Every GF Speed Problem

[Sade]

I have had this problem with every Geneforge game, and A4-A5 as well. While the games are barely playable, it's just too annoying to play when the cursor is very laggy.

 

I think I know how fluently are these games supposed to work, since I've never had any problem with A1-A3.

 

Considering how pathetically low the requirements of GF1 are, I have no idea why my rather new laptop couldn't play even it sufficiently. You see, my old Windows 98 computer which was super slow due to memory shortage managed to play GFs better.

 

Here are some specs of my computer:

Acer Aspire 7520

Windows Vista Home Premium

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor TK-57 1.9 GHz

RAM: 4GB

NVIDIA GeForce 7000M / nForce 610M

 

I've tried to uninstall/reinstall the games. I haven't had any other programs running while playing. I have updated DirectX and all video/sound/other drivers. There are no viruses on my computer (or, at least, no viruses that updated F-secure Internet Security 2009 finds). There should be plenty of available memory (usage about 1000/2814 MB).

 

So... is there anything else I should try, or is my computer supposed to be THIS weak?

[The Mystic]

Defragment your hard drive, followed by your RAM. Also try running CCleaner or something similar.

[Sade]

I forgot to say that I defragment my hard drive and RAM every once in a while.

 

I didn't know about CCleaner. However, downloading and running it didn't seem to have any effect on anything.

 

By the way, since none of this stuff seems to work, I'm starting to think that computer is just underpowered. Could it be the case?

 

GF 5's recommended specs (requirement / what I have):

1. Windows 2000 or later / Windows Vista

2. 1.6 GhZ / 1.9 GhZ processor

3. Video card or processor with OpenGL support and 64 MB video RAM / GeForce 7000M

4. 512 MB / 4 GB RAM

 

Everything else looks like OK, but I'm not sure at all about number 3. I don't really know anything about computer technics, so could anyone tell me if Geforce 7000M was an exceptionally weak video card? Or am I still missing something?

[The Mystic]

From what I can tell, your computer's specs should be much more than sufficient for running the Geneforge games. However, I don't know much, if anything, about video cards; someone else will have to help with that.

 

The only other thing I can suggest is playing in compatibility mode.

[Sade]

Changing compatibility modes doesn't help, and for some odd reason, it "deletes" all my saved games. When I turn it off again, however, they will reappear.

 

Well, I guess that I'll have to stick with my laggy and slow GF's. It isn't that bad thing though, since I'm kind of grown accustomed to playing badly working games.

 

Thanks for your help anyway, The Mystic.

[Toby-Linn]

This may seem like a stupid question, but have you read Jeff Vogel's post about G5 speed problems?

 

http://www.ironycentral.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=156082#Post156082

 

Maybe there are some tips in there which can help you.

 

I have an Acer desktop computer as well, with almost the same specs as yours, except my graphics card is nVidia Geforce G100 and I have an Intel Core 2 Dual processor.

 

All the Spiderweb Software games work great on my computer, I don't know what the issue is with yours, sorry.

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

I just did some research, and found that your graphics card is inadequate.

 

Here are the technical specifications of your GPU, on the right-hand column:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/mobogpu_nb_7series_specs.html

 

Note that it does not even mention video RAM or OpenGL support. This is called "marketing". If they don't tell you what's missing, the average computer layperson won't know enough to do effective research and find out.

 

Here's a more recent GeForce card, for comparison:

 

http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_8M_techspecs.html

 

It says on the bottom that it supports OpenGL 2.1, but it still doesn't mention RAM.

 

Wikipedia indicates that the different 8M cards come in varieties with up to 512 MB of video RAM, however. This would be enough to run Geneforge 5.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_8_Series#Technical_summary_2

 

Unfortunately, your GPU does not appear to be an actual card, unlike the 8M series, but is rather an integrated chip which likely does not have any of its own video RAM, and instead uses the computer's main RAM instead, which results in slow graphical display.

 

If I am correct, your computer is a budget notebook computer, which was unfortunately not intended for gaming. Sorry.

 

Might I recommend Blades of Exile instead?[/shameless plug]

 

EDIT: Toby-Linn got in a post before me. Let me research her graphics card.

 

EDIT 2: Toby-Linn's card, in addition to being more recent, has OpenGL 2.1 support and 512MB of video RAM, enough to run Geneforge 5. Your card is not powerful enough, unfortunately.