Quote:
Can you get us the actual model number of the motherboard?|
Originally Posted by ShaylaDominatrix
I have a rather older system. It is a windows XP system (32 Bit) on a Athlon +3200 64 bit processor with 3 gigs of RAM also at 2 Ghz. I have a GeForce 8400GS series Video card now and the Mother board is a Asus in a Alienware tower. I am having trouble with the new Praetoria maps, I get a lot of Lag while I am on those and if one of the oldewr maps is combined with a newer map then as soon as my toon crosses into that newer map I get Lag really bad. Also when I am doing Incarnate missions I have Lag and the time it takes for my system to load the maps and get me there everybody else has started and I have to play catch up. I have a broad band connection and I thought the download speed was the problem I had my cable company boost it to 16 Gigs (Max) and there was no difference. So I am back to the standard speed and the LAN card is a Gigabit card from 3Com. I belive that I can solve my small problem with a new Video card but I do not know which one to get. I would like to still get NVIDIA as I like there products. Any thoughts on this? Thanks!
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Can you get us the specs or make and model for your power supply?
Some of the things that may be contributing to your "lag":
- Older processor is just loaded
- 3GB of RAM when the app can eat up to 1.5 of it easily (the OS is consuming the rest).
- OS essentially maxed out on RAM
- Swapping to disk paging file is causing I/O contention between paging and loading of the game files. Paging will, of course, win.
- Older video card unable to handle the eye candy in the zone or simply has settings too high.
But you're still going to be fighting the other issues.
And you'll generate a new one with any video card with lots and lots of on-board memory due to 32-bit Windows' upper memory limits.
Adding more memory won't help because, for XP 32-bit you're maxed.
Upgrading the processor won't really do a bunch due to the other system limits (like dropping a V8 HEMI into a rusted out old VW Beetle).
Things you can do (pretty much in this order):
Add another hard drive and either move the game files or the paging file off to that drive.
Upgrade the video card
Upgrade the PSU (if the video card requires it).
Upgrade the CPU (see what I talked about above).
At that point you're talking $200-400 easily.
As for staying nVidia. For CoH, yeah, nVidia's still the less problematic option.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
Also please don't forget that a simpler solution may at least help. Running Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragmenter may actually help. After that run whatever antispyware you may have and perhaps a registry cleaner such as the one found in CCleaner. Not saying it will cure everything, but it may help.
It's not how many times you get knocked down that count. It's how many times you get up.
Upgrading to a 64-bit OS and adding ram could (possibly) be an inexpensive solution too.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by ImpulseKing
Also please don't forget that a simpler solution may at least help. Running Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragmenter may actually help. After that run whatever antispyware you may have and perhaps a registry cleaner such as the one found in CCleaner. Not saying it will cure everything, but it may help.
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Disk Cleanup: Be careful. Do not take the option to compress unused files. While it'll save you a little space, in XP, Disk Compression was actually a resource hog when it came time to uncompress and read the file. Plus it's another point of failure/corruption if something goes bad.
Disk defrag is an idea. But it probably won't help with in-zone lag isues.
The antispyware check is probably something to leave run overnight.
Registry cleaner be VERY VERY careful with this. If you're not, you can do serious damage to your OS. Granted, it's already Windows (think "shot in both feet and double-winged"), but still.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
Thanks Hyperstrike. I didn't know that about Disk Cleanup. Yeah anything to do with registry should raise a caution flag. Which is why I recommended a specific tool, CCleaner, for it as I have used it personally on a number of systems. Doesn't make it perfect of course, but I'm giving the best advice I'm able.
It's not how many times you get knocked down that count. It's how many times you get up.
The Athlon 64 3200+ is a single core processor, right? I had a night-to-day performance difference when I upgraded to a multi-core processor several years ago. Note: you may need to buy a new motherboard to go with your new multi-core CPU. Which in turn may also lead you to consider replacing your RAM for the new motherboard. At some point, you may have to consider whether it'll be cheaper and less aggravating to just buy a whole new system.
