Having trouble with my games slowing down...

[Insur. Salesman]

Recently, I installed a game called Knights of the Old Republic 2 on my computer. It's prequel, the original Knights of the Old Republic, ran fine on my computer as long as I turned off shadows and anti-aliasing (I still had high textures and grass on), but the sequel ran... quite badly, to say the least. There was constant lag on the sound, even while the logos were being shown before the game started, and the graphics also lagged consistantly once the main menu screen loaded up when any 3d models were shown. Something else odd that I noticed was that, during conversations, the lag would start out as minimal but as the other character talked on and on the lag would get consistentaly worse until the game became almost unplayable. This lag would usually stop as as soon as you were given conversation options, but if it became bad enough I would have to turn off the computer.

Something else I noticed, however, was that the CD began collecting scratches as I ran the game; eventually, they became so bad that I couldn't run the program anymore with the CD, and I (probably unwisely) downloaded a No-CD crack. I was able to run the program again, but the lag continued to affect my game.

Soonafter, I started experiencing lag in all my games; during Battle for Middle Earth 2's intro, for example, the game became so slow that I was forced to control-alt-delete out of it and shut the game down. What pissed me off about this was that I had run it on my computer before I had installed an extra 2 GB's of RAM and it had worked fine. I decided that the lag probably was caused by Knights of the Old Republic 2, and I uninstalled everything in that game except for the save files. However, although the lag has mostly gone away, all my games still have some lag, especially on the sound (even Stronghold Crusader's sound lags a little!) Does anyone know whether this may have been caused by the No-CD crack, or wether something else caused this?

System Specs:

Windows: Windows XP5.1 (Build 2600) Service Pack 2
Internet Explorer: 6.0.2900.2180
Memory (RAM): 2048 MB
CPU Info: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz
CPU Speed: 2999.7 MHz
Sound card: SigmaTel Audio
Display Adapters: NVIDIA GeForce 6200 TurboCache(TM) | NetMeeting driver | RDPDD Chained DD
Screen Resolution: 1024 X 768 - 32 bit
Network: Network Present
Network Adapters: Intel(R) PRO/1000 PM Network Connection - Teefer2 Miniport
CD / DVD Drives: E: TSSTcorpCDDVDW SH-S202N
COM Ports: COM1
LPT Ports: LPT1
Mouse: 3 Button Wheel Mouse Present
Hard Disks: C: 74.5GB | D: 74.5GB
Hard Disks - Free: C: 50.2GB | D: 67.0GB
USB Controllers: 5 host controllers.
Firewire (1394): 1 host controllers.
PCMCIA (Laptops): Not Installed
Manufacturer: Intel Corp.
Product Make:
AC Power Status: OnLine
BIOS Info: AT/AT COMPATIBLE | 09/16/05 | INTEL - 32
Time Zone: Eastern Standard Time
Battery: No Battery
Motherboard: Intel Corporation D945PSN
Modem: Not detected
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[Insur. Salesman]

Are you not going to answer because I used a No-CD hack and thus anything could happen? Please at least tell me this so I don't keep on checking this thread...

[Aus_Karlos]

Hi Insur. Salesman and welcome to TSF,
Please be patient as everyone that helps here are Volunteers and we/they may not know what is causing your problem.

First have you tried turning the graphics down? (To Low or Medium.)
Have you Defragmented your HDD?
Have you made sure your PC is not overheating?

Also view this Thread.
!---IMPORTANT: Please Follow These Steps Before Posting---!

[Insur. Salesman]

Sorry, I just was wondering why no one was responding. I'm probably too impatient for my own good.

Anyways, I did turn the graphics down to lowest settings; they still kept on lagging, although the lag was admittadly less. The conversations and videos still lagged horribly, however, as well as any wide-open spaces.

Yes, I did defrag the Hard Disk several times. It didn't help much, if at all.

How can you check and see whether your computer is overheating? That may be the problem.

Yes, I did check out that thread. I installed the latest drivers, and I have the latest patch for every game I own.

Also, remember that I uninstalled this game; it's the fact that all my OTHER games are still lagging that's bothering me. And if a game like Stronghold Crusader is lagging even a little bit on my machine, it shows that there is a problem. Think of it this way; the mimimum specs are
64MB RAM
8MB DirectX 8.1 compatible Video Card
DirectX 8.1 compatible Sound CardOnline
PII 400
and yet the game lags (admittedly not much, but still).

[Jamsers]

Usually if stuff are slowing down mysteriously a virus is at fault. Try scanning your computer if you have a anti-virus.

[Aus_Karlos]

Download Everest from my sig, the temps can be found here

[koala]

Your computer easily meets the minimum requirements for Star Wars Sith Lords, and the problems only started after you installed the new RAM.

When you upgraded from 1 to 3GB, did you install lower speed RAM? Did you check for compatibility with your mobo and existing RAM?

What happens when you remove the 2 new sticks?

Have you run memtest on the new RAM, one stick at a time for at least 10 passes?

If the game was already performing badly before the No-CD, then the crack can't be the cause, but you should still scan for infections.

Post back with the Everest results from the Sensors window so we can see your system temperatures and PSU voltages during gameplay. Also, make a note of temps/volts in BIOS so we can compare the idle and stressed values.

Something else I noticed, however, was that the CD began collecting scratches as I ran the game

Do you mean the inside of the CD drive was scratching the disc? Does this mean that the rest of your CDs are also scratched?

[Insur. Salesman]

I did not check to see wether the new RAM was compatible with our old RAM. However, no one in our family is very good at putting new parts into our computer so we brought it to a professional to install it. I think he would have checked it, although I'm not exactly sure...

Anyways, I have not tried taking out RAM and putting it back in, because as I said before I've never tinkered with our computer before and I don't want to break something. Plus my dad would probably never allow me to anyway, as it's his computer and he doesn't want me messing with it.

I did install Everest though, and I would be willing to post screenshots of the computer temperatures with a game running. However, as I have uninstalled the game, what program should I run to simulate the game?

I have the following games on my computer:

Battle for Middle Earth 2

Combat Arms

Shadowbane

Stronghold Crusader

Age of Mythology

Also, the drive did NOT scratch all the CD's I put in. The disk itself probably had defects.

[koala]

Any 3D fullscreen game with lots of action will do. It's just to stress out the graphics card, CPU and PSU so we can see the temperatures and voltages. Play for about 5 minutes, then alt-tab back to Everest and take a screenshot immediately. If you leave it more than a few seconds, the readings will be inaccurate.

If your problem is caused by the new RAM and you don't want to test the sticks individually, take the computer back to the shop that performed the upgrade and get them to test it.

Run CPU-Z and click the SPD tab at the top. Click the dropdown box to see the full details for each RAM stick. They should all be the same.

[Insur. Salesman]

Our computer has had it's video card upgraded to an 8400 GeForce in case that changes anything.

This was my computer when it was idle before the new video card was put in.

http://img60.imageshack.us/my.php?im...omputerai7.png

I was playing Company of Heroes when I took this screenshot (I had the new video card); the battle that was going on when this was taken was between one squad of paratroopers and a machine gun team, and the graphics were at around mid-range settings. The game was lagging somewhat.

http://img511.imageshack.us/my.php?i...ngtaxedxx7.png

If you need me to stress the computer more, just tell me. As for the RAM, should they all be at the same speed and hold the same amount of memory, or can they differ somewhat without causing problems? The computer technician thought that varying RAM types were fine.

I do not believe that he checked each RAM stick individually, however.