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General computer problem that make my games lag (any)

9007 Views 37 Replies 17 Participants Last post by neozero, Jan 12, 2004

Ilya

Discussion Starter · Jan 7, 2003

Hello, my name is Ilya Shodjaee-Zrudlo and i am 15 yrs old.
My computer has many problems that i am unable to fix, even though i am not a complete stranger to computers, i am actually better than most. My computer is a Celeron 1GHz and has about 320 MB of RAM, a GeForce 2 graphic card, DirectX9, the latest drivers for my graphic card, Windows Me and much, much more! Technically a great computer, and yet, it is horrible! I can hardly play the lowest quality game and the higher quality games that my computer should still be able to play freeze up and lag so bad you cant even play. I am playing all my games at minimum settings and they still lag to the point that i cant play.
Anyway, cud i have a list of steps or something to follow to check out wats wrong ? Need help pleuzze!

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1 - 20 of 38 Posts

Jtoast

· #2 · Jan 7, 2003

1) the first step is to clean your startup menu. Go to start/run type MSCONFIG and uncheck everything you can live without. Be Brutal. The only things windows needs is scanreg, load power profile x2, and possibly systray if you have it.

2) virus scan your computer. Go Here for a free online scan

3) clean out the spyware...go Here and download spybot install it, run it, update it via its online update feature, then let it scan your system. let it clean anything in red.

4) defrag your harddrive.

if its still not working after that, post back and we can get a little more in depth.

flyeater

· #3 · Jan 8, 2003

Be sure your running your games in a video mode they can handle. OpenGL as opposed to Direct3D for instance. My bet is your video card is not set right.

Ilya

Discussion Starter · #4 · Jan 8, 2003

Set videocard? How do you set a video card
and what is OpenGl as opposed to Direct3D?
(note: this is the person whpo asked the first question)
thanks for that first bit of info!

Ilya

Discussion Starter · #5 · Jan 8, 2003

And another thing, when the first guy was talkin about unchecking all these things, did he mean the startup stuff? If so, i keep it at a bare minimum all the time! And my computer still screws up!

flyeater

· #6 · Jan 8, 2003

List what games your playing and I'll try to link you to some tweak sites. If you can as tell me the complete make & model of your video card.

Ilya

Discussion Starter · #7 · Jan 8, 2003

My graphic card is a
NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400
Hardware version : 178
Status: working properly
Usage: exists in all hardware profiles
Driver provider: NVIDIA
driver date: 03/09/2002
Digital Signer: Microsoft Windows Hardware Compatibility Publisher
Resources: use automatic settings is checked
And no conflicts are detected
What more should i add? and if theres more, where can i find it?

Games:
I play PC Gamer Demo games off their cd's (some of them dont work at all), Max Payne (doesnt lag that much at minimal settings, but has many compatibility issues), The Sims, GTA3, America's Army (that one doesnt lag that much though), Jedi Knight 2: Jedi outcast, Battlefield 1942, Worms world party (doesnt lag, though kept at minimal settings), Baldurs Gate 2, Dungeon Keeper 2, Starcraft, Red Alert 2, 1602, Conquest: Frontier Wars, Deus Ex, and a little more.

I also have another issue with my computer, the longer i leave it on, the more it lags, i mean, right in windows: I move my mouse and it will move a centimeter, get stuck for 5 seconds and then continue, so i have to restart my computer every time its has stayed on for too long.

I also have KaZaA, if that changes anything of my computer. My friends all have it and their computers dont lag so i dont think having KaZaA is the problem.

Another thing, how should i benchmark my computer to see if everything is working like it should be for a normal computer like mine.

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GLiO

· #8 · Jan 9, 2003

Besides a few of those games, don't expect a GeForce 2 to run any of those. Especially GTA3, Jk2, Americas Army. Those 3 games you will need at LEAST a GeForce 3 to run. If you want to discuss upgrading your video card, let me know.

