Game play and computer laging

[Sarota]

I'm having some serious problems when playing WOW, my computer seems to bog way down, to where I can't even move. My latency is good so I know that isn't the issue.
I'm running with:
Intel Celeron 2.93GHz
2 GB ram
Nvidia GeForce 6200 with 256 MB of ram

Not sure what other information would be helpful, I've run all the different spyware /malware removal programs suggested in the sticky from this forum and still no real change. Any help or suggestions would be great. Thanks

[Kalos]

The GPU is a very low end chip. It is most likely the bottleneck for the computer. The 7600 Gs would be an adequite replacement, available in PCI-E or AGP.

[Sarota]

the 7600 is a video card then?

[Kalos]

That it is. The suffix matters too, that is the "GS" part on the end. Else you'll end up with a 7600 LE, a kitbashed creation not offically sanctioned by Nvidia, and much weaker. The suffix matters quite a bit. Last week we had someone come in with a $60 X1600 thinking it was a X1600 Pro, with around $250. Big difference, both in price and performance.

First things first, does your computer support AGP, or PCI-E? Downloading cpu-z would be wise, it would be able to tell you. http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php for the download. Just run the program, go to the "mainboard" tab, and tell us everything that it says, most importantly the stuff in the "Graphics interface" area.

Here is a link to a PCI-E version: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130075 Note that you will not be able to use it, unless you have a PCI-E slot for it to be plugged in to.

[Sarota]

Okay, I have an AGP slot. CPU-Z says :

Motherboard:
Manufacturer: Micro-Star International
Model: MS-7104
Chipset : VIA P4M800CE
Southbridge: VIA VT8237
Sensor: Windbond W83627THF

BIOS:
Brand: Phoenix Technologies
Version: 6.00 PG
Date: 1/04/2006

Graphics Interface:
AGP Version 3.0
Transfer rate 8x
Max Supported 8x
Side Band enabled

Hope that's useful for ya

[Kalos]

This card is compatible then: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130076 It should resolve your onscreen lagging and is a considerable upgrade.

[Sarota]

Even though that card offers the same amount of memory as my current one, it will still help with my lag problems? Or should I go for the 512MB version?

[Kalos]

The memory has nothing to do with how any card will perform. Besides, as it only has a 128 bit memory interface it can't even address the full 256MB, let alone 512MB. The extra memory does absolutely nothing, except give a reason to charge consumers more, on benchmarks, the performance is the same.

It is far, far better. I could go into detail if you like, but the size of the memory has no relation to how well it works. This card's memory runs at a much higher frequency, that basically gives it higher speeds. The driving chip, the actual GPU, is of a much higher standard and design.

[Sarota]

Ahh I see, cool that'll save me about 50 bucks then. Thanks for the help and quick responses. The only other thing I was wondering about is, when I first got the computer I had no problems with it running slow or lagging on me, this kinda came on over the last few months. I bought a new laptop so I wasn't really concerned with it. Any ideas why it would start like this all of a sudden. I mean if my card was a low end card to begin with, wouldn't it have run slow all along?

[Kalos]

Ahh I see, cool that'll save me about 50 bucks then. Thanks for the help and quick responses. The only other thing I was wondering about is, when I first got the computer I had no problems with it running slow or lagging on me, this kinda came on over the last few months. I bought a new laptop so I wasn't really concerned with it. Any ideas why it would start like this all of a sudden. I mean if my card was a low end card to begin with, wouldn't it have run slow all along?
It probably would have yes. Was WoW always lagging as it is, or is it a new development? If it is a new development, it has little chance of being hardware. When you start Window, go into Task Manager and tell us what the "Commit Charge" is at that point. It's the figure at the bottom right hand point of the box. It is possible you've loaded so much legitimate software, there isn't enough resources to go around anymore.

