The litle lag spikes

im sure that some of you know the litle lag spikes that occur when you:

1. Select a city
2. Go to the advanced mode of a city
3. Select a unit
4. Open/Close an advisor screen
5. togle off/on show tiles

these lag spikes usually consist of the game freezing inbetween 0.1 seconds to 0.5, all in all its not a very big deal but it does make the game this litle bit more choppy and i hate that.

what can i do about this annoyance?

Not very much. Turning your graphics down low might help, but the game does require a certain amount of time to 'think'. I don't see anything other than a faster computer will change this.

spiceant said:

im sure that some of you know the litle lag spikes that occur when you:

1. Select a city
2. Go to the advanced mode of a city
3. Select a unit
4. Open/Close an advisor screen
5. togle off/on show tiles

these lag spikes usually consist of the game freezing inbetween 0.1 seconds to 0.5, all in all its not a very big deal but it does make the game this litle bit more choppy and i hate that.

what can i do about this annoyance?

Click to expand...

I had the same thing happened to my rig. A person here named "Neon Deon " found in my Dxdiag report a conflict with my sound.
I had two forms of sound running at once, so I disabled the "on board" sound that comes with your computor so my sound blaster audigy card didnt have a conflict any more. Not only did it solve my crash problems but it also took care of those little lags I got also. There not gone entirely , but like 95% gone AND I now can run on high graphics everything and raise my monitor ressolution to 1280 X 1024 on huge maps with 11 AI's .

Life is good again !

So now I'm singing a different tune

Neon Deon you the man, and also the Z man, Zydor who I have noticed helps a lot of peeps too. Its people like you that make these forums work. You guys roc

Now back to stuffing my boot up monty's arse.

how do i do that to my computer?

edit: iv had a look at the sound devices under my dxdiag txt and it only shows one
its probably not going to work miracles if i remove the only one

im (not really) sorry
but
shameless bump
does someone know something to do about this?

spiceant

If you have already posted your Dxdiag, could you please point me at it? If not please post the file via 'go advanced'

Regards
Zy

heres the dxdiag
i dont think i had it posted before

I strongly suspect your AGP is the issue

Look in the Dxdiag, heading "Display Devices", fifth line from the bottom of that section, it says:

AGP Status: Not Available

This will be severly reducing the performance of your video card - the only reason it works at all is because you have a high end graphics card, and its inherent power has pulled you through. AGP enables much enhanced graphics performance. Below is a link to an article on it (a little out of date but still ok to get hold of the basics)

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/mbsys/buses/types/agp.htm

Its important you get hold of the basics, "read over" terminology you dont understand as such, and you will get the drift quick enough. Current standard is 8X AGP, which is backwards compatible with the older 4X standard. Your PC either has not got it enabled on the current bios(hence a quick check there needed), or you will need a bios and/or chipset driver update.

It's extremely important to performance that AGP is enabled. Without AGP enabled, everything may appear to be working just fine, but in reality only a fraction of the computer's true performance is being realized. Besides configuring the BIOS, the other necessary step to ensure AGP is enabled and running at optimal performance is to install the latest motherboard chipset drivers which enable AGP functionality for the computer.

Access your bios during bootup (usually by pressing the delete key or an F key - the screen will tell you), and look for the AGP line on one of the pages - if its there, change it to 128Mb. Save, Reboot and run Dxdiag - if still not showing, you need to find and install the latest chipset drivers for your motherboard. Look at your PC documentation it should tell you there, if not ring your original supplier for help in identifying the motherboard, they may even help provide uptodate chipset drivers. Load the drivers when found. There are various freebie utils on the Net which can help you identify the motherboard.

It now should work, however in rare cases you may need to update the bios, if your not used to the latter you need to get a friend to help who is aware of how to flash a bios.

It is important to do this - if necessary get a friend or workmate who is aware of this issue to help - you have a very good Video Card which is being crippled by no AGP access - it will make a significant difference to your PC performance


Regards
Zy

i have installed chip drivers for my motherboard (amd athlan 64 processor 3000+).

one of the manuals that came with the computer reads the following at on the front:

K8 Triton series (agp 8x motherboard)
GA-k8VT800 (pro)
VIA K8T800 chipset

at the lower part of the front it says it supports AMD Athlon 64 processor (which makes complete sense)

first i didnt manage to find your "agp line" after reboot i went to look in the manuals and pressed ctrl f1 after which i could find 1 line with AGP in it and 64mb, i changed it to 128 saved & exited and went back to dxdiag that showed agp as disabled.
i went over to the manufacturers site (nl.giga-byte.com) -> support -> motherboard -> drivers -> drivers of GA-k8VT800 pro. i think i may have installed one to many drivers from there, the last driver i installed was VIA 4in1 (4.55) under the chipset driver catagory.
dxdiag still doesnt show AGP enabled (the agp line under direct3d and directdraw), after rebooting.

i dont know know anyone who might have a remote idea what a BIOS flash is, and i dont know how to do it myself either.

spiceant said:

i have installed chip drivers for my motherboard (amd athlan 64 processor 3000+).

one of the manuals that came with the computer reads the following at on the front:

K8 Triton series (agp 8x motherboard)
GA-k8VT800 (pro)
VIA K8T800 chipset

at the lower part of the front it says it supports AMD Athlon 64 processor (which makes complete sense)

first i didnt manage to find your "agp line" after reboot i went to look in the manuals and pressed ctrl f1 after which i could find 1 line with AGP in it and 64mb, i changed it to 128 saved & exited and went back to dxdiag that showed agp as disabled.
i went over to the manufacturers site (nl.giga-byte.com) -> support -> motherboard -> drivers -> drivers of GA-k8VT800 pro. i think i may have installed one to many drivers from there, the last driver i installed was VIA 4in1 (4.55) under the chipset driver catagory.
dxdiag still doesnt show AGP enabled (the agp line under direct3d and directdraw), after rebooting.

i dont know know anyone who might have a remote idea what a BIOS flash is, and i dont know how to do it myself either.

Click to expand...

Try smartgart first.

rightclick on desktop/properties/settings/advanced

go to smargart tab and change setting to 4x if it is not greyed out.

If it is greyed out then list your bios version. You dont have to flash the bios just change a setting. No big deal really.

Anyways, see if changing the smartgart tab works.

BTW what driver version for your card do you have loaded?

i changed it to 4x and now the lags have reduced to 0.1 ish and below seconds, i quess it works, dxdiag also shows agp enabled
thanks to both of you 2

i also tested a pretty heavy game on max settings (black & white 2) which doesnt show this very much improvement, though.

spiceant said:

i changed it to 4x and now the lags have reduced to 0.1 ish and below seconds, i quess it works, dxdiag also shows agp enabled
thanks to both of you 2

i also tested a pretty heavy game on max settings (black & white 2) which doesnt show this very much improvement, though.

Click to expand...

YAY!

Now go enjoy the game.

Nice One Neon - good save

Regards
Zy