Old games have lag spikes

[Barbarian Roman]

I have been searching for a solution to this problem for 2 weeks every day, on this forum and others, and no answers have helped me. Simple: lag spikes on older games. Offline. Games like counter strike 1.6, condition zero, source, and age of empires 2. Those are the older games I have installed so far since buying my laptop two weeks ago. Graphics work fine and everything, though every 15-20 seconds I get lag spikes for like 3 seconds, and it resumes flawlessly. Please, no one give me any bullshit answers like try compatibility mode or update ur drivers or get directx 9c. First thing I tried. No help. I tried setting affinity to one processor, as I have 2 cores and 2 hyperthreading. No luck. Note, on new games like civ 5, empire and napolean total war, and medal of honour airborne, no issues, no lag, nothing, just flawless gameplay on the highest settings possible. I wanted to download virtual pc, but they won't allow it for windows 7 premium. Upgrading IS NOT an option, as I already spent $1300, and for that money I expect to play older games that are max 10-11 years old. If people can play DOS games through an emulator and work fine, windows 7 should be able to play 10 year old games, like Age of Empires 2, which they made personally. All these games worked and still work fine on my old comp with XP SP2. My old comp has 900 mhz processing power and a poor graphics card with 512 mb ram. If that comp can play it on the highest settings, why can't my super gaming laptop? If anyone can give me any real answers, I will be really grateful. Here are my specs.
STAPLES | BUREAU EN GROS

 

[rap33042]

Have you disabled or changed indexing settings?
Have you changed your System Restore Settings?
How about your Pagefile settings?
How about Defrag schedules?
How about Backup schedules?

All of the above will eat away at your resources intermittently.

No BS.

 

[Barbarian Roman]

I don't think I have changed anything, but if I did, wouldn't it affect all games, not just old ones? I think it's more of a compatibility issue. After all, newer games play like a dream on the highest settings. Old games look great too, but I get lag spikes quite often on them, as described above.

 

[stormy13]

Barbarian Roman, welcome to the Seven Forums.

You laptop has both Intel graphics (integrated into the CPU) as well as the AMD Mobility HD 5650, and I have a feeling what is happening is that those older games aren't providing enough of a load on the AMD card and as a result it is auto-switching between the two. Would also explain why the newer games play without the problems the older are having.

One way to check if this is the case is to see NoN's post here,

http://www.sevenforums.com/graphic-cards/136095-laptop-onboard-graphics-switch.html#post1170124

and set it to use only the AMD card and then try those games again.

 

[Barbarian Roman]

Barbarian Roman, welcome to the Seven Forums.

You laptop has both Intel graphics (integrated into the CPU) as well as the AMD Mobility HD 5650, and I have a feeling what is happening is that those older games aren't providing enough of a load on the AMD card and as a result it is auto-switching between the two. Would also explain why the newer games play without the problems the older are having.

One way to check if this is the case is to see NoN's post here,

http://www.sevenforums.com/graphic-cards/136095-laptop-onboard-graphics-switch.html#post1170124

and set it to use only the AMD card and then try those games again.

Maybe your right. It's lagging on old games. So the question is, how can I force it to use the ATi graphics? The post doesn't say much on how to switch them.

 

[stormy13]

Pretty much. Despite what Intel would like everyone to believe their graphics capabilities still aren't there yet. Here is what the one you have is capable of,

Intel Graphics Media Accelerator HD - Notebookcheck.net Tech

Not too bad for a few of them provided you don't go above medium, with most needing low settings to be remotely playable.

 

[Barbarian Roman]

Pretty much. Despite what Intel would like everyone to believe their graphics capabilities still aren't there yet. Here is what the one you have is capable of,

Intel Graphics Media Accelerator HD - Notebookcheck.net Tech

Not too bad for a few of them provided you don't go above medium, with most needing low settings to be remotely playable.

Yes, but would the integrated graphics suck so much that it wouldn't be able to play older games? Kinda hard to believe. Maybe it would lag on 5 year old games, but 10 year old games? But intel graphics does suck. It won't let me even open civ 5, let alone run it.
Update: found a way to configure to different graphics card. The ATi certainly looks better, even when runnin age of empires 2. However, it still gets lag spikes. It runs great for the first 1-2 minutes, then starts getting lag spikes. Could it be that it is switching from ati to intel automatically? On power options, I click high performance for the ati card, on battery and plugged in. No difference. Either the ati is auto switching to intel and causing the lag spikes, or the graphics card is not the problem.