AtreideS

· #9 · Jan 9, 2003

GLiO, did you mean to say GTA3, Jk2, Americas Army need a Geforce3 to run at the highest resolution. Because I know for a fact that JK2 will run on a GF2, just not at the highest resolution. I'm pretty sure all those games will run on a GF2, but the Videocard will be a bottleneck, and the graphics will need to be toned down for smooth framerates.
JK2 uses a modified Quake3 engine. I have a Geforce2 Ti and can run Quake3 at a framerate of 125 at 800*600. From what I've seen JK2's modified Quake3 engine is not alot more intensive than the original Q3 engine.
Bur from the other games listed it is obvious something is definately wrong if Starcraft will not run without lagging.
From what was written about the lag growing over time, it sounds like something is eating up your CPU resources the longer the computer is on. Have a look at the Resource Monitor and check.

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fastfingeredfool

· #10 · Jan 9, 2003

If you have Kazaa, there is more than likely spyware in your system. I had the same problem with the lagging, cursor moving slow, and generally slower performance the longer the computer was on. After running Spybot and getting rid of what it found, my system is running 100% better. It's definitely worth trying! Jtoast left a link for you to download it.

Ilya

Discussion Starter · #11 · Jan 9, 2003

THanks guys, i ran spybot and eliminated any spywares, but my kazaa still slows down mt computer a little and as a note, i always run games at minimal settings and the frame rates are pretty horrible for my excpectations.
Can someone please tell me how a computer with my stats (they are up higher above) should preform. Could someone get a frame rate or something that i could test out to see if it is running normally and its just me? Run the games at minimal settings for frame rates, please.
thanks.

flyeater

· #12 · Jan 9, 2003

Grab a copy of 3DMark . After you run it you can post the results to their site. They will show you a comparison of like rigged systems.
I was leaning towards Kazaa as the problem as well & would go so far as to just uninstall it then run spybot again. Every once in a while I try a P2P program and have yet to find it worth keeping. I have a tough time trusting any files from an unknown machine. Speaking of which do you have & run up to date antivirus software?

Ilya

Discussion Starter · #13 · Jan 10, 2003

I have Norton Antivirus Systemworks and i check for viruses regulrly, though i rarely get any. Ill grab 3D Mark, thanks.

Ilya

Discussion Starter · #14 · Jan 11, 2003

I got 3D Mark and benchmarked my system with low detail and i got this, since im no computer wiz, can u guys interpret. I cudnt find anybody that had the same system and graphic card, so i cudnt compare, maybe u guys eill, know, thx:

System Configuration

Operating System Microsoft Windows ME
DirectX Version 9.0
Mobo Manufacturer
Mobo Model 694X-596B-977
AGP Rates (Current/Available) 2x / 1x 2x
CPU Intel Celeron 1002 MHz
FSB 100 MHz
Memory 320 MB
Graphics Chipset NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400
Driver Name NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400
Driver Version 4.13.01.4109
Video Memory 32 MB
Program Version 3DMark2001 SE
Resolution 1024x768 32bit
Texture Format Compressed
FSAA Disabled
Z-Buffer Depth 24bit
Frame Buffer Double
Rendering Pipeline D3D Hardware T&L

Test Results
3DMark Score 768 3D marks
Game 1 Car Chase - Low Detail 13.3 FPS
Game 1 Car Chase - High Detail 2.4 FPS
Game 2 Dragothic - Low Detail 14.0 FPS
Game 2 Dragothic - High Detail 5.3 FPS
Game 3 Lobby - Low Detail 18.8 FPS
Game 3 Lobby - High Detail 7.7 FPS
Game 4 Nature No hardware support
Fill Rate (Single-Texturing) 191.1 MTexels/s
Fill Rate (Multi-Texturing) 358.4 MTexels/s
High Polygon Count (1 light) 7.3 MTriangels/s
High Polygon Count (8 lights) 6.8 MTriangels/s
Environment Bump Mapping No hardware support
DOT3 Bump Mapping 23.6 FPS
Vertex Shader 3.7 FPS
Pixel Shader No hardware support
Advanced Pixel Shader No hardware support
Point Sprite 43.5 MSprites/s

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flyeater

· #15 · Jan 11, 2003

Intresting I couldn't find anything even with a google search. Not in english anyway.
I wonder why your card wouldn't handle the nature demo? Granted it's the toughest one on your system.
Obviously I can't really compare your system & mine but if it helps you here it is.

