Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
What more can I do to make WAR run smoothly?
MegaMew
Member Posts: 47
Awright folks, it's coming down to launch time and I'm still having serious lag and load time issues with WAR still... I meant to bring this up yesterday, but didn't quite get around to it.
So far, I've done a huge registry and file cleanup, recovering maybe a full gig or so of harddrive space, I got every driver on the system up to date, and I probably covered a few things I'm not thinking of. The thing still doesn't run any better, though. To be specific, I say I average maybe four minutes from the Loading Interface screen to loading the entire map, and then I'm practically frozen in lag for a few minutes while the system renders everything around me. I just got my first character into Inevitable City, and you may as well multiply all that by two. Running around anywhere that has a large amount of other players (such as a public quest area) becomes a horrible slideshow of lag, but I'm otherwise okay when I'm alone.
For the most part, my settings aren't too far off the minimum requirements for Windows Vista... It's far from a gaming computer though, we got the thing for under $400 at a Wal-Mart to put it in perspective. I have around 1.9 Ghz of processing power (we got a low grade dual core before it was cool to have dual core... And promptly stopped being cool once quad core became a reality) when the minimum is 2.5, not so bad, the video card is a Nvidia GeForce 6150 with 64 MB of Adapter RAM, still a little off, the system specs suggest a GeForce 6600 minimum with 128 MB... No, the problem is likely that I'm running on less than 1 GB of RAM (957.88 MB to be specific, somehow, plus half of that is usually already being used by other processes) to play a game designed for 2 GB minimum. That's not good.
The only other thing I've been trying to do is to trick WAR into glancing over the memory issue by making the actual application run in XP compatible mode. So far, it hasn't made any improvement whatsoever, unless there's something else I need to set to run in that way.
I'd normally be fine with going right out and picking up the necessary RAM and maybe some other cheap upgrades... Except for the fact that I'm kinda shifting toward going broke, and I've budgeted just enough for WAR; picking up a new desktop/laptop is just out of the question as much as I'd like to. I could possibly pick up 2 GB if anyone near me carries what I use as a quick fix (according to Newegg, my model doesn't take any higher even though it sells 4 GB (2x2) sticks at 240-pin 533-667 Mhz speeds, so it must only take 2x1; any thoughts, more info needed?), but any major upgrades and changes are out of my hands. Any computer geeks have any suggestions on any extremely cheap or, more preferrably, free ways to tweak my system into becoming more WAR-friendly? Is there a way to use XP-compatible mode to get it to run better than what I've been doing (setting the application to it and no more, like setting it to 640 x 480 resolution or running in 256 color mode), or should I just leave it as the Vista default? And as I always ask on forums, are there any better topics I can turn to that address just this? I appreciate any help you tech-heads can give me, since for all the time I spend with PCs, I don't know jack about them.
Edit: Tried to double post but the system wouldn't let me, so I'm just amending the original.
Comments
You definately need more RAM and if you can pick up 2gig stick(s) do it.
Are you running a 32 bit version of Vista? Currently 32 bit Vista can only recognize 2 gig of RAM for any one application. If you have a 64 bit version of Vista then ignore this. I have a 32 bit and have 4 gigs of RAM and noticed a big difference in load times and choppiness after tweaking my userva settings. (google userva if you feel like playing with your bios settings.)
Also you need to focus getting a mid range card like the GF 8600 NT for 90$ (listed on newegg, hurry sale ends today!). Its not top of the line by any means but its cheap and will run circles around your onboard.
You should be able to get that rig running WAR for $150-200 (If your power supply can hadle the new card). Wont be spectacular with your processor so low, but its a small investment to make your lil guy all it can be. You could look into overclocking your motherboard as well for a little extra juice. I know this is not much help but like you said it is not a gaming computer.
The thing with video cards is that small increments in numbers are actually massive differences in processing power. a 6150 without any dedicated ram is nowhere even remotely near the power of a 6600. Even tho they are both in the 6000 range. The 6000 part is refering to its generation. The 150 vs the 600 is whats actually referring to the card heirarchy.
That cards really not going to cut it, not even remotely close. Especially since thats not an actual card, but onboard video. The 6150 is an onboard vga setup used in alot of mobos that shares ram with your system. And your actually running a gig of ram, it's just not showing up as a gig due to the onboard video claiming 64 megs of it.
On the plus side buying a card that will run WAR is extremely cheap, you don't need a high end card and could pick up one for about 50 bucks or less online that could run this game. Trust me on this, that onboard video is the problem.
By the way, if you buy an NVidia card to run this game and it's asking for a 6600, don't go buy a 7200 or a 7400 or it's like. Remember, the last three digits are a more accurate description of its power, stick to a 6600, 6800, 7600,7800, 8600.8800,9600,9800 etc etc. Nothing thats last few digits are less than a 600. Would be a waste of money. The newer model 600 series cards are all cheap and can run this game no problem.
