts eating power at random, especially when I'm not even using it. Sorry to get off-topic, but any ideas? It's not a big problem; I usually just quit it if it gets too bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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