System Configuration
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP

DirectX Version 8.1

Mobo Manufacturer MSI

Mobo Model MS-6380E

AGP Rates (Current/Available) 4x / 1x 2x 4x

CPU AMD Athlon(tm) XP/MP/4 1250 MHz

FSB 100 MHz

Memory 1024 MB

Graphics Chipset NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4400

Driver Name NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4400

Driver Version 6.13.10.2742

Video Memory 128 MB

Program Version 3DMark2001 SE

Resolution 1024x768 32bit

Texture Format Compressed

FSAA Disabled

Z-Buffer Depth 24bit

Frame Buffer Double

Rendering Pipeline D3D Pure Hardware T&L

Test Results
3DMark Score 7537 3D marks

Game 1 Car Chase - Low Detail 104.0 FPS

Game 1 Car Chase - High Detail 35.3 FPS

Game 2 Dragothic - Low Detail 149.1 FPS

Game 2 Dragothic - High Detail 83.5 FPS

Game 3 Lobby - Low Detail 97.6 FPS

Game 3 Lobby - High Detail 44.1 FPS

Game 4 Nature 38.6 FPS

I'm going to have to chalk up your problems just to some system specs. That shouldn't effect the older games though. From Max Payne on though it gets pretty hardware intensive.

"AGP Rates (Current/Available) 2x / 1x 2x "

Big bottleneck there. I believe thats due to your mobo not your video card.
Celeron 1002 MHz : I don't believe that any of the celerons have L1 or L2 cache. How much of a difference this would make I don't know.
I would assume if you begin to use up the 32 megs of ram on your video card it begins to use your cpu resources. Thats part of the idea of todays bigger badder vid cards, to give dedicated resources to doing just that.
I don't know what size monitor your using but maybe you'll get better performance or at least better frame rates at a lower resolution.
When you look at just my cpu compared to yours there's only a 25% difference in clock speed. Due to the difference in cpu architecture, mobo, video card & my overkill on ddr ram it looks a hell of a lot different. Trust me I feel bad when I read benchmarks for the latest & greatest Falcon Northwest screamer. Heaven knows I wish I had the cash to burn on a P4 system with all the bells & whistles.

Here's the only thing I could find comparing vidio cards.
Sorry it's such a large image.

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Xephar

· #16 · Jan 28, 2003

I thought Celerons were an economical alternative to the pentium chips. But they are missing a lot of the features of a standard P3 or P4.

Because I have the exact SAME configuration as Ilya, except mine is a P3 866. I even have onboard sound card which sucks, but in all of those games I can get at least 15-20 frams on medium to high detail at 800:600 at 32 bit color.

foxfire

· #17 · Jan 28, 2003

Hi Ilya. I dont know if you are still suffering slow speed but having read your post above I do know that Norton antivirus will interfere with throughput speed.

I am not an expert but monitor my ISP forums & the ISP techs: are adament that this happens.They have all deleted Norton & run AVG 60 instead.

regards
Foxfire

Ilya

Discussion Starter · #18 · Jan 29, 2003

Thx, i might try that. I was just wondering if maybe my cpu usage (the one u see in the preformance section of system in control panel) is too low, it is in the high 70s whith only my network thingy running and norton anitvirus (system works). Is this normal?
Tanks for your help

Frik

· #19 · Jan 29, 2003

AVG anti virus software hompage

I run AVG and so far have not had a problem, you may find Norton to be a hog for resources, you might want to give this a try.

So far AVG is also free..............

I am running a 700mhz P3, 256 megs of ram and so far it plays all the games I want to play.............

dr_karkian

· #20 · Dec 9, 2003

Maybe you guys can help me: i have a compaq with 1.5 ghz pentium 4, 512mb of sdram and a geforce 4 mx video card: when i got the computer i could play any game just fine; now i can't play a single game without horrible horrible lag. I've tried everything i can think of to fix the problem i even reformated my hard drive, many times nothing has worked; help!

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