Is this normal?

[Maxor127]

I don't know what the cause of this is but it's annoying. When I finish playing certain games, Civ4 and Battlefield 2 are ones that always have this problem, once I quit the game my desktop will be slow, especially if I have something simple like a browser window and an instant messenger open. Like for example, when I minimize and expand a window it will move really slow. I'm just wondering why it does this because it's annoying and I have to restart my computer to get things running smoothly again. It's as if these games suck up so many resources that once I quit, my computer still can't recover.

I have an Athlon64 3000 2 GHz with 1 GB RAM, and Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB graphics.

 

[MrCynical]

Sounds fairly normal to me, and happens with just about any game made in the last few years. The resources just aren't freed up properly even when you quit the game.

 

[auldian]

This isn't my experience with Windows XP Pro SP2. When programs close, they seem to clean up after themselves. I frequently go days without rebooting.

• Have you checked for a virus or spyware?
• Try the [Ctrl-Alt-Del] from your desktop when you exit the game and see this symptom. Choose the "Processes" tab and then see which processes (image name) are using most of your CPU.

This may give some insight. Let us know what you find.

 

[Maxor127]

I have no viruses or spyware, I'm pretty good at protecting against that. When I reboot, I probably have about 200 MB page file usage, and when I quit a game like Civ4, I probably have about 240 MB. I don't notice anything out of the ordinary or any game processes still running. Right now I'm looking and explorer.exe uses 13,000 K. Most processes average around 5,000 K and they're mostly just services and whatever else Microsoft makes XP use.

 

[auldian]

The next time you experience that symptom check the Event Viewer by typing "eventvwr.msc" in the Start > Run box. When you highlight "Application" in the left pane, see if there are Errors in the right with a big red "X" beside them. Double-clicking an error line will bring up info, link to MS, etc. If there's an error or alert, that could be a good clue.

Run a dxdiag from the same Run box. Save that info to a text file and paste it to this thread if you like. A lot of eyes may see something obscure.

Good luck.

 

[BerndN]

Same problems here. I have a HP notebook with only 512 MB and my PC at home with 1024 MB. The notebook is slow with Civ IV but it's good for some testing. But both are suffering the same. If I did a long game, quit the game both computers are acting like the programs still run. Even if I wait till there's no more hard drive activity the time both need to even show the shutdown/restart dialog is slow.
The home pc is an AMD 3500 64 and my notebook is a HP one with an intel cpu. So it can't be the processor or the graphic card (Intel/Nvidia). Maybe I should try with Sysinternals Process Explorer but I wondered too if this is common.
Ah, and Antivirus is different too. Antivir personal at home and Trend Micro Officescan on the notebook ???