MA: Comp Crashing and slowdowns with the builder
By
Dragonkat,
Posted on: 2009-05-08 11:22 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
That sounds more like that you don't have enough system memory. How much do you have and how many things are you also running in the background?
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
I have exactly the same problem as you, DragonKat. Athlon XP 2600+ (2.1GHz) and Radeon 9800 Pro video. Updating to the most recent Catalyst drivers available for these older cards didn't help. And I have 2GB of RAM, with several hundred megabytes free with the game running, so I don't think system RAM is an issue, nor are background tasks.
I'm beginning to think that the problem lies with the limited amount of video RAM on these 9xxx-series cards (mine's only 128MB, what's yours?). I've been told that each character animation in MA is rendered in a separate 3D environment. Add those to the main game 3D environment, which is always running in the background even when the MA window is maximized, and it may just be too much for the card to handle.
Unfortunately, the only real solution for us may be upgrading to a more modern videocard with more RAM on it... which itself will mean upgrading the CPU, motherboard, etc. as well. 
BUT, none of this explains why the animations are rendered so small most of the time...
My original thread
TargetOne
"If you two don't work this out RIGHT NOW, I'm turning this invasion around and going home!" - Emperor Cole
I get the feeling this is probably due to two big issues. An old as dirt CPU (1.8 gig processor) and an older ATI card. (radeon 9250) But either way I'm having issues getting the MA builder to work for me at all.
Specifically every time I try to pick a different character, or anything that causes an animation to start up, the end result is my HD chugging, and a 30+ second lag time on my computer before i can even click the stop animation button, or cycle to the next one. And that's if I click one, and don't move the pointer at all during those 30 seconds. Also the characters in the animation window are so tiny I can't even tell what they look like. That and if I try to bring up the whole list of characters instead of cycling, my computer hardlocks on me.
Tried AE stations in crowded areas, deserted zones, quiet room, main room. Same problems every time and it's kinda frustrating not being able to use the big feature of I14. Any way to resolve it, or am i doomed till I finally upgrade the computer?