terrible frame rates....help

[willnot]

Hi all,

Need help from the more computer savy people out there.

Here's my problem...... My computer keeps bogging down as I play the game and I'm at a loss as to why. I have an Athalon 1.2ghz processor, 512 ram, nvidia geforce2 ti video card, running windows ME.......

The card can get 85 fps ( and does when is not locking up) however about every 30 seconds or so the system almost seems to get stuck or something.

Heres what I've done. Updated windows, installed directx9.0, ugraded motherboard bios (asus A7V), upgraded AGP slot software, Upgraded videocard divers, tried all possible settings including lowering resolution.....tried another video card of the same calibre still no better.... tried alternating my ram memory strips to see if that was the problem.......... 6 hours of my life gone forever..... oh yeah and scanned the whole thing with norton antivirus...........

I'm wondering if there's something I can try that I haven't. I also think there's a chance that my processor is starting to go maybe because the low frame rates come and go....

If anyone has any helpful thoughts I'd like to hear them

Thank you in advance for you help

Will

[poopster]

You run enditall before your session ??

Firewalls ?? Norton ??

Use NvMax ?? Use TweakME ?? Regcleanr ?? Ad-aware ??

Pingtest results ??

Current problems at your server ??

Same thing happen offline ??

Your runnin the same processor and card I am.

"Usually" it's something else besides the game. Auto restore with Windoze ME played havoc with WB but don't think it's an issue here. Enditall will let you see what's runnin behind the scenes, a very good place to start.

nopoop
SYSTEM SPECS

AMD Athlon 1.2 T-bird
Epox 8K7A+ MB
Via 4 in 1 drivers
512 2100 DDR ram
IBM deskstar 20 gig hard drive
Asus GeForce v7100 pro 11.01c Asus drivers
Soundblaster PCI 512
Sony 19" Multiscan 400PS
1024x768 32 bit

Windoze ME with auto restore disabled
8.1b Direct X

System, vidio card and modem optimized with TweakMe and NVmax
( not overclocked - running current setup for a year )
CPU temp 101 under load - Case temp 75
Antec case 6 80cm fans - 3 hard drive fans
Run "End it all" before each session
Defrag weekly - and after any download or file change

[AKS\/\/ulfe]

Originally posted by willnot
running windows ME.......

That your only OS?

I've had it running on various systems, and I kept 98 for my game machine.

The only other thing I can imagine is that you have an IRQ conflict with your sound, video, modem, or USB devices and this is causing your system to get bogged down.

You can check this by going to Settings->Control Panel-> System->Device Manager Tab->Highlight "Computer" in the list of devices, and click properties. By default it will show you your IRQ listing and the devices on each IRQ. Check to see if any two devices are using the same IRQ. Two USB devices on one IRQ is normal, so is any IRQ holder for PCI steering so long as it's matched up with only one device (sound or video).
-SW

[Aqualung]

Sounds like there may be another program running in the background.  Open up Task Manager and see what processes are running.  If your anti-virus scanner is running that could be the culprit to your low fps.  To help there are programs like EndItAll that will close everything except the essentials.   Might want to give that a try.

[beet1e]

willnot. I don't think it's your hardware or OS. Your setup is almost identical to mine. I agree with the others - check for something else running in the background. In particular, check that Windows Me is not running Windows Update!  That used to happen automatically on my system (by default) until I disabled it. WMe would simply begin downloading updates and start installing them! Also check that no virus scanning operation is scheduled while you are playing AH. I get 85fps Max, dropping to min of about 32 - and that's only when I sit in a GV at a bombed out VH looking up through all the smoke. Rotate the turret the other way, and it goes back up to 85.

Also check your power management settings. Be sure that your disks are not being powered down, and then have to restart when some data has to be read in. I've had the disk problem too, and know other people who have had it.

[vorticon]

if its nothing else try switching ISP's...

[spiffykraits]

Originally posted by beet1e
willnot. I don't think it's your hardware or OS. Your setup is almost identical to mine. I agree with the others - check for something else running in the background. In particular, check that Windows Me is not running Windows Update!  That used to happen automatically on my system (by default) until I disabled it. WMe would simply begin downloading updates and start installing them! Also check that no virus scanning operation is scheduled while you are playing AH. I get 85fps Max, dropping to min of about 32 - and that's only when I sit in a GV at a bombed out VH looking up through all the smoke. Rotate the turret the other way, and it goes back up to 85.

Also check your power management settings. Be sure that your disks are not being powered down, and then have to restart when some data has to be read in. I've had the disk problem too, and know other people who have had it.

If you have updated your G-Force2 card to the 40 unified series drivers you may find they are much slower on 98/ME than the 30-82 Nvidia reference drivers by 20% approximately.  On  mine I get much better performance from the slightly earlier driver with 98SE.

You can revert back to 30.82 drives by changing the adaptor back to PCI VGA standard driver in video settings -change and get all hardware list -choose from standard adaptor, and then before rebooting remove the existing driver from add/remove.
It is important to clear the older drivers before adding new which could lead to problems.
Set video back to 680, and then reboot. On restart choose to list the adptors and browse to the 30.82 drivers in whatever directory you have stored them. Always re-install DirectX after changing drivers.

set anti-aliasing to off or auto (LET PROGRAM CONTROL ANTI-ALIASING) and in AH vid settings mip mapping can be off for slightly faster fps at the expense of some "shimmer"  Mip mapping on should only reduce speed some 5% though.

Make sure disk is defragged, and that virtual memory is on auto, and that you have some free disk space for virtual memory.

[BNM]

Only other thing I can think of is "Virtual Memory", got it set to 1gig?

It really sounds like a sound card / drivers issue.

[spiffykraits]

Originally posted by BNM
Only other thing I can think of is "Virtual Memory", got it set to 1gig?

It really sounds like a sound card / drivers issue.

As published on the specs with 512MBs RAM fitted making a big swap file is not the issue, for Windows ME it is recommended that you add the switch for conservative swap file use under the system.ini file 386Ehn section like so:

[386Enh]
ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1

(changing it to 0 disables it, or add a ; in front of the line does also without altering the text line. Edit system.ini with Notepad, but make a backup copy before messing with it)

Note this switch is ONLY for Windows 98SE/ME OSs and Windows should then use all the RAM before using the swapfile. Set the virtual memory for auto Windows management in system performance settings.  Win98SE and ME will only use up to 512MBs of RAM, though other OSs like XP and 2000 will use more.

It may be on re-installing stuff the pnp has got the interupts for sound/video conflicting. Best to keep interupts for sound and video separated  -see Skuzzys sticky tips above in the Tech section..  PCI steering sharing is not important but having sound and video interupts separate is.
Use the system tools information to see whether sound/video interupts are sharing.