Lag Spikes/Mini-Freezes! Need help!

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darkcommander
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Joined: Wed May 27, 2015 2:40 pm

Lag Spikes/Mini-Freezes! Need help!

Post by darkcommander »

Hello, so I have occasional lag spikes while playing the game. The FPS goes from around 60 to 25 and the game freezes for no more than a second and then goes back to normal for another approximate 5-10 seconds and then another little freeze and this repeats all the time no matter the visual setting, no matter the speed at which the game is run on. It's not due to me scrolling or moving the camera and this happens early game when nothing is even built. It's really annoying having all these constant freezes for a second occur all the time.

I have i7 processor 2.66 GHz and 9Gb of RAM. And my GPU is decent enough. I used to be able to play this game without lag spikes or freezes(if I remember correctly) but now at the very least I notice them and I would need your help to fix them! Please help me. The game is unplayable for me with these constant mini freezes.

Thank you in advance
Bingeling
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RE: Lag Spikes/Mini-Freezes! Need help!

Post by Bingeling »

Try to remember if you run anything that may use a lot of resources.

If you are pretty sure you do not, use things like Malwarebytes and/or Spybot Search&Destroy to see if anything else may do so without your knowledge.

It is obvious that something has changed on your computer since your "happy days".
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ehsumrell1
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RE: Lag Spikes/Mini-Freezes! Need help!

Post by ehsumrell1 »

Just curious darkcommander, you state you have 9 Gb of RAM. Did you mean 8Gb instead,
or really 9 (which is sort of odd). Also, if so, are all the memory sticks compatible
(i.e. the same mHz ~ 1300, 1800, etcetera)? Did you just add new/different memory? From
what you state, it seems to be either a memory stick issue, or worse yet, a video card
issue (maybe needs reseating in the slot). Just some thoughts to hopefully help.
Shields are useless in "The Briar Patch"...
darkcommander
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Joined: Wed May 27, 2015 2:40 pm

RE: Lag Spikes/Mini-Freezes! Need help!

Post by darkcommander »

It's really 9Gb DDR3 Memory. Also, I haven't changed anything on my computer like new/different memory. I ran a Malwarebytes scan and I quarantined the PUP.Optional things that it gave me but still the same mini freezes. Maybe it has to do with the GPU driver? Because I don't have lag and mini freezes on other games like Civ 5, so maybe my current Graphics Driver that I updated is causing the problem? I haven't played DW Universe since a couple of months so I updated my GPU driver a couple of times since.
darkcommander
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed May 27, 2015 2:40 pm

RE: Lag Spikes/Mini-Freezes! Need help!

Post by darkcommander »

Yes I ran a malwarebytes scan and I quarantined the PUP.Optional things and the game still freezes. As I said in a reply to ehsumrell, the only major thing that could have changed since the happy days is the driver version? Maybe that's what causing the mini freezes. Also I sometimes open my desktop to clean it of dust, maybe my GPU moved?

So far I only see 2 things that could have changed:

My Graphics Driver Version(I heard on another site that sometimes the graphics driver version could cause the problems)
Maybe it physically moved while I was cleaning my GPU?
I didn't change anything that I remember since the time I played DW Universe without mini freezes.
Bingeling
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RE: Lag Spikes/Mini-Freezes! Need help!

Post by Bingeling »

It could of course be something like a hardware failure, or otherwise some driver issue. Posting your DxDiag report would probably not hurt, just in case someone fluent in DxDiag shows up. There is a sticky here that says how to get hold of it.

Changing the graphics driver should be a rather trivial thing to do, at the cost of some minutes waiting.

If desperate and with time on the hands, you could always reinstall windows and see if it helps.
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ehsumrell1
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RE: Lag Spikes/Mini-Freezes! Need help!

Post by ehsumrell1 »

In addition to what Bingeling stated above, try reverting your Graphics driver to the previous
version and see if the lags still occur.
Shields are useless in "The Briar Patch"...
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VPaulus
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RE: Lag Spikes/Mini-Freezes! Need help!

Post by VPaulus »

Try also to disable all background programs in case these are interfering with the normal running of the game. You can do this by running msconfig and disabling all non-windows start-up programs and services.
A tutorial on how to do this can be found below:
https://us.battle.net/support/en/articl ... plications
darkcommander
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Joined: Wed May 27, 2015 2:40 pm

RE: Lag Spikes/Mini-Freezes! Need help!

Post by darkcommander »

Hey, so I know it's not a problem of having other programs in the background, I know about the msconfig and I only run my anti-virus as a startup program, all the rest are disabled. I am now trying to rollback to the previous nVidia driver version. Will give an update when I rolledback and tried playing.
darkcommander
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Joined: Wed May 27, 2015 2:40 pm

RE: Lag Spikes/Mini-Freezes! Need help!

Post by darkcommander »

Hmm rolling back to an older graphics driver version didn't change anything but I think that there is a slight improvement from setting the affinity of the DW Universe process to only 1 of my 7 cores. This kind of helped a little but the problem is still there just it seems like it occurs more rarely.
Bingeling
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RE: Lag Spikes/Mini-Freezes! Need help!

Post by Bingeling »

In one of the last posts of the current "great time for a sale" thread on the main forum, Erik said that DW at most uses 4 cores.

Maybe you have stumbled on a "too many cores" issue with DW, and setting to 3-4 would be "best"? I run on a quad core and have seen no issues like these.
darkcommander
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RE: Lag Spikes/Mini-Freezes! Need help!

Post by darkcommander »

Excellent, I will definitely try using 3-4 cores. Thanks!
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Erik Rutins
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RE: Lag Spikes/Mini-Freezes! Need help!

Post by Erik Rutins »

Which version of DW are you running, darkcommander? Does this lag happen even if you are just sitting at the galaxy screen doing nothing but watching? What kind of game settings are you running (galaxy size, etc.)?
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darkcommander
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed May 27, 2015 2:40 pm

RE: Lag Spikes/Mini-Freezes! Need help!

Post by darkcommander »

Hello, I am not running the latest version of the game, I am still running the same version I was running when I last played the game. Like 1.9.5.xx. The lag happens when the game is running but it doesn't matter if I'm just watching the game run or actually doing something, it will still lag every 5-10 seconds, also whether I'm running in 4x, 2x or 1x game speed it will lag. I run 700 stars and 8x8 sector but I tries running on a small sized galaxy and nothing changes, still mini freezes. And my PC is really good to run this kind of game.
darkcommander
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed May 27, 2015 2:40 pm

RE: Lag Spikes/Mini-Freezes! Need help!

Post by darkcommander »

WOOOOOW, I feel so dumb, I was running an older version of the game and now that I updated the game to the latest patch everything runs smoothly! Damn, it never crossed my mind that since it had been a while since I played couple of patches have been released which may fix my issue! Thank you Erik and everyone who helped me.
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