Major slowdown with a decent PC

Trav_R · 11-02-05, 03:46 AM

Okay, I think I already know the solution to my problem, but it requires spending a few hundred dollars on a video card, and I want to be sure that's what I need before I do it. I've got a 2.4Ghz P4 with 1.5 GB RAM. I have an old GeForce FX 5200 video card with 128 mb of RAM. I can run half life 2 great at medium settings, along with many other modern games at medium to high settings. Now, with SH3, at some points in the game the slowdown is very noticeable. Most of the time I don't do 1024 time compression because it is way too jumpy, but I can understand that. However, on my last patrol, I noticed that it was being jumpy even at 8x when on the bridge! I know that the game does lots of calculations for all ships in the Atlantic and such, so I can understand it slowing down at 1024, but at 8x? I figure with a 1.5 GB of RAM, i'd be okay, but I guess not.

When Alt-Tab out of the game and run the task manager and go to the performance tab, I'm down to 200 MB of free memory, and the page file is up to an entire gigabyte. I've never played a game that used that much memory before. Do you guys notice that amount of memory being used up when you play too or is something going weird on my machine?

So, that's sort of two questions in one - first is my video card. If it's good enough for half life 2, why not SH3. I'm not sure if it is the problem or not

Second is, could it be the massive amount of memory that's being used up? It doesn't seem normal to have a game take up a whole gigabyte of the page file, plus several hundred megs of RAM. That's pretty outrageous to me, and I wonder if other players' PC's devote that much memory to the game and if there's something I can do about it.

I've seen some computer experts on these forums, I know you're around! I'm pretty good with the things too, but mainly on the programming/game playing side, not so good with video cards and figuring out where massive hunks of memory are going.

So, I'd be glad to hear any suggestions on this, and thanks to anyone who has any.

11-02-05, 03:46 AM	#1
Trav_R Ensign Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Oklahoma, USA Posts: 227 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	Major slowdown with a decent PC Okay, I think I already know the solution to my problem, but it requires spending a few hundred dollars on a video card, and I want to be sure that's what I need before I do it. I've got a 2.4Ghz P4 with 1.5 GB RAM. I have an old GeForce FX 5200 video card with 128 mb of RAM. I can run half life 2 great at medium settings, along with many other modern games at medium to high settings. Now, with SH3, at some points in the game the slowdown is very noticeable. Most of the time I don't do 1024 time compression because it is way too jumpy, but I can understand that. However, on my last patrol, I noticed that it was being jumpy even at 8x when on the bridge! I know that the game does lots of calculations for all ships in the Atlantic and such, so I can understand it slowing down at 1024, but at 8x? I figure with a 1.5 GB of RAM, i'd be okay, but I guess not. When Alt-Tab out of the game and run the task manager and go to the performance tab, I'm down to 200 MB of free memory, and the page file is up to an entire gigabyte. I've never played a game that used that much memory before. Do you guys notice that amount of memory being used up when you play too or is something going weird on my machine? So, that's sort of two questions in one - first is my video card. If it's good enough for half life 2, why not SH3. I'm not sure if it is the problem or not Second is, could it be the massive amount of memory that's being used up? It doesn't seem normal to have a game take up a whole gigabyte of the page file, plus several hundred megs of RAM. That's pretty outrageous to me, and I wonder if other players' PC's devote that much memory to the game and if there's something I can do about it. I've seen some computer experts on these forums, I know you're around! I'm pretty good with the things too, but mainly on the programming/game playing side, not so good with video cards and figuring out where massive hunks of memory are going. So, I'd be glad to hear any suggestions on this, and thanks to anyone who has any.