 

[Short]

Hello,

Have you tried this?

Open regedit
Go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Multimedia\SystemProfile
There will be an entry for network performance throttling, default value is 10; set it to FFFFFFFF hex (willl look like 0xFFFFFFFF to the right of the entry)
Reboot

This was posted by pinstripe.

http://www.sevenforums.com/gaming/31980-lag-online-games-windows-7-a-2.html

 

[Barbarian Roman]

Actually there was no network perfomance tab but thanks for the post anyway because it gave me an idea. In the Multimedia\SystemProfile tab, there is a games folder, and in it affinity and cpu performance set values for games. Would altering any of it maybe help? But remember its not an online problem because I get the same lag spikes offline too.

 

[Short]

There is no network performance tab, I do not believe, it is just HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Multimedia\SystemProfile and then you should see network performance throttling on the right..you should try it anyway, it's a known issue with a lot of games, including CSS,DODS, etc.

If the problem is occuring offline, it probably is not the issue, but you should still try it anyway.

You may want to try to alter those values. I know you said you have tried updating your drivers, but it does sound like a driver issue. Maybe you have an old driver still installed. I am sorry that I could not be of more help.

 

[Barbarian Roman]

There is no network performance tab, I do not believe, it is just HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Multimedia\SystemProfile and then you should see network performance throttling on the right..you should try it anyway, it's a known issue with a lot of games, including CSS,DODS, etc.

If the problem is occuring offline, it probably is not the issue, but you should still try it anyway.

You may want to try to alter those values. I know you said you have tried updating your drivers, but it does sound like a driver issue. Maybe you have an old driver still installed. I am sorry that I could not be of more help.

K I found it. Thanks for your help will see if it works. Maybe i need to upgrade my integrated graphics driver as well, not just the dedicated, and the sound card. But when I go on the ati update drivers page, or acer, it says I have a newer version then the one they want to install. So I'm pretty sure I have the latest drivers.

 

[NoN]

you could use safely this little software call "Throttle Stop v2.85":

Look at this thread:
How to Enable Intel Dynamic Acceleration (IDA) on Both Cores of a Core 2 Duo

Stay updated with the latest Acer stock drivers on their site and it should be fine.


@short,
The dword32bits value in this HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Multimedia\SystemProfile is called NetworkThrottlingIndex and should be already set to decimal value 10, or HexDecimal value 0x0000000a

 

[Barbarian Roman]

I had the throttle value set to a, but I changed it to what short suggested. Should I change it back, or keep it at what short suggested?
Would the thing you mentioned really help playing older games? Certainly it would increase performance, but it would also increase heat and the fan would have to work harder. And aren't the older games having problems because there is too much performance on the CPU, rather than too little? Going into the BIOS is kinda tricky, but if you really think it would help playing older games, I might give it a try.

 

[NoN]

I had the throttle value set to a, but I changed it to what short suggested. Should I change it back, or keep it at what short suggested?
Would the thing you mentioned really help playing older games? Certainly it would increase performance, but it would also increase heat and the fan would have to work harder. And aren't the older games having problems because there is too much performance on the CPU, rather than too little? Going into the BIOS is kinda tricky, but if you really think it would help playing older games, I might give it a try.

I'm afraid you'll have to go through the 26 pages of that thread (link posted)...I own one processor 2 cores but yours might be one different from mine.

I do not think you'll have to go too deep in the parameters & options, and there's some basic settings that works fine on AC Profile (Performance 1). Read further the .Html page provided inside the .zip, And care of the "Warning" & "Important Setup Information".

You can start by monitoring throttle stop before turning on the feature.

 

[Barbarian Roman]

If anyone has any more suggestions, I would be extremely grateful.

 

[alexgophermix]

I have this exact problem and can't seem to find any way of solving it. I have a Windows 7 laptop 32 bit Satellite C650. I don't really want to mess with my bios so if anyone has other suggestions that would be great.

Off hand I can't remember all of the games that have these problems but I know that Age of Mythology and Patrician III have them... there are many more

 

[ezeht]

I think what rap was more saying is- if you have not made any changes to w7- it will auto defrag auto update etc etc unless you change the defaults- Your anti virus anything like that could be set to auto update or even run scans.

