Slow Motion Gameplay

S

Scottius68

Dalayan Beginner
I looked around on the forums for this problem and found a few similar situations, but here's my setup:

I'm using an older laptop with Windows XP- Intel Pentium 2.00 ghz processor, 1 gb of RAM. Chipset is Mobile Intel 915/GMS, 910 GML Express Chipset family.

My problem is I'm experiencing this weird slow motion gameplay. During play, it seems fine, then everything becomes slow-mo, even my run speed. My friend will be running way ahead and I'll be lagging behind, and then it will return to normal speed within a minute or so, but I'll be way behind. Even when the characters and npcs attack, they swing their weapons in slow motion as well. I saw in another post to go into the power settings in the display options and change it from Laptop to Home/Office and it seemed to work at first, but then started happening again after about 5 minutes or so. I've also tried using EQW and Playnice but nothing happened. I used to play the original EQ (Luclin, etc.) a long time ago on this computer and it worked fine.

Other than that I couldn't find any way to permanently fix this problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!
 
I have been researching laptop graphics systems for a potential new purchase, and the video chipset of your laptop may be to blaim. Per the wiki on the Intel GMA family...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_GMA

The Intel GMA X3100 family was the first to support hardware transform and lighting, and your card is of a significantly older generation.

The "Live" game, ever since the "Moon" expansion that added the new models, has required hardware transform and lighting for the graphics card.

Further, although this is probably due to the Vista 32 bit OS on the offending laptop, my friend's laptop with a X3100 era Intel graphics solution (a 965) also runs "much more slowly" than my old desktop with a Radeon x600 AGP card on Win XP Home 32 bit.

Another thought would be the 1 GB of ram in the system, in conjunction with the use of EQW. (Another post in this forum suggested that EQW "memory sliced" quite a bit, suggesting quite a bit of CPU utilization to find and refind the data SoD needs.

As for the game running well a long time ago and not now...

1. Any new programs installed over the years that eat memory?
2. Has the overall system slowed down, as all computers do over time due to wear?
3. Are you sure you played Luclin on the machine? (I played Classic and Kunark EQ <pre-Velious> on a Pentium 1 200 Mhz system with a Voodoo 2 8 MB ram video card just fine. Velious UI upgrades and weather killed that system's ability to run the game.)
4. Did you run all the new models when you played previously? (As, with your low 1 GB of ram, the "Moon era" models of SoD may be too much for your system.)

That's all I can think of atm.
 
Yeah I definitely agree that this is an older laptop, and the lack of RAM could be definitely playing a part in my problem. The graphics card (if you want to call it that) is also a piece of crap so that could be it as well.

No new applications that I can remember... same old stuff pretty much. I used to play WoW on this computer and just recently installed Wotlk on here, but there were no hardware changes.

I did have Luclin installed previously when it worked before... i believe i had up to the Dungeons expansion installed. As for the models, i haven't tried yet but i'm going to get rid of all the luclin models and see if that helps. I updated my drivers however, and nothing. :(

The weird thing is that it's slow motion and not normal game lag or skipping. WoW lags and the framerate is low at points, but EQ will be fine, then go slow-mo, and be fine for awhile, and do it again. It's really weird!

Thanks for the responses! :)
 
1 meg of RAM is fine, especially if you're not 2 boxing.

This sounds more like either a video driver issue or some kind of cpu issue. People have seen this happen with dual core machines, when the game is being executed on both cpu's.

I'm thinking since it's not a dual core, it's probably a video driver issue.

It could also possibly be an issue where your machine is setting itself to a slower cpu speed to save power but I'm only guessing. That sounds like what the laptop to home/office switch does though, but you might want to check if the home/office setting is set to allow a power-saving mode or not.
 
crunchy said:
People have seen this happen with dual core machines, when the game is being executed on both cpu's.
Click to expand...

