Help with stop/go, not lag??

[mopar man]

I have a Pentium 3 2.4ghz processor, and Geforce FX 5200 Gfx card, and get 15-30 fps normally, and its good enough for me. But here lately, CS:S and CNC: Generals/Zero Hour are wanting to, about every four seconds, stop for a split second then go... its quick, but just enough to get on your nerves. It does this worse on CNC with more armies (4 or more) but a little on CS:S to, I have tried overclocking, and it would even run CS:S then. I have a PCI modem and tv tuner card, so would they just happen to be bothering the video card or something? Thanks in advance.

 

[N3051M]

have you tried to run it with the minimum programs runnign in the backgrounds?
have you updated the drivers and patched the games?
is this while in a network/internet game or just in single player?

 

[Sharkfood]

As already mentioned, background processes are notorious for causing in-game stutters in performance.

Another common cause can be issues with serial, USB or other bus devices. If ending all background tasks doesn't solve your issue, try disconnecting all joysticks, usb and serial devices (aside from keyboard or mouse) for a test.

Other causes of regular, timed stutters:
1) PCI Latency issues on the motherboard. Do a google for PCI Latency Tool and try one of these if your BIOS cannot adjust this.
2) Check hard disks in the Device Manager to assure you have DMA enabled.
3) IF possibly, try a game that doesn't require a CD (Source engine comes to mind) with the CDROM drive cable and power detached.

 

[mopar man]

Here it goes!

So, here it goes,

N3051M

--have you tried to run it with the minimum programs runnign in the backgrounds?

I have tried, but im not sure what is/isn't important, and googled a lot of them at one point, and I have 46 total processes running, my dad who plays cnc doesn't like "spending more time stopping stupid *?!% than playing the game" , so it wouldn't matter anyway.

--have you updated the drivers and patched the games?
Yes, they are steam and I just updated cnc generals/zero hour, and updated drivers recently. I believe there the latest forceware, if you dont mind, can you tell me how to find out if I have the latest?

--is this while in a network/internet game or just in single player?
As far as I know, both, I know in single player and im pretty sure it does it in online games, too.


Sharkfood

Another common cause can be issues with serial, USB or other bus devices. If ending all background tasks doesn't solve your issue, try disconnecting all joysticks, usb and serial devices (aside from keyboard or mouse) for a test.

This may well be the answer! I have a Recoil Gamepad from walmart in (one) of the usb ports, and i believe I may have something else hooked up.

1) PCI Latency issues on the motherboard. Do a google for PCI Latency Tool and try one of these if your BIOS cannot adjust this.
From what I read about the tool, it works with the agp cards, this one is a pci, not pci-e, but pci.

2) Check hard disks in the Device Manager to assure you have DMA enabled.
I checked and couldn't even find DMA, in fact I have no clue what it is. Im actually pretty new to computers so I really have no clue on a lot of this stuff.

3) IF possibly, try a game that doesn't require a CD (Source engine comes to mind) with the CDROM drive cable and power detached.
If im taking this sentence right, your saying that I should try a game without a cd, but the problem is, Im playing cs:s (no cd needed anymore with the steam engine) and CNC which IS a cd game, so it kind of confused me. My only problem is my computer isn't located in a very accessible location, so I dont want to worry about undoing the dvdrw drive every time I wanna play the game.


Edit: I also have a stock PCI modem and PCI tv tuner card. Plan on taking the tv tuner out. do yo uthink it could be the problem?

 

[N3051M]

--have you tried to run it with the minimum programs runnign in the backgrounds?

I have tried, but im not sure what is/isn't important, and googled a lot of them at one point, and I have 46 total processes running, my dad who plays cnc doesn't like "spending more time stopping stupid *?!% than playing the game" , so it wouldn't matter anyway.

No offence to your dad or anything but either he doesn't have enough programs in the background to start with or he hasn't encountered programs that would conflict with each other or he just lives with having the game at half potential..

Usualy you can quit/turn off everything except for your AV software and the firewall software and thats all you'll need to do..

