Windows 7: Online Games, choppy

I have been having game play problems when playing MMORPGs and TF2. (Guild Wars, Luna, EtherSaga, JadeDynasty)

I basicly get sudden choppy frame rates. This dies down once I have stoped moving. The problem seems to be "loading" players or objects on to my visual range. Frame rate drops from 60 to 20~30 when this happens. It's only for a good second, but continues to chop as it recieves more incoming objects.

I have ran other games without online play at full settings and there hasn't been any problems. (Damnation, Black & White 2, Prince of Persia 2008)

The only other online game I have tried out is Section 8 and this is the only online game that has no problems running. I have not tried other online games at this point.

I have searched for solutions all over none seems to relate to what I am experiencing. I am unsure if this should even exist on this forum, however, I am at least 99% sure this isn't caused by my hardware.

I have yet to try it on Vista. I Installed Windows 7 the moment I got my notebook.



Aspire 8930G
C2D 2.26 GHz 1066MHz 3MB L2
4GB Dual Channel DDR3 533 MHz
NVidia 9600M GT 1GB

What video drivers are you using?

Here are the latest WHQL drivers for your laptop card
GeForce Release 186


Give that a spin.

I have already downlaoded the latest drivers for my graphic card and it did not solve my problem.

Have you tracked your latency while playing? Large numbers of units needing to load leads to a spike in data, and if your latency is to high the game will begin to lag as it waits for all that data it needs to get there. This data would include things such as NPC/PC movement, abilities used, etc. For TF2 I generally play with a latecy of 20-30ms, with anything below 150ms being the standard I have always heard for accurate/smooth gameplay. I have not played GW or most MMOs in years, but until a few months ago I was an avid WoW player and any latency over ~100 caused distortion that I could notice in busy areas or high-paced fights.

The solution to this would be tracking down network problems. Update network drivers, identify/adjust your max MTU, make sure they have firewall clearance and possibly forwarding from the router, etc. I'm not quite sure what the best means of this would be for Windows 7, but just watching your latency would be where you want to start. Most games have internal latency(ping) trackers. For TF2 go to the console and try "net_graph 3" if I remember correctly, or simply look at the score sheet.

edit > Btw, there have been many complaints that I have seen about the internet being slow in Windows 7, especially in the torrent community.

I agree about latency, but I know with guild wars (have played it on my Windows 7 box without any problems) it downloads and caches the files as you play.

I use to have a similar problem with Battlefield2 When an explosion would go off for the first time it would lag, but after that they wouldn't. This ended up being low ram though.

It could just be that the drivers haven't matured yet for your mobile card. I know they are the last to become polished, especially over desktop cards.

You can try changing the settings to really low, with no effects but same resolution to see if it is a rendering issue or something else.

I will check my latency when I have some free time. I have already tried all other mentioned solutions. Lower settings in same/different resolutions. None of those have solved the problems.

I'll get back when I have the latency results.

Thanks.

I wasn't worried so mucb about latency, but about how games like Guild Wars cache as you go. Then, once the area is cached and downloaded it runs fine.

My ping on TF2 seems to be fine, however, I am still getting a bit of choppy while playing it. ( I have no idea what the In/Out is )



On the other hand I'm getting terrible piing on Guild Wars, BUT I get the same ping as I do on my Desktop playing Guild Wars. My Desktop isn't experiencing any problems. (though its running XP 32bit and not Windows 7)



The problem with MMORPGs is that as long as a Player loads on my screen it will chop and or lag for a moment.

Just another little update reguarind my problem. I am also experiencing this problem in Diablo II. As long as a player enters or an NPC apears on my screen I'll have a short spike of lag. I'm now starting to think it may be a hardware issue. That's the last thing I want to think of though.

Aslong as something isn't loaded or needs to be "reloaded" I will experience a short spike of lag in games. (rendering/loading an object on screen)

Another update on my problem. Well, no longer a problem.

I have reformated my laptop to its factory default state with Windows Vista OS
It now seems to be running smoothly rather then running it on Windows 7. I think I'll stay off Windows 7 untill its offical release before trying anything else on it. Thanks for all the possible solutions.