Good point I forgot that. Make sure when you get a new card in there you disable the onboard in the start up to get that RAM back.
Thanks for the specifics, guys, that's more like what I need. I can try to do what I can, but even $90 for one component is a bit much for me; I'm hoping to go no higher than $60 for both the RAM and the card upgrade... After the $10 I put down on SE preorder, that means I'm basically shelling out $100 total just to play WAR reliably. That's a pretty expensive game huh? ...Ahh, who am I kidding, I blew $55 last month just to import Jump Ultimate Stars, despite that being like, 2 years old. >_>
Oh, right, my question. If my Vista doesn't say it's 64 bit in its name, am I right to assume it's not 64 bit? 64's a kinda recurring theme in my setup which gets confusing, I know I have an AMD Athlon 64 X2, but I doubt the processor has anything to do with the operating system.
Agh, I wish I had the money to just get a new computer altogether right now. Unemployment sucks, I'll just leave it at that.
Personally, if you have a 60 buck ceiling i'd forego the ram initially and just get a card, you can find a deal on a card that will run war for that but youll never get a card and ram for that price. Just get the card and pick up the ram later, trust me, the card will make so much difference you might not even decide you need the ram.
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx
Something along those lines would work for the game, could prolly find a better deal than that if you shop around. Thats an AGP card, if you need PCI Express you'll need to look for that variant. That card's not really that impressive but would be ehough to run WAR.
Personally, if you have a 60 buck ceiling i'd forego the ram initially and just get a card, you can find a deal on a card that will run war for that but youll never get a card and ram for that price. Just get the card and pick up the ram later, trust me, the card will make so much difference you might not even decide you need the ram.
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx
Something along those lines would work for the game, could prolly find a better deal than that if you shop around. Thats an AGP card, if you need PCI Express you'll need to look for that variant. That card's not really that impressive but would be ehough to run WAR.
That's actually pretty much identical to what I was looking at:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500032
What can I say, I'm cheap. >_>
Checking real quick, I think it's okay, mine should be PCI. As long as my short term memory lasts long enough for me to remember which slot I'm pulling the old one out of, I should be okay. Anyway, I might drive around tomorrow and see if I can find anything around here before I hit up the online shopping. Like I says, it's a quick fix, best to get it off a shelf if I can find something cheap enough before ordering online and waiting on the shipping.
Is there anything else I need to know about changing the video card? Not like uninstalling the drivers first and disabling the onboard and stuff so much as compatibility issues. Any chance my computer might "reject" the card even if it's a fairly similar PCI? Is it safe to pick up ATI if they make a better offer (my PC setup's a strange mashup of AMD processor and Nvidia Ge/NForce card anyway), or should I generally stick with one make? These are kinda stupid questions I can mostly answer myself, but I might as well verify in case I screw something up. :P
Just make sure that PCI slot is a PCI-e for the card you have picked out. If it is not a PCI-e slot then you need to go with an agp card. If all you have is a normal pci slot (which I highly doubt) then set your computer on fire.
Here is a pic of an agp slot and a PCI-E x16.
http://www.kids-online.net/learn/clickjr/details/vcard.html
Ok, now, its nice to see everyone posting to give you ideas, but do this first -
http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest
This will show you if your pc should be able to run it, if not, it tells you what to upgrade.
Second, load the game, new patch notes came out and they address the crashs and glitches.
Third, go here -
http://help.warhammeronline.com/cgi-bin/eawarhammer.cfg/php/enduser/home.php?p_sid=zo1czGdj
Talk with CS and see what else they can offer. These are paid support people who will tell you, excatly what you need to do to get the game running right.
But, 9 out of 10, update PC.
All people can give ideas, but unless you can see for yourself and understand, those ideas go out the windows as useless info.
Mega, the OS you can use on your puter is direct connected to your processor and motherboard. Most of the cases, the processor can allow you to use a 64bits OS, but your motherboard won't (no dirver available). Can't really give you an advice about what to buy in order to run the game better unless I know your system build. You can PM me if you want to and I'll try to help. My personal opinion, unless you're gonna use 4GB+ don't bother to get a 64Bits OS... I have the 64Bits XP on my game computer (8GB atm) and many applications just doesn't run... be aware of that.
There's a website which helps a lot: http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest
Not sure if you know it, but it's great if you want some tip on what to upgrade... just pick the game.
Find a way to get a new PC, you are so far behind the times in every area I cannot see spending the money to upgrade.
You can get a computer that runs WAR just fine for under $500.
I'm going to be completly honest with you man, you need a whole new computer. I'm sorry but a 1.9ghz Athlon 64 x2 and onboard video is not going to cut it if you want smoth gameplay.
The reason I say this is because ALL of your systems specs are Below the Minimun system requirements, Which means you should not even be able to play the game. That is why your having some big problems with the game.