A lot of times them lil lags you get can be your game settings are more high than your system can handle- try to lower settings some like shadows etc. Valve or hl2 engine games are pretty light on resources they can run hl2 of tablets.

I guess it could be trying to change from one vid device to the other- I do know nv and or physx hates ati being in the same system and will not run physx if so- I am not sure those games use physx im pretty sure css does not- I also know a lap top is not a gaming machine other than light gaming. I have read some folks have troubles with steam and or valve games- I have never had probs with either- I have never had a lap top either tho.

I always turn off extra stuff from loading at windows start up and always turn off all my security when gaming- Any lag probs I might have- I am more ambitious than my system can handle- I lower game settings a lil all is good- I have to tweak things really well I record almost my every step while gaming- so I need the extra performance..

Also- Make sure windows and anti virus all of that is updated before game play- even if you have that stuff off and auto updates off it can still cause probs because it wants to update but can not- it does not know why. I some times get a lil lag etc while playing- 9 out of 10x if I out of the game and check- either windows or my anti virus what ever will update- go back to playing all is good.. May sound odd or crazy but is true for me anyway..

It is possible heat is the prob too- Again a lap top is not a gaming machine.. I laugh when I see lap top and gaming machine in the same sentence- or a said gaming lap top- ya right..

No 1 setting works for all games- Also some games prefer nv over ati or vis versa- and some games are more cpu related where others more lean on the system memory or the video card. Its just the facts.. Might be possible your vid card/cards share system memory- could be part of it..

Also different vid card drivers can make the vid card run more hot than the last or some past drivers- just the facts..

You say gaming off line- what about the lap tops wifi or blue tooth what ever it is- you might want to disable it- your router wifi what ever could be pinging it trying to talk to it.. if your prob is off on off on every so many seconds or minutes- I would guess something like that could be the prob..

Sorry I can not help more- I hope you get it right. See ya..

 

[alexgophermix]

Thanks for the reply. I turned off all the usual suspects, tried compatibility; all the same steps the original poster of this thread took but no luck. I know laptops aren't gaming machines but man oh man I will never buy integrated graphics again... I have several computers around: a pc better than my laptop a linux machine far worse (1.8 processor or something ridiculous) and they all run the games without the lag spikes. I even have a second laptop that's a little older (I'll have to look at the specs) and that runs everything perfectly well as well.

The key point is that this laptop can run much more intensive games, but the older games regardless of video settings get these 1-3 second freezes that make gameplay so damn annoying. In my mind there are three possibilities:

1) This service swapping talked about earlier in the thread
2) Overheating as you mentioned
3) Windows 7 compatibility

 

[ezeht]

Seems to me it has on board vid and a added card 1 nv 1 ati- You should be able to completely turn off say the nv built in and being I think less powerful than the add on card. You should be able to turn it off completely in the bios- I do not think it is something you change or turn off from windows-- I am not sure why the thing even has 2 vid cards- nv and ati do not like or play nice with each other- I would guess the add on is a upgrade- the on board is for back up encase the add on card goes bad etc- remove it install nv drivers good to go..

I have never had a system with multi or different brand cards- I would guess you only install drivers for the card you are using- I really do not think they both run at the same time or change up- I can be wrong tho- The only systems I know of that can remotely run such things is a msi hydra mobo and then it takes special drivers- but can not do physx if a ati card is in a system with a nv card?

It could be possible- You are not even using the add on card it could be using the on board and sharing system memory too. I have never had a lap top or such a set up- so I do not know how to tell ya how to check it out or how to fix it.. Saying- just because the add on card is in the lap top does not mean it is set up right?

Maybe when a add on card is installed it auto disables the on board?

Sorry I do not know what else to say

 

[alexgophermix]

Thank you again for your reply. I made a mistake, I only have Intel (R) HD Graphics, I don't have a separate graphics card. So a switching issue is out. Also I checked the task manager while playing these games, and the core usage drops to zero during these spikes, so this is something else...

I would say it's unlikely that this is a hardware failure issue, since this laptop is less than 6 months old and I've been having the same problem since day one. (I didn't return it immediately because I assumed it was a combination of bloatware and simply compatibility issues... too late now I guess).