[Limbo]

Can my graphics card become crap?
I can't explain why I lag playin Warcraft 3- thats like min rquirements
lag= freeze for 3 secs, then continue

[eLliDKraM]

what kind of card do you have. if it's the minimum requirements and you're playing with anti-aliasing or some other med/high settings, you'ore likely to lag. you could also have outdated drivers or your version of directx isn't corresponding with the version of warcraft 3; that doesn't always mean go out and get the newest version of direct x either. you can also try synching your monitor and graphics card default refreshrate (in hertz) to the game's refresh rate.

[Limbo]

The graphics card is
NVidia Geforce FX5200
I got Directx 9.0c
640Mb ram
1.7Ghz P4 Intel

I don't understand why Warcraft 3 ( req'ments: 400Mhz, 128mb ram and 8 mb 3dgraphics card) should lag (i.e. freeze 3 secs, play 3)
unless of course something is screwd up in my comp.
I thought the software might be so i reinstalled xp. then i got sp1.
Everything runs fine, but the game and the internet sometimes.(sometimes I havta refresh couple a times to load the page, or retry msn login, or even restart the comp)

Can't really pinpoint the problem.

[snoj]

I've noticed with my computer that when the power goes out that I need to reinstall the drivers for my card to play games. Have you tried that?

[Antiokus]

Check for new drivers released on nVidia's site. You may check to make sure that there arent other processes running behind the game that might be stealing the resources.

It may also be your internet connection. What are you connected through right now? ISDN, Cable, DSL? Are you trying to play WC3 online?

[Jayman]

Limbo, on 12 Sep, 2006 - 08:08 AM, said:

The graphics card is
NVidia Geforce FX5200
I got Directx 9.0c
640Mb ram
1.7Ghz P4 Intel

I don't understand why Warcraft 3 ( req'ments: 400Mhz, 128mb ram and 8 mb 3dgraphics card) should lag (i.e. freeze 3 secs, play 3)
unless of course something is screwd up in my comp.
I thought the software might be so i reinstalled xp. then i got sp1.
Everything runs fine, but the game and the internet sometimes.(sometimes I havta refresh couple a times to load the page, or retry msn login, or even restart the comp)

Can't really pinpoint the problem.

Is Warcraft updated to the latest patch?

How many programs are running in the background?

640MB sounds like a lot of RAM, but if you have a lot of stuff running in the background, then you can substantially reduce the amount of available memory. And if your OS is working between RAM and Virtual Memory you will see a significant lag in game play. You do not want your computer running off of virtual memory when playing any games!!

[Limbo]

Thanks for the replies.
I only tried reinstalling my graphics card. I'll try reinstalling the drivers.
I have set 2-3GB in virtual memory. I thought the more the merrier.
I have 0 other programs running and 23 processes. comes down to 21 when i close firefox and system idle process.
I've only got cable, but I'm playing the campaign not battlenet, so it shouldn't play a factor.

do u think it's a Software or Hardware problem?

[Jayman]

If you open the Windows Task Manager and click on the Performance tab.

What is the Total under the Commit Charge category at the bottom left of task manager?

The value shown is your current usage of RAM and virtual memory being used.

[Antiokus]

It's not going to be a hardware problem, at least not with your GPU. WC3 is a relativly 'light' game for GPUs unless you have some epic battles, but that's different from the lag you're getting.

If anything, I'd say that maybe you should check about turning down the in-game graphics. Try it with 800x600 and turn the details down to medium or low. If it continues to lag then go ahead and turn them back to what you want.

Are you running any mods? Do you have Frozen throne or just the original game? I've heard of these problems with Dual Core machines. But you didn't say anything about your P4 being dual core so that's probably not the problem. I doubt this is hardware issues, probably software or driver issues.

I dont have expierence with that card, but you may also check to make sure that AA (anti-aliasing) is NOT on. This can be a big cause of game lag.

[Limbo]

Well, I'm still not 100% sure what the problem is.
But I know it's not software.
Trying to run custom games in Warcraft III. No Battlenet online stuff. Updated it to the current version (for Battlenet though), but no frozen throne or any mods. Graphics are set to Low for everything, and 800x600 pixels also. I didn't check AA though.