[Sarota]

That may be possible, a while back my wife started installing every tool bar and other programs, but I removed most of them. But the commit charge is

423M/394M

The Commit Charge box on the left says:

Total 433840
Limit 4038108
Peak 743720

Last night I tried starting WOW and it was taking forever to load up so I opened up task manager and it said my CPU usage was 100% which I had thought to be very hard to accomplish. thanks again

[Kalos]

Ok, there is something seriously wrong then. The commit charge is way too high. I'd recommend you find an install disk of Windows XP, backup any important files to a USB flash drive or an external media of your choice, reformat, and reinstall. There's alot of background rubbish, most of it hiding as legitimate system processes. A reinstall of windows on a freshly wiped, empty hard drive, and only installing what is necessary should greatly improve performance for free.

[Sarota]

/sigh I was afraid you'd say that. Okay I'll give it a shot, thanks for all the help and quick responses, I'll let you know how it goes.

[Sarota]

All righty I re-partioned and reinstalled XP and my drivers. My Commit Charge is now 262M/3943M. Does that sound better? My CPU Usage is going crazy right now though, probably because of the automatic updates going on right now.

[Kalos]

It is much more reasonable. When it passes 400, there is either alot of passive pregrams ticking away in the background, or spyware galore. Either way, alot of your computer's best resource were being tied up before WoW or anything else could even touch them. It's pretty good now, just the basics, the OS+drivers+Video card now only taking Ram up. It's possible to keep the system running stabley and not too many services cut off with a commit charge, physical ram usage by the OS alone, of 80. I usually double that for a standard install, 160. If some programs have already been reinstalled, and as you say some strong programs like IE windows (They consume 30 alone if open during the readout) and updating tools (infamous resource hogs, yet doing an important task so hardly unreasonable). Considering the graphics card borrows system memory, you have a normal total now for a clean install. I wouldn't recommend turning it though. You'd get far more performance increases out of your Ram from a graphics card with dedicated memory of it's own than from XP system process tweaks.

Once everything's settled down, grab WoW and give it a whirl. If it hasn't fixed it, it's be a great pity, but we would have essentially ruled out OS damage or funky software causing pain. And money hasn't exchanged hands yet, which is good. Next option would probably be that 7600 GS. It is likely to be infringing upon playable performance anyway, and Blizzard appears to love making unnoted changes to how images are generated by the game, causing several ATI graphics cards to have problems rendering now. It would not be inceivable that the graphics card is struggling now due to some change Blizzard has inacted. It is a great annoyance that they keep doing these changes, break the game for several people, and don't offer an explaination offically, leaving it up to the graphics card companies to pick up the wreckage and adjust thier drivers to suit Blizzard's latest graphical technique.

[Sarota]

Well I spent the 3 hours or so reinstalling WOW and TBC :grin: However the change was nominal. /sigh guess I'll go ahead and fork out the cash for the new video card. I think you may be right about the graphics rendering changing and causing the card to struggle, I can't think of any other reason at this point. I'm not to upset over the OS reinstall, I think I needed to do it anyway since my wife went download crazy when she first got on-line.

My current video card does have it's own dedicated RAM right? Or is it sharing some from the system RAM? Just curious at this point, since I'll be ordering the new one later today anyway. Again thanks for all the help and friendly advice :thumbsup:

[Kalos]

The lower end cards of modern generations, for Nvida the 6200/7300 have a habbit of only having part or none of thier own ram, but stick a total on the front such as "256 memory Turbo-cache". Turbo cache is basically a marketing term for "Actually, it has no memory of it's own, this is how much it shall take off your system, and it shall do it more slowly than if it had it's own". It allows them to promote it to look pretty tasty. Not that that hasn't stopped graphics cards companies doing it. It does work. People look at the MB number and take it at face value, which is pretty much what the companies are hoping for.

To answer your question, it's like to be Turbo-cache, or a partial split between onboard and system memory. It is certainly the weakest component of your computer, if this is a hardware issue, and reinstalling pretty much clobbered high chances of bad files or silly programs screwing around with your computer. As far as I can tell from popular complaints, the graphics cards have been an issue as of late, and as the card you have is not an expensive one, this should both solve your problem, and give better performance for games than before; more than capable of maxing out the effects in my experience, the right balance between power and cost.