CS:S from steam should be auto updated by itself whenever you connect to steam client.
generals there may be the version number on the corner of the screen or menu (havn't played that game..) Just check that against the latest one you can get off the net, unless there's an auto update thing on it..
reason why i said check drivers for any updates, games sometimes lag simply because the video card or a chipset driver and/or directx is not to its latest..
graphics card being PCI and not the other normal types would cause some lagging (being the slot isn't optimised), but not too much to worry about, so it may/may not be related to your problem..

TV tuner maybe.. one way to find out is to do it and test i guess.. pcs are a wierd thing.. somethings that may work for someone could be different for others..

round 2 of questions.
Do you have norton?
Have you performed any basic PC maintainance recently? >>Defrag/chkdisk, getting rid of un-needed programs cleaning the dust out, AV/warez scans etc?
What are your complete PC specs?

 

[mopar man]

Pentium 3 2.4 GHz Processor, not sure about the motherboard, its a Dell Deminsion 2400, Geforce FX 5200 PCI Graphics Card, PCI Modem, PCI TV Tuner card, 1 GIg of ram, says .99, why?.... Im at school right now so any thing else would have to be later... dont remember everything...

But as for Have i done the maintenence yes i have

 

[bushwhacker]

I have a Pentium 3 2.4ghz processor, and Geforce FX 5200 Gfx card, and get 15-30 fps normally, and its good enough for me. But here lately, CS:S and CNC: Generals/Zero Hour are wanting to, about every four seconds, stop for a split second then go... its quick, but just enough to get on your nerves. It does this worse on CNC with more armies (4 or more) but a little on CS:S to, I have tried overclocking, and it would even run CS:S then. I have a PCI modem and tv tuner card, so would they just happen to be bothering the video card or something? Thanks in advance.

are you running any SATA hard drives by the way?

I have the same problem, but the problem went away after i installed the newest Intel Chipset driver.

 

[mopar man]

...

I searched for the drivers and couldn't find them, is it possible for you to link them to me please? also, what do you mean by sata and how can I find out? whats bad about them?

 

[N3051M]

SATA HDDs are just HDDs with the new SATA connectors instead of the old IDE/ATA connectors.. they are supposedly faster (but still limited to hardware speeds) and some motherboards, especially early sata generation mobos don't have that great of a SATA support built in, hence the need for an update or sorts. You can tell you have sata if your HDDs connect with a smaller thin cable (usually coloured red)

I don't know about the drivers, but if you got a dell 2400, then you can try this http://support.dell.com/support/dow...en&SystemID=DIM_PNT_P4_CEL_2400&os=WW1&osl=EN
You might as well check your drivers are current with the ones on the site..

If you do have norton, get rid of it, if its there, its probably causing this in the first place..
try your games on a lower settings.. i know CS:S needs a bit more graphical juice to run so try turning off AA and other eye candy, maybe drop down to medium or low..
check your temperatures and voltages using speedfan and see if its running good. Post them here if you need to verify them..

 

[mopar man]

It finally, randomly, fixed itself. But, because CNC Generals was running worse than it was before, I defragmented, and CS:S gcf file had 1k frag. files in it, and I got tired of even worrying about it so I just took Steam, HL2 and CS:S off, and now it runs great... amazing how a normal program can screw your WHOLE system over. And Thanks a lot for helping me, becuae i did get some help from that, and no I didn't have norton, and I tried it on every setting possible, low medium, and high.

I am gonna see if my drivers are up to date, too. But on the plus side, it runs morrowing anywhere from 20 (outside) to 80 inside. But morrowinds gotten way to boring....And I still dont know whether its got SATA, but I'll end up finding out anyway.

 

[N3051M]

wow.. so you took all three games off just to get it to run properly lol.. nice..

i'm thinking its the steam client.. because i have CS:CZ and although the game plays nice and all, the client takes forever to load.

seeing thats its a Dell, its unlikely to be using SATA HDDs, but there's no harm poking and prodding if you want a look around. Easiest way is to pop open the case and take a look, second is looking at device manager or a hardware reader..

probably the best thing to do next time you want to play those games is install one and see how your PC is running to see if its the cause and all before installing the next..

Anyways.. have fun with it
N30