Aces High Bulletin Board
Help and Support Forums => Technical Support => Topic started by: rednex21 on July 30, 2007, 12:10:58 PM
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I am beginning to get really irritated. I have already mentioned this subject under "Computer Problems". My computer will not quit freezing up while i play this game. And it alays does it when i have kills or in another bad situation. Several people have told me i need a new video card. But i talked to Rolex and he said thats probably not what i need. I posted my DXDIAG under "Computer Problems" just in case anybody wants to take a look. I would love to continue playing this game and a new computer is completely out of the question. So if anybody can tell me what i need to do it will be much obliged.
Thanks again
Banshee7
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Well I scrolled through 4 pages of forum threads and not one seemed to have the name "Computer problems" -- please repost the DXdiag report here or give us a link to the thread in question.
Thanks.
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Outdated drivers..? Also it can be overheating currupt files try dumping your cache files, If that doesnt work toss skuzzy a pm.
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rednex as was stated in your "computer problems" thread you probably want to try a better video card. Krusty had a couple of good recomendations in that thread.
You might also try fsautostart (google it as I don't have the web addy handy) to reduce the number of processess runing while you play AH.
You might also want to up your RAM to at least 1GB, as The Fugitive stated in your "computer problems" thread windows xp uses most of your 512MB of RAM.
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This is the thread http://forums.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=210001 he was referring to. Like it was stated there, your ram is a bit short, and I think Skuzzy said something about the X300 series of Radeon video card is a low end card and not made for gaming.
Get yourself a gig or ram, and an old ATI 9800 pro 256 meg video card. You should be good for awhile so you can save up your money for a new computer next year.
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I have a 254mb RAM and run a 6 year old NOT EVER UPDATED FROM STOCK computer. Windows XP, 14.5 gig hardrive, slow an old. Works fine.:lol :rolleyes:
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99.9% of game pauses are due to resource issues with the computer. Whenever a computer runs out of resources, the game will be paused as the CPU and operating system try to figure out a way to keep everything running.
The game will give you a clue about this. Open the "Net Status" panel (right-click on the clipboard map in the tower while Online) and note the "Variance" graph. It should be flat lined in the middle. I bet it is spiking on you, which is an indication the CPU is off doing other things.
DXDIAG only marginally helps get to the resource issue. The real work starts in the Windows Task Manager. A normal Windows XP system has around 19 to 21 processes running in the background. Open the Teask Manger, select the "Processes" tab, then look in the lower left hand corner for the total count.
Then look to the immediate right of that number to see the CPU usage. With nothing running on the desktop, it sould bouncing like a heartbeat from 0 to 1 (occasionally 2) percent. No higher. Watch it for a minute or two.
Resource issues also happen with sound cards as well. Dumb sound devices like AC97 sound devices require an enormous amout of CPU cycles compared to almost any PCI sound card. Turn down the hardware acceleration on those dumb devices as all that slider is doing is adjusting the priority of the sounds played by the CPU.
Lastly, pay attention to the sticky posts in this forum. They contain virtually everything I have stated here, in greater detail.
It is your computer to control. The game cannot fix resource issues.
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Wow, how do you get it down to 21 processes and 2%? The best I can get is 35 processes and 6-20%
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Originally posted by McFarland
Wow, how do you get it down to 21 processes and 2%? The best I can get is 35 processes and 6-20%
It's fairly easy once you learn what essential services/processes you need. The vast majority of off the shelf pc's have alot of crap running that you just don't need. Some system services that are not essential start automatically by default - like "secondary logon" for example. That enables the "runas" command. If you don't know what that command is or what it does then you really don't need it. "File and printer sharing" is another possibility if your computer is not part of a home network. BTW, many of those 35 processes you're seeing could be antivirus stuff if you're using Norton a/v. Maybe not. The point being that some a/v software has a bigger footprint on your system than others.
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Thank you skuzzy. I will see what i can do.
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I found what you were talking about Skuzzy. I have WAAAAAAAAAAAAY too many things running. now i just got to sort them out and shut some things down. My CPU usage stayed around 0%-2% maybe 3% on occasions.
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Originally posted by Skuzzy
A normal Windows XP system has around 19 to 21 processes running in the background.
That is not a normal XP system. That is a trim and clean XP system. A normal XP system has 25-35 processes running, with many higher than that depending on how many widgets are installed. Every thing installed, be it webcam, sound card, video driver, CDROM burning software, etc. wants to have its little autorun doodad running in the background "to enhance the user's experience." You have to kill the unnecessary ones to get max CPU cycles available for AH2.
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After all my tweaks on my system, I down to 17 services.
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Originally posted by Irwink!
It's fairly easy once you learn what essential services/processes you need. The vast majority of off the shelf pc's have alot of crap running that you just don't need. Some system services that are not essential start automatically by default - like "secondary logon" for example. That enables the "runas" command. If you don't know what that command is or what it does then you really don't need it. "File and printer sharing" is another possibility if your computer is not part of a home network. BTW, many of those 35 processes you're seeing could be antivirus stuff if you're using Norton a/v. Maybe not. The point being that some a/v software has a bigger footprint on your system than others.