Keep me apprised on your proposed card to purchase, it would likely be good for one of us here to check it's link, each graphics card, even though they bare the same overall name "7600", can differ greatly in quality. An old saying is quite appropraite "The Devil is in the details" It is a hard decision and I'm hoping not to steer you down the wrong path. I dislike it when money has to be spent to solve these things, but the easy options, and the reinstallation, have been done to no effect. I hope my posts are informative, and I'll do my best to help get this problem solved. When you get the card, remember to write back and tell us how it goes :)

[Sarota]

Thanks again for all your help, your posts have been very informative and helpful.. After I finish recovering from the St. Patricks day hangover (yes it's monday and I'm still recuperating) I'll order that card and let you know how everything goes.

[HolyDemon]

Might be a stupid questions, but have you tried putting all the video settings on Low or Very Low, forgot how Low it can get in this game.

[delanierebecca]

I was reading this Thread and used the wizard on my new comp i ordered from dell. And now I know why I have a slow down or lag problem so how do I resolve this issue

Motherboard
Dell Inc.
Model owG864
chipset Intel P965/G965
Southbridge Intel 82801HH(ICH8CH)
Sensor SMSC 830F

Bios
Brand Dell Inc.
Version 2.12
Date 12/01/2006

Graphics Interface

NOTHING

Gasp

Can I upgrade this being there is nothing there?

[Kalos]

There's nowhere to plug it into, no physical interface. You've not only got no dedicted graphics card, you've got no slot to plug it into. I could give you some links to PCI graphics cards (Not PCI-E), which you should have a slot for. But we should hear the rest of the components like the Ram and the CPU. There's no point buying a graphics card on an old and obsolete interface like plain old PCI if the other parts are below par, it'll transfer one source of the lag to the next weakest part on the chain.

[delanierebecca]

CPU
Name Intel Celeron 336
Code Name Prescott
Package Socket 775 LGA
Technology 90 nm Voltage 1.536 v
Spicification Intel (R) Celeron (R) CPU 2.80Hz
Family F Model 4 Stepping 9
Ext Family F Ext. Model 4 Revision G1
Instructions MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, EM64T

Clocks(Core#0) Cache
Core Speed 2793.0 MHz L1 Data 16 Kbytes
Multiplier x21.0 L1 Trace 12 Kuops
Bus Speed 133.0 MHz Level 2 256 KBytes
Rated FSB 532.0 MHz

Memory

General Type DDR
1536 MBytes

I hope this is correct, Thank You for your Time

[Kalos]

It has plenty of memory, but the processor is the worst brand still in production. It should do WoW much better however with a dedicated graphics card fitted. This is the best PCI card I've seen: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814103031 It should serve well above onboard graphics. Once you have the card, you shall also need to go to the manufacturer's site and download drivers for it, after it is physically installed into the computer. A good installation guide after you've bought a good PCI card is located here: http://peripherals.about.com/od/videographicscards/ht/installvideocar.htm

[delanierebecca]

How do you find the information out what cards and such would be good for your computer? So I know in the futrue. And I will try getting this card this weekend and installing it. This will be the first time I've installed something. But reading the directions and buying the anti static wrist guard I should be fine.

[Kalos]

Mostly I discover through personal experience with certain companies and products, the expertise of others, learning what parts of the specifications mean what comparitively, and a good look on the benchmarks here: http://tomshardware.co.uk/graphics/charts.html They're very high end mostly, but if your graphics card is in the same series as they have posted up on there, it should be basically compatible.

It's very complicated sadly, took me years to fully understand. Very geeky and ultimately pointless pursuit :P We have enough geeks in the world to advise people when these issues crop up, a good PC shouldn't include any parts that are more than four years old really. Beyond that, it becomes worthless, like that thread where a poster is asking if half a decade out of production graphics card is going to work for this game, the rule works pretty well most of the time.

By far, the benchmarks are the easiest. You'll want to aim for the frame rate to be above 30 at most if not all times. Else it is a painful experience for any game. Hanging around a community full of technologically minded people quickly teaches you many things, facts that simple numbers won't.

If you get a new computer in the future, make sure it has a PCI-E slot in it. They're pretty standard now, and unfortunantly that means most graphics cards are made on them rather than any other standard.