Gaming slow downs

[Seismic]

Okay here is my problem. Most of my games love to slow down five minutes after boot up then for no reason run back at normal speed before repeating the cycle. I meet the system requirements for all of them and i'm thinking that since all of the games use the internet in one way or another (Except UT 3 it runs fine) that it might be a internet settings issue in Vista.

I've added more virtual memory, added the games to the allow list in NORTON, reset the DSL Modem countless times, and various other things and I have not gotten anywhere. the problem started about a few months after I bought my PC.

If you have any insight, I'd be grateful.

[Samantha Arrow]

Hmmm....

Running a PC cleanup software can help, I recommend CCleaner: http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/
(free and cleans everything - turn off 'wipe free space' though)

Running a defragmenter can help, I recommend Defraggler: http://www.filehippo.com/download_defraggler/

Of course more RAM never hurts.

Also, long ago a computer lab teached told me Norton was junk, so I recommend trashing it and replacing it with Avira: http://www.filehippo.com/download_antivir/

Make sure you have all the latest drivers, and the best DirectX you can get...

And make sure your computer isn't overheating.

That's all I got.

[Seismic]

I have the latest drivers and I don't need to defrag

[Daryn]

What games are being problematic? Also I agree with Samantha, Norton is junk and it absolutely IS slowing down the PC unnecessarily. However I'd go with Microsoft Security Essentials to replace it. That's what I use and I've not had a problem. Also have a look at what programs are starting up in your tray, there may be stuff there that's starting up that you don't need to stay there.

[Samantha Arrow]

...Also have a look at what programs are starting up in your tray, there may be stuff there that's starting up that you don't need to stay there.

That CCleaner thing I mentioned has an easy interface in it for disabling, deleting, or reactivating anything that turns on at start-up. If anything it really helps cut down on how long it takes the computer to start up.

You've probably already done this, but the on the games you play look for 'otimize/recommended' settings for video, that way your computer is doing the best it can. And it's jsut one of my preferences but I don't care about 'shadows' so I turn them off - it usually spares enough power to max out some more important setting.

[Seismic]

One of my friends said that he had the same problems i am having but they went away after turning off some options in windows. and generally it's all Steam games that are slowing down as well as other non-steam games.

[Seismic]

Also I have proof that NORTON isn't the problem. My dad also has NORTON and he can play games on his machine at full speed without problems. It is most likely an issue with some setting somewhere on Vista from an update.

[Wolfgang of Borg]

I think many computer geeks see Norton as a problem in general, overpriced and inefficient.

Have you tried watching for network activity before/during a slowdown?

Or maybe starting a game, killing Steam from the Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del iirc, or maybe Ctrl-Shift-Esc or Alt-Esc, i can't remember) and then going back to the game?

Seems odd that the problem didn't show until months after getting the machine. Can you remember adding or changing anything around that time? Does Windows keep logs of that kind of stuff? Can it possibly revert updates? (Sorry, i know very little about how Win works.)

[Seismic]

I can set the machine to think it's sometime last year before the problem but I'm not sure how that will affect my stuff. When I first had the problem with Gmod, I alt+tabbed out and checked my Processor/RAM activity and it shot up tremendously like something major was running then shut down after a few minutes before doing it again. The only things I changed or added were games and files to Gmod and shutting off the damnable User Account Control which asks if you want to run the program everytime you start something. I've gone into the settings in Vista to see if performance improved but the machine stalled after "Updating" for 12 hours.

[Wolfgang of Borg]

Any hope of finding out which process is using all the resources? (I'm pretty sure you press Ctrl-Alt-Delete and then click on "Task Manager" or something, and it gives you a list of all running processes and how much RAM/CPU they're using.)

If you could find that out then maybe you could google it and find a fix less drastic than reverting the machine.

EDIT: ah, you can also press Ctrl-Shift-Esc. Click on the labels at the top of the table to sort alphabetically, by memory usage, by percentage of cpu use, etc.

[Seismic]

Okay, so at the time i'm typing this, I have Gmod running poorly and checking what programs are taking up how much memory. so far it seems like it's running perfectly except that EVERYTHING in GMod is choppy. I'm begining to think it's the RAM to Video RAM function in Vista. Though svchost.exe is the second highest use of memory.

[Wolfgang of Borg]

Have you checked if you can kill Steam but leave the game running? Just to rule that out as a possible cause.

Bit of random googleing turned up this

-heapsize [Kilobytes]: This command tells the Source Engine to allocate more RAM to the system heap, where it can be accessed by the game to improve performance by caching more game information in RAM and hence reducing loading pauses. The default heapsize varies, but can be 256MB or less. If you have 2GB of RAM you may wish to increase this to 512MB (a heapsize of 524288). You can use higher values if you wish, but I don't recommend exceeding half your physical RAM (e.g. for 2GB RAM, don't set heapsize higher than 1024000). You can't force the game to load completely into RAM, that's not what this command does.

Add -heapsize using the command-line, which is found in Steam->My Games -> Team Fortress 2 -> (right click) Properties -> (advanced?) -> Set Launch Options -> "-heapsize <Kb>" (no quotes).

mem_max_heapsize [MB] - This command tells the Source Engine the maximum amount of memory to be allocated to the system heap. If you are using the -Heapsize command line variable (see previous page), then you may need to increase this value from its default of 256MB to allow a larger heapsize to be used for certain caches.

..which looks like it might help with the RAM->VRAM thing, if that's what this is.

Wiki says svchost is a generic name for software libraries (ie .DLL files), but sometimes malware identifies itself a such since it's such a common name. More here and here.

[Daryn]

Because you disabled the user account control, you've essentially given any program permission to do whatever they want. With the zero day exploit that has surfaced with Flash and Acrobat Reader you could have picked up something while browsing the internet and you'd never know it.

Try to run a deep malware scan and see what turns up. Click start, Run, and then type mrt. Then run a Deep scan.

[Samantha Arrow]

Steam...

Steam does run a lot of updates, both your games and the client itself, could be that.

Also Steam super fragments your drive, talking like 10 gigs of fragmented files, and they can only be defragmented by using Steam's built in device - regular defragmenter won't fix it.

Steam also demands a lot of your computer's power, I make it a habit to take it off the start-up programs list or it just stops your computer from loading for like a minute.

[Seismic]

Can't have a Steam game running without Steam. And the problem isn't confined to games like Sims 3 and Dawn of War 2. I get the problem with Delta Force: Black Hawk Down and it's OLD yet Unreal Tournament 3 runs perfectly!

[Seismic]

Okay after having my PC generate a health report, it says i have a High rate of 81 Split I/O per second.

What now?

[Samantha Arrow]

Can't have a Steam game running without Steam. And the problem isn't confined to games like Sims 3 and Dawn of War 2. I get the problem with Delta Force: Black Hawk Down and it's OLD yet Unreal Tournament 3 runs perfectly!

Original Unreal Tournament is teh best!!

Doesn't work on Vista though works perfectly on XP

[Seismic]

Original Unreal Tournament is teh best!!

Doesn't work on Vista though works perfectly on XP

Not helping with my issue.

[Daryn]

Split I/O has something to do with fragmentation. But it could also mean that you might have a bad drive cable. Try a defragmentation first, then if that doesn't work try to replace the SATA cable.