Just recently formatted my computer, confident Software isn't the problem. It does have 40 processes but that all uses between 1-12% of CPU- they are all necessary too- It's my antivirus,spammer,...+ the 19-22 processes to start with.

I do think it might be my ram and not my GPU. My RAM is a 512 + 128 MB SDRAM. And I think my 512 maybe a bit damaged.

I ran WC3 and checked out my performance when it temporarily froze and took a screen shot to get this data. CPU Usage 10%(at that second, but it was 100% or near, according to the CPU Usage history graph),
PF Usage 273MB,
Commit Charge(K) :
Total = 280440
Limit = 3177000
Peak = 297232
(Bottom right corner says: Commit Charge: 273M/3102M)

thought I'd toss this in too. I tried increasing my Virtual Memory range from 1.5-2.5GB to 2.5-3.5GB. I know it's excessive, but I thought it might help.

Physical Memory(K):
Total: 654832
Available: 359836
system cache: 367064
(shouldn't total = available + system cache?)

Kernel Memory (K)
Total: 33776
Paged: 27412
Nonpage: 6364

So, now I need help to decide whether it is the RAM or am I just screwd?

Is it possible for a GPU to not perform as it should?

Also, the GPU and 512 RAM are just over 1 yr old. The 128 is 5yrs.

Thanks

[Antiokus]

Virtual memory isn't going to help game speeds. If it was the ram, the system will give you a beep code when it POSTs. If it didnt then chances are your RAM is fine and its not something to be worried about. The only thing I can think of is that it might be the custom games, I have had some run really bad. And maybe the lack of Frozen Throne.

I've run WCIII just fine on a 1.5 ghz P4, 386 SD RAM, and on a 64 MB GeForce 2 MX440. So you shouldn't be having a hardware problem.

[Limbo]

Hmmm...
On paper the computer should run it fine.

I can't update my graphics card...well, it tries to but gets nowhere. AOpen Live Update starts up and then doesn't respond, and the device manager update driver just 'updates' never finishes.

I'm going to try close a whole bunch of processes and see if that does the trick... but even then, it won't solve my problem, because I eventually want to get into Battlenet, and I'd need my antivirus and spamblocker up...

[Limbo]

So if my RAM doesn't work 100% normally it'll beep. What's that memtest that I can do to check it out?

If my GPU isn't working properly, (is that possible?), what's the result... gonna try WC3 with my motherboard internal vga.

[Antiokus]

Well chances are its not memory and its not the GPU so I wouldnt be worried about running benchmarks on it to test them. You may try actually going to nvidias site and downloading the newest driver for your card and installing manually instead of having them update.

Frozen throne fixed a lot of bugs in WCIII so if there was anything that might be causing the problem is it the lack of the expansion. Maybe its causing hardware compatibility issues with your system.

[Limbo]

I removed the Aeolus Geforce Nvidia 5200 GPU and installed the motherboard's internal graphics and I was able to run a choppy Warcraft 3 campaign without a freeze.

So I'm prematurely concluding that the graphics card is broken.
However, other problems are still around or starting up. I think the age of this computer is showing.
It takes a while to start up. It loads XP but takes about 1 minute before you can actually open a program...
Also Warcraft is abit choppy so I think the RAM sticks are near crippled- or one of them is...
The odd thing is,
1- The graphics card is just over a year old and this problem started about 7months back. So, it was not even a year old at that time. The same applies to the 512MB SDRAM stick.
2- Reformatted the computer recently and the problems persisted.
3- Dug up Reboot.exe virus and destroyed it.
4- Reformatted again and the problems persisted.

Maybe a power-surge screwd up something. Well, there were no surges, but more outages :S

Oh well, that's why I'm looking at the market to obtain a new computer. Nervous to build one of my own, but I can't find a place that can assemble one with my configuration, and bestbuy, futureshop, dell, don't meet them either. They either too high or too low. Can't find that middle ground.

Oh well, I'll play warcraft 3 till things get cheaper and I get richer..or less poorer.