I was in the same boat as you before I built my computer I had a $500 pc from wal-mart with a Athlon 64 X2 4200+ and Nividia 6100 Integrated graphics but I had 2.5 gigs of ram, and this computer would not run barely ANY games even ones from years ago. And that computer was better then yours so I would say its time to bite the bullet and start thinking about building or buying a new computer.
I only get 70-80fps with all the settings maxed out on my pc which I built, it has: Intel Quad core Q9300 2.5Ghz Overclocked to 3.0Ghz / Two Nvidia EVGA 9800GTX+ Graphics cards in SLI / Evga 750i ftw Motherboard / 2 Gigs of OCZ Dual channel 1066 ram / Windows Vista Home Premiun 32 bit / Antec 850w PSU..
I'm not trying to be rude or anything but Like I had to you need to face the facts that your PC just cannot run the game.
you MIGHT be able to get away with just adding 1 more Gig or ram and a new video card if your PC has a PCIe x16 slot for a decent Graphics card.
If thats the case then I would get 1 gig or ram and a Nvidia 8600GT or 8800GS for your PC which are both budget cards. The 8600GT can be bought for like $60 and ram for your PC is going to be cheap.
I recommend getting your parts from www.newegg.com thats were I get my stuff and they got great deals.
I concur that you need a new computer. I was running an old laptop until it recently decided that it didn't want to work anymore (it actually shorted out!) at the same time my wife's computer decided it wanted to reboot loop and bluescreen everytime it booted. I could have fixed my wife's computer, but I really wanted a new desktop, so I used that as an excuse. For about 900$ I got a rig that isn't screamingly awesome. But It'll do the job. I can play most games on high settings without huge lag burps (even though I put WAR on Low/Medium...when there's 200 people on screen it turns into a slide show.. I know it's mostly server-side lag, but it makes me feel better...).
I do understand not having money, and you're going to get more bang for your buck with a new GPU if that's all you can afford. Here's hoping your financial woes go away, and you can replace that dinosaur!
Good luck!
<edit>
Everyone loves newegg now. It's the new trendy place to get parts. While it tends to be cheap, shope around with some other sides, as you might be able to find parts cheaper other places. Tigerdirect is good, and sometimes CDW isn't bad (depends on who has the sales). Really, if you don't know someone who can't put it together for you, go with one of the custom ones throught tigerdirect or newegg. if you don't kow what you're doing, putting together a computer (while not hard) can be very confusing.
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx (its slightly more expensive, but leaps and bounds beyond a 2 year old card)
This is the best bang for you hard earned dollars, also ask some one to overclock your CPU. Even at stock voltages with stock fan if you can with your bios that CPU can hit 2.4 easily. (I have the same CPU running @ 2.7)
Lastly I currently have only 1 gig of ram and I run war flawlessly with 100+ people on screen. (but thats with a 4850).
GL.
edit: You dont really "need" a new computer. It would be nice but not needed.
edit: Or this for the same price its slightly faster www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx
He wont be able to overclock his CPU because it is most likely Locked . When you buy a computer like a dell or acer or compaq or something most of the time its locked and you cannot overclock the CPU unless you get a new Motherboard.
I completely forgot about that website! I used it in the past once for something before, heck it probably was for WAR, and then kinda forgot about it.
As it turns out, everything actually checks out and it answered a few of the more ambiguous questions; I am running on Vista 32 bit, and my processor is actually better than System Information says. It's a 1.9 Ghz, but it's "rated" at 5.4 Ghz. I didn't even know there were ratings. xD
No, it's definitely the video card that's the problem. Like I said, I'll check and see if I can find anything, I might not even need to order anything if I can find it. I'll keep you folks posted later. If you don't hear from me, I either figured something out, forgot about the topic, or screwed up inserting the card and found a way to fry the whole computer. Or most likely, knowing me, I have everything in order but I can't find a screwdriver in two houses full of screwdrivers to take the back off. >_>
For those wondering about my exact model, it's a Dell Dimension E521. It's only two years old or so, so I shouldn't have any trouble. Like I said, it sucks having that low price ceiling, but if I end up shelling out too much, I might as well just forget about WAR and save up for a new computer myself. Which *is* my plan B. Just freeload the headstart a little, buy the retail box, then let it dust until I can run it. :P
Edit: I found a working "product details" link on the Dell site, along with a review on PC World that confirm that it does have a PCI-E x16 slot in addition to a PCI-E x1 and two PCI. So that's one relief.
I've noticed that War uses a good bit of Ram and I know that Vistas requires 1Gib of ram but Recommends 2 Gigs.
So I would get 1 more gig or ram and a 8600Gt Graphics card and you should atleast be able to play it.
Those two thing should not cost you no more that $80 if that...
Heres a decent Video card: www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx
Even though that card has less memory that the other 8600Gt cards the memory it does have is clocked higher so its not to bad.
And ram you should be able to fin from the same place.