Having the same slowdown issue running a dual core. Followed all the tips for fixing multiple processor issues though and nothing works - binding affinity, imagecfg, amd dual core optimizer... Pretty lost at this point.
 
eskimo said:
Having the same slowdown issue running a dual core. Followed all the tips for fixing multiple processor issues though and nothing works - binding affinity, imagecfg, amd dual core optimizer... Pretty lost at this point.
Click to expand...

Is it happening all the time or just once in a while?

If it's just once in a while, check if windows update is running.

If it's all the time, check if there's a firewall or something intercepting packets. Generally, i don't see this as causing visible slowdown in movement. It's more likely to cause lag than effect screen movement.

Also, are you abolutely sure your game is running only on one cpu? If you're 2 boxing, both should still be running on the one cpu, not one on each. At least, so I've heard.

Btw, ARE you 2 boxing? And if so, does it happen when you only single-box? Are there any situations you've noticed that it doesn't occur?
 
Im playing on the same laptop as i have always done, and i never really had any problems, could even dual box, not very well, but i could.

Now i too experience this problem. I use a dual core 2 1.66 processor with intergrated POS grapics.

No idea what is cause this either, my connection seems to be ok /shrug.
 
Two things to try.

1.) Buy a bottle of canned air, and possible remove just the encasing and spray out the laptop of and dust that may be trapped.

Generally laptops will slow down the hotter they get, if there is a dust build up this happens faster and can reduce performance.

2.) Check in your bios for a setting called SpeedStep. If you have this option disable it. Basically what it does is it will downclock your processor the hotter it gets. If #1 is happening this could greatly reduce performance.
 
Experiencing the similar Slow Motion issue

I know this thread is quite old but I've run into a similar issue.
I notice it even at character select. The characters will animate and spin slowly then speed up beyond normal speed and repeat.

I'm running Windows 8 64-bit with an Intel 2.5ghz dual core, 3GB RAM, and an NVIDIA Quadro FX 570M. At rest my laptopuses about 1 GB of RAM leaving 2 GB for SoD.
I recently upgraded from Windows 7 64-bit where I ran SoD with no issues so I know the hardware is compatible.

I've tried:
1.) Updating my NVIDIA drivers to the latest revision
2.) Binding the affinity to a single processor
3.) Using/Not Using EQW
4.) Playing with screen Resolution

Any suggestions?
 
That's kind of interesting.

Got antivirus enabled? If so, does turning it off help?
 
I turned off my anti-virus (Windows Defender) and Windows firewall. I still see the slow motion game play as soon as I hit character select :/
 
Have you tried what Yami suggested?

"2.) Check in your bios for a setting called SpeedStep. If you have this option disable it. Basically what it does is it will downclock your processor the hotter it gets. If #1 is happening this could greatly reduce performance."

I had a slow motion gameplay issue when using eqplaynice on my laptop. Once I disabled speedstep the problem disappeared.

Maybe try these suggestions by Xardon in this thread?

http://forum.shardsofdalaya.com/showpost.php?p=236509&postcount=13
 
It's a feature!

You need to remove all those government mind probe devices from your computer.

Though seriously, you are the chosen one.
 
I have tried Yami's suggestion, I disabled the SpeedStep option.
The only difference between my laptop now and the last time I successfully played SoD is the OS from what I can tell.
This may be a sign of the end of times for this ole laptop.

I love finding hidden features! :)
 
I installed SoD on my Windows 8 Desktop and it runs well.
I'll try running a VM with windows 7 on my laptop and see if anything changes.
I'm starting to think my laptop is on its way out :/
 
I think I finally fixed it after my 6th attempt at re-installing, although I'm not sure what I did specifically.

I did a complete re-install
Uninstalled .NET 1.1, kept only .NET 4.5
Uninstalled EQ
Verified SpeedStep is disabled
Installed EQ
Patched with SOD
Bind affinity to 1 processor
Patched eq with the fix from "NVIDEA Clipping Bug and Radeon Target Ring Bug Fix!"

I've only played a short while but I did not notice any slow motion. I hope it's fixed.
Thanks you all for your help :)
 
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