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    Decreased gaming performance

    Discussion in 'Gaming (Software and Graphics Cards)' started by Sentient_6, Mar 12, 2008.

  1. Sentient_6

    Sentient_6 Notebook Consultant

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    Lately it seems like my computer can't run as well as it usually does. I started up Half-Life 2 again to start a new file and it's been choppy in some places, whereas before it was absolutely smooth, no slow down. I play it with everything maxed at 1680x1050 (including AF and AA maxed) and it never slowed down before. Now it gets choppy in some areas and it's really been bothering me.

    Same thing for other games. I was also trying Call of Duty 4 again and that also started slowing down in areas it never had before.

    Any ideas?
     
    Sentient_6, Mar 12, 2008
    #1
  2. davron

    davron Notebook Evangelist

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    Make sure your power options are set to "High Performance" (100% of CPU)
    Update your drivers, to the latest ones from laptopvideo2go.com
     
    davron, Mar 12, 2008
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  3. flynnaz

    flynnaz I am a Night Elf Mohawk!

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    Make sure you dont have any spyware stuff on your system, use windows defender or threatfire, spybot. Also defrag your harddrive. Make sure you don't have a bunch of programs running in the background you do not want running, use msconfig.
     
    flynnaz, Mar 12, 2008
    #3
  4. Satyrion

    Satyrion Notebook Deity

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    defrag us cc cleaner and AWC 2
     
    Satyrion, Mar 12, 2008
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  5. Jalf

    Jalf Comrade Santa

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    What are your pagefile settings? That can have a big impact on performance too, at least under XP (And I'd assume under Vista as well, although I haven't tested it)
     
    Jalf, Mar 12, 2008
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  6. Jalf

    Jalf Comrade Santa

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    Got this PM, figured there's no reason why it shouldn't be posted here. :)
    The answer is simple. Let Windows manage it.
    If you manage it yourself, you're also telling Windows that it should try to use the whole thing, even when that isn't necessary. So if you manually set a big pagefile, games will slow down to a crawl, because Windows tries to page everything out constantly.

    And if you set a small pagefile instead... Applications may crash, which isn't a huge improvement.
    So just let Windows manage it. That'll give you good performance (because Windows will then only use the pagefile as much as is necessary), while avoiding crashes.
     
    Jalf, Mar 12, 2008
    #6