Dual Core 2 Choppy performance

Talon · Post by **Talon** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 3:05 pm

I am currently trying out an Alienware M5550 Laptop that has an Intel Core 2 Duo T7600 2.33GHz cpu (4Mb cache and 677MHz FSB), with 2Gb of DDR2 ram, and a 256 Mb Geforce Go 7600 video card in it. Loaded LockOn and F.Cliffs and also loaded the no canopy scratches mod. Start up LockOn and the game has continuous micro-pauses while playing. Regardless if I have the graphics set on high, or as they are now, all on Medium or Low with most things turned off. The micro-pauses are still there.
I also noticed when I turn on the FPS display ( Ctrl-Backspace ) that the FPS continuously change. Example of what I see is:
From around 26 fps to then 113 fps, then quickly changes to -364 fps, then 68 fps, etc etc. It just keeps going up and down, from positive to negative values. I have confirmed that there is nothing running in the background as Alienware does not load "bloat" software.
I then tried running LockOn on one then the other CPU by setting the affinity. I did this by starting lockon, then alt-tab out to desktop, then a ctrl-alt-del to task manager and set the affinity for the lockon.exe to one cpu at a time. Then closed this and alt-tabbed back into the game. Still got the same micro-pauses.

I have not purchased this laptop as it is a review item supplied to me by Alienware. Last month I reviewed their new SLI M9700, and it was great! But if anyone that has the new dual core 2 cpus can elaborate on how to get LockOn working correctly with the Intel CPU, please let me know.

Also: There are no other programs loaded , no Anti-Virus, etc, since this is a brand new system. Just XP, modman, Loman and LockOn.

FYI: Neither of these systems are my primary gaming system, but I know something must be wrong with this, since I have another laptop (Sager 8790) that has 2Gb of ram, an Intel 3.4 Ghz CPU w/ HT and a 9700 w 256 mb of ram on it and Raid-0, and it runs LockOn great, averaging about 47 fps with more things turned up and on than this new Alienware laptop. Im sure I could get even more FPS on the Sager if I turned everything down or off, but then it would not look nice.
Cheers

Post by **Lawndart** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 5:50 pm

Do not focus your attention on Lock-On as the culprit. It's likely a process or app running in the background that's causing this. I would narrow it down towards Norton Products and/or anything to do with Firewalls and alike, meaning software that continuously "monitor" and hog resources. Once you turn all those off, go to your start menu and hit "Run...", type in "msconfig" and perform a selective startup with all items under the "Startup" tab disabled. Start from scratch and work your way back to a full list of startup items to see if the stutters are present or start occuring at a certain time? If you turn off all "monitoring" and startup items (possibly only adding *required* graphics drivers/DirectX items back) and you still have stutters, it would appear to be a hardware issue to me. If the memory and hardware resources are free and ALL other programs (especially firewalls, A/V and cont. monitoring of any kind) is turned off and you're still seeing it... Well, then I don't know what else to tell ya!

Also, set your page file to "custom" with a 1024-4096 range. Just to eliminate other potential reasons. Lock-On likes memory and doesn't do well with other programs trying to steal memory away. Let us know if it works or if you find what does?

Burner · Post by **Burner** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 6:13 pm

Also do you have the latest Patch for FC, when 1.1 first came out it was full of stutter.

Talon · Post by **Talon** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 6:42 pm

Thanks Lawndart and Burner.
Yes, I have the 1.12a patch installed. I checked prior to posting regarding other programs, and nothing but basic windowsxp is running, since there are no other programs installed. I normally do a detailed check to see if anything is running via msconfig; This one has me a little stumped. I do not think it is LockOn, just trying to figure out what's doing it.
Luckily this is just a review system and therefore I do not have to worry about it for now too much, but I was planning on upgrading to a dual core 2 system here soon, but I won't until I figure this out.

Thanks, I will keep checking and if I find out what is doing it I will follow up here for others that may in the future have the same issue.

Burner · Post by **Burner** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 11:47 pm

Definately let us know what does the trick, I am planning on upgrading to an x6800+8800GTX shortly, if it stutters I think I'd pull my hair out.

Talon · Post by **Talon** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 3:31 pm

Alienware support called me on my cell and told me they believe they know what it is, I will try their 1st suggestion and if it persists, then I will try the second and report here once we have narrowed the culprit down.
Stay Tuned.