The Sims

[BreadFan]

It seems like the last couple of 2-D games I have gotten really play like sh!t. Mechcommander Gold stutters REAL bad and The Sims plays like crap even with all the detail setting set to low (it takes forever to scroll anywhere). Does anyone else have any issues with the G400 in 2-D mode? I thought this card was supposed to be the 2-D champ? Thanks in advance.

By the way, I'm using the 5.41 drivers in Win98 SE

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BreadFan

Soyo SY-6BA+IV , Pentium III 500MHz, SoundBlaster Live Value, 20.5gb IBM 34GXP ATA/66 hard drive, 384mb PC100 RAM, 3Com 3C905 TX NIC, and a freakin' awesome Matrox G400Max!!


[This message has been edited by BreadFan (edited 16 February 2000).]

[This message has been edited by BreadFan (edited 16 February 2000).]

[Snake-Eyes]

Sorry to hear that you're having problems there, BreadFan.

Two things come to mind when I thing about stutter in 2D on a G400.

The first is this- make sure you DON'T have active desktop / display as web page enabled. With that enabled, I noticed all kinds of stuttering with 2D applications, even with the desktop and program windows in general. Disabling it smoothed things over again.

The second is really a question of hardware- do you have plenty of free hard disk space (and it should be defragged periodically), and how much memory do you have? The slow / stuttering behavioe could be attributed to swap file activity on the hard drive, or to the program attempting to access data from a CD-ROM disk (like what it needs to display next, if you're scrolling).

If disabling active desktop and defragging the hard drive don't help, and you have plenty of memory (at least 64MB, I'd guess), then it could just be the way the game is written. Quite a bit of today's software is really very unoptimized.


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Ace

[paulcs]

Also, if you haven't done so, you might want to go to 3Comm's website and download the basic "stripped down" drivers for your NIC.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[BreadFan]

Active desktop is not enables. I have about 8gb available on my hard drive. I have 384 mb of RAM so I would hope that is not the issue. I am using the drivers that came with Win98 SE for the NIC so I believe they are pretty stripped down (no issues in 3-D games at all). One thing I do have is a permanent swap file. I have it set to 200mb and optimized at the front of the drive. I have checked system monitor multiple times and have never seen an application or multiple applications hit it yet. I think I'll give the new beta drivers a shot tonight if I can't find a solution on this board. Thanks.

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BreadFan

Soyo SY-6BA+IV , Pentium III 500MHz, SoundBlaster Live Value, 20.5gb IBM 34 GXP ATA/66 hard drive, 384mb PC100 RAM, 3Com 3C905 TX 10/100 PCI NIC, and a freakin' awesome Matrox G400Max!!

[paulcs]

You might want to look into updating the drivers on your Highpoint controller.

Do you have the same issues when you boot from the IDE channel?

Also, are you running any virus protection software?

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[This message has been edited by paulcs (edited 16 February 2000).]

[BreadFan]

I have the latest (ver 1.22) driver for the HPT366 controller. I have never tried booting from the standard IDE channel, don't know how that will make a difference but I will give it a try. The only thing I have running in the background is explorer, systray, and pdesk. By the way, I installed the latest beta drivers, they kick major a$$ in all of my opengl and direct3d games (better than any turbogl or previous driver release), but I still have the slowness and jerkiness in 2-d games. I'm thinking I might format my drive this weekend if I can't find a solution. Thanks.

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BreadFan

Soyo SY-6BA+IV , Pentium III 500MHz, SoundBlaster Live Value, 20.5gb IBM 34 GXP ATA/66 hard drive, 384mb PC100 RAM, 3Com 3C905 TX 10/100 PCI NIC, and a freakin' awesome Matrox G400Max!!

[paulcs]

I made the suggestion because it is a relatively easy solution to eliminating the Highpoint controller as a source of the problem. We've seen issues with this and similar devices in the past, although, I've read Soyo did a good job of implementing it.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[Baltar]

I've got the same problems with the Sims too. However I think its an issue with the game code itself. I have seen some reviews for the Sims that state the there are some inexplicable scrolling slow downs even with high end systems. As for Mechcommander I had a TNT in those days and I remember some speed issues too.

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Celeron 500 Asus P3B-F
128 Ram
G400 32Meg Vanillia
3com 3c905B 10/100

[Targon]

Yea, the Sims is a bit on the slow side, either the code needs to be cleaned up, or it's doing some really really complex calculations that slow down the CPU. I DO have a problem where the opening movie doesn't work, but that's the only real problem I've had.