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danthegamer
1 Rookie
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96 Posts
0
5379
January 13th, 2005 20:00
In-game processing lag
That's at least what I think it is. I'll do my best to explain the problem.
Let's say I load a game, such Battlefield 1942 or Unreal Tournament 2004, on my Dell Dimension 4300 (1.6 GHz P4, 512 SDRAM, Radeon 9800pro 128meg 4xAGP, Win XP Home). While said game is running, the game will work perfectly fine, but there is a repeated lag that I believe to be related to some kind of processing problem. It occurs literally once per second and a half or so, and lasts for a couple tenths of a second. Basically what happens is that the game will not show anything moving; if I'm at the load screen in BF1942, the cinematic running behind the options will stop, and my mouse will not read on the screen how I'm moving it on my desk. It's very similar to Internet lag, but it still happens when I'm playing campaign games, and happens in the same form in UT2k4. Any clicking or keystrokes hit during that lag period also do not register with the game and no action takes place on the screen.
It's only started doing this recently. It didn't happen with my nVidia geForce2 MX 440, and didn't start right after I put my Radeon 9800pro in. I have a 5400 RPM 18.6 GB Maxtor Hard Drive (OEM from Dell), but I don't think that has anything to do with it.
Fixes tried:
1) disabled every nonessential service at startup
2) a different hardware profile
3) ended every nonessential background process through task manager
4) updated Catalyst video drivers; then I removed those and used recent Omega drivers
5) complete removal of all video drivers and reinstallation of both types of drivers
6) spyware scan and removal (Ad-aware)
Nothing has gotten rid of the problem. It's really annoying when I want to play the game because it's constantly rejecting what I want to do when I have to make split second decisions.
I know this problem is incredibly vague and very few probably have any clue what I'm talking about, but any further fix options (short of reformatting or a new computer) would be greatly appreciated.
Let's say I load a game, such Battlefield 1942 or Unreal Tournament 2004, on my Dell Dimension 4300 (1.6 GHz P4, 512 SDRAM, Radeon 9800pro 128meg 4xAGP, Win XP Home). While said game is running, the game will work perfectly fine, but there is a repeated lag that I believe to be related to some kind of processing problem. It occurs literally once per second and a half or so, and lasts for a couple tenths of a second. Basically what happens is that the game will not show anything moving; if I'm at the load screen in BF1942, the cinematic running behind the options will stop, and my mouse will not read on the screen how I'm moving it on my desk. It's very similar to Internet lag, but it still happens when I'm playing campaign games, and happens in the same form in UT2k4. Any clicking or keystrokes hit during that lag period also do not register with the game and no action takes place on the screen.
It's only started doing this recently. It didn't happen with my nVidia geForce2 MX 440, and didn't start right after I put my Radeon 9800pro in. I have a 5400 RPM 18.6 GB Maxtor Hard Drive (OEM from Dell), but I don't think that has anything to do with it.
Fixes tried:
1) disabled every nonessential service at startup
2) a different hardware profile
3) ended every nonessential background process through task manager
4) updated Catalyst video drivers; then I removed those and used recent Omega drivers
5) complete removal of all video drivers and reinstallation of both types of drivers
6) spyware scan and removal (Ad-aware)
Nothing has gotten rid of the problem. It's really annoying when I want to play the game because it's constantly rejecting what I want to do when I have to make split second decisions.
I know this problem is incredibly vague and very few probably have any clue what I'm talking about, but any further fix options (short of reformatting or a new computer) would be greatly appreciated.
danthegamer
1 Rookie
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96 Posts
251
0
Posted January 13th, 2005 21:00
A half-gig of system RAM and 128 on the vid board isn't enough? God help us for gaming in the future...
I do have a FSB of 100MHz (possibly 133, but I vaguely remember a benchmark on my box showing 100). Beyond what I've got, is there really gonna be a huge difference? Other idea I just had: would the paging file on a small, slow hard drive cause consistent lag such as what I'm getting?- You will still have to lower some of the game graphic's setting during game play. If you have many of the game options on high settings than you will have lag. Some of the newer games state on the game box that 1 gb of memory is needed for a better gaming experience, but again, lower the game settings somewhat untill you see some improvement. Yes, the future games will require more memory, better cpu and video cards. Thats how they get our money.....:smileywink:
vpresley83
2 Intern
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307 Posts
251
0
Posted January 15th, 2005 00:00
Hi
Is your anti virus turned off ? Also you have PC 133 SDRAM, which is slow for gaming purposes for the most part. Also your CPU is a little on the slow side for most of the newer games. Up the memory, will help some. You can upgrade to a faster CPU for about $125.00, P4 2.4, 2.6, 2.8. The higher the CPU speed the more it will cost.
Vince
cyber_surfer
551 Posts
251
0
Posted January 13th, 2005 21:00
My son plays Everquest online with a homebuild. AMD XP 3000+, 9800pro, 1 GB RAM.
Going from 512 to 1 GB he was able to up the levels by two and do away with a choppy action on the screen.
Maybe you could borrow some memory to experiment. The balance between cpu - graphics - ram is critical or something will be waiting. Doesn't square with it didn't happen right away when the 9800pro went in, but it is all I have to offer.