Teams are the number one killer of soloists.
There was an Athlon 64 3200+ for Socket 754 (singe channel memory bus) which would put a kibosh on the whole upgrade to an Athlon 64 X2 (all of which are Socket 939 or AM2).
So Shayla, check out the sticky over on the Tech board by Hyperstrike about posting a CoHHelper report, to tell us more about your hardware. A HiJack This report will tell us what is running on your system.
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$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
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Given the age of the system listed you may well have an AGP card as opposed to a PCIE one. If it is AGP the last I checked the most powerful consumer end AGP cards were from ATI. | ... an Athlon +3200 64 bit processor... |
That said you can only go so far with a video card upgrade as the current CPU is going to bottle neck most anything currently produced.
Not with an 8400GS. nVidia stopped making AGP cards with the 7000 series.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
Thanks guys I plan on doing one of two things. One get a new system and forgo all headaches for the next year or so maybe longer. Or wait for my tax check to clear and upgrade with a new mother board Chip Power supply and the best Video card and mega lots of RAM and windows 7 latest version.
Now called Madame Shayla:
Main Characters on my main server (Victory)
Goddess of Justice Tanker Incarnate (Hero) Collen Colt Incarnate (Bane Hero), Lady Kitten (Hero) Jen Titanium Mage (Hero and one time Villain) and my first Character to level 50 Shayla Master Mind (Villain)
I can run the game reasonably well (not Ultra mode) on an 8600GT video card, which is a bit more powerful. I have an Intel Core Duo CPU in that system, which is also a bit more powerful, and 2 GB RAM. It's a 5 year old laptop, your computer sounds like it's older.
While I think your system is on the lower end of what CoH can run, making sure the system is lean and mean might help. Defragment your disk, make sure you're not running any adware or virusses. Make sure your virus scanner isn't running a check at the same time as you're playing the game. Check for any other background processes, like some software already starts parts of it during login, I think MS Office and OpenOffice do this for example. Shut down your internet browser, Skype, MSN and any other things you might be running as well.
Otherwise I'd upgrade the whole system, just the CPU or video card, isn't going to do much, the other components would then hold it back. I'm not current on US prices, but for a few hundred euros you'd buy a system that would blow your current one away.
Quote:
I'd say wait on your check and just buy/build a new system.|
Originally Posted by ShaylaDominatrix
Thanks guys I plan on doing one of two things. One get a new system and forgo all headaches for the next year or so maybe longer. Or wait for my tax check to clear and upgrade with a new mother board Chip Power supply and the best Video card and mega lots of RAM and windows 7 latest version.
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Likely, if you upgrade the motherboard, chip and vid, you'll need to upgrade the PSU as well.
Gutting your current one probably won't save you all that much.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
I have a rather older system. It is a windows XP system (32 Bit) on a Athlon +3200 64 bit processor with 3 gigs of RAM also at 2 Ghz. I have a GeForce 8400GS series Video card now and the Mother board is a Asus in a Alienware tower. I am having trouble with the new Praetoria maps, I get a lot of Lag while I am on those and if one of the oldewr maps is combined with a newer map then as soon as my toon crosses into that newer map I get Lag really bad. Also when I am doing Incarnate missions I have Lag and the time it takes for my system to load the maps and get me there everybody else has started and I have to play catch up. I have a broad band connection and I thought the download speed was the problem I had my cable company boost it to 16 Gigs (Max) and there was no difference. So I am back to the standard speed and the LAN card is a Gigabit card from 3Com. I belive that I can solve my small problem with a new Video card but I do not know which one to get. I would like to still get NVIDIA as I like there products. Any thoughts on this? Thanks!
Now called Madame Shayla:
Main Characters on my main server (Victory)
Goddess of Justice Tanker Incarnate (Hero) Collen Colt Incarnate (Bane Hero), Lady Kitten (Hero) Jen Titanium Mage (Hero and one time Villain) and my first Character to level 50 Shayla Master Mind (Villain)