With all antivirus components and firewall and printer spooler AND printer turned off, it's at 35 processes. I have 6 different ones named "svchost", and many others that I have no idea what they are. But usual CPU usage is 6-20%, with spikes to 75, 80, and 100%. Quite often.
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on my laptop aces high freezes all the time...ya know what i did....i GOT OVER IT :rolleyes:
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switching from norton security to NOD32 helped me get to 21 processes with taskmanager open while the cpu bounces from 1% to 4% max
FSAutoStart may help those who do not understand the processes running on their computer
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I have 51 processes running and i have that CHOST thing also. I have no idea what i need and what i dont. So im prett much screwed i guess.:(
I watched my CPU Usage and it stayed around 0-2%. It did one timw spikw to 78%.
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Oh yeah..another thing thats really important...When my computer freezes the game its like my CPU locks up. The only way i can even turn my computer off to restart is by flicking the surge protector switch. Note this only happens when i play the game.
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Hrm... I wonder if that's a hardware/driver problem? Low system resources don't normally "hard lock" a system like that, and your CPU and RAM are decent enough: P4 3.2GHz, 512MB ram.
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Originally posted by rednex21
The only way i can even turn my computer off to restart is by flicking the surge protector switch.
If u press and hold the power button on your PC for at least 4 secs, the computer will shut off. They did that to prevent young kids with happy fingers turning the computer off suddenly. If u just press the power button your computer will shut down normally like u hit start/shutdown in windows.
As for your services issue, when I get home, I have a list of services and links that u can use as a reference to which services can be disabled or turned off.
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I just hope i get it fixed. It seems like it does it more when i up perk planes:mad: :furious :cry
Thanks guys for all your help:aok
But keep on telling me things..i definetly want to be able to play this game and have fun....not freeze and get mad and wanna sling it out the door.
B4 i log = :(
When i log = :)
When it freezes = :( :mad: :furious :cry
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Originally posted by BennyBeaver
on my laptop aces high freezes all the time...ya know what i did....i GOT OVER IT :rolleyes:
This doesn't help and is not necessary.
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Well, I got it down to 24 processes with FSAutoStart, and 0-4% CPU usage.. Then turning on AOL bumped it up to 30, and 7-75% CPU usage. I can't play it online without AOL started, so I'm stuck with freezes, warp, and other problems. By the way, when I run AOL, is it neccessary to run aolwbspd.exe, aoltray.exe, and waol.exe? If not, it would cut down a lot on the memory and CPU usage.
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Shutting down unnecessary XP processes.
I've set up a hardware profile for playing AH. So when I restart my XP PC and select the AH HW profile there are minimal processes running (19, but I'm using Track IR). I've used the Black Viper guideline at the link to configure my AH HW profile.
WARNING - you fiddle at your own risk. I'd suggest reading the article and links twice or three times if you are not a computer whiz.
Black Viper XP Services Configuration (http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm)
If you set a restore point in XP before you start creating or changing configurations you should be able to restore your XP setup if something goes haywire.
Best Regards
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Originally posted by McFarland
Well, I got it down to 24 processes with FSAutoStart, and 0-4% CPU usage.. Then turning on AOL bumped it up to 30, and 7-75% CPU usage. I can't play it online without AOL started, so I'm stuck with freezes, warp, and other problems. By the way, when I run AOL, is it neccessary to run aolwbspd.exe, aoltray.exe, and waol.exe? If not, it would cut down a lot on the memory and CPU usage.
In the old days when I played AW on AOL, once you conected to the game you could turn off your browser. Don't know if it will work in this case, but can't hurt to try. Connect to AOL, launch the game, , out of the game and close down the browser windows. Click on the AH2 tab to open the game back up.
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Originally posted by BennyBeaver
on my laptop aces high freezes all the time...ya know what i did....i GOT OVER IT :rolleyes:
I hope you get PNG'd.
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Originally posted by McFarland
Well, I got it down to 24 processes with FSAutoStart, and 0-4% CPU usage.. Then turning on AOL bumped it up to 30, and 7-75% CPU usage. I can't play it online without AOL started, so I'm stuck with freezes, warp, and other problems. By the way, when I run AOL, is it neccessary to run aolwbspd.exe, aoltray.exe, and waol.exe? If not, it would cut down a lot on the memory and CPU usage.
Hey bud, good advice so far from folks (except Benny).
While I have a good system now. Before May of last year, I played on a 800mhz P3, 384MB/133 RAM, with a GeForce DDR-DVI. To keep things clean I did the following:
I used drivers from 2002.
I installed SP2, but realized 6 processes were created with the install.
I reverted to SP1, and without TM.
I have SBC/Yahoo DSL, and they have their programs. I used them to start, and no longer use them. I just use the windows login/and firefox.
I had 13 processes at Startup
Hope this helps any.
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Ok, I'll try to do some things, see how it works out. Thanks for all the advice.
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BTW, I had XP pro on that PC, and put it on my current PC.