Prince of Persia: Sands of Time running "slowly"...

I just bought SoT on Steam and I've been having trouble with it.

The problem is mentioned here as well:

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=755737

Essentially, although the framerate stays at 60fps while I'm playing, it "lags" frequently. Basically the animation slows down for a few seconds ever second or so. So, I'll get like 3 seconds of slow-motion and then a 1 second burst of "speed" when it returns to what the proper speed of the game is. Very annoying.

My specs:

2.0ghz core 2 duo
2 gigs RAM
8600m GT

One person on that other thread there said that they fixed the problem by using an AMD application to optimize the core speeds on their processor. I have a feeling that this problem might be due to running the game on dual core processors, but I'm not sure how to fix the problem.

Any help would be great =)

And yes, I noticed there are a couple other topics similar to this one, but they had no solutions posted unfortunately.

EDIT:

Oh, and also, before anyone asks, I've tried messing around with settings. None of the in-game settings make a difference. I saw someone recommend turning off V-sync. You can't do it in game, but I forced it off through the nvidia control panel and still no dice.

 

Nevermind, found an answer finally. It was, as I thought, due to running on a dual core processor.

To quote from another forum:

( http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/p...how_msgs.php?topic_id=m-1-42099101&pid=589721)

"It's because of the dual core processor. This is an old game which doesn't know what a dual core
processor is. Because of that it runs in slow motion for some reason.

You can bypass this by first setting all graphics to low (don't forget to turn off VSync). Then, while
in-game, hit ctrl+alt+del. Open the task manager. Normally the screen should now return to the
game, but the task manager is open, so hit alt+tab to go to the task manager. Right click "POP1"
in the "processes" tab. Choose: "Set affinity" from the drop-down list and uncheck "CPU 0" in the
small box that pops up.

This makes it so the game runs on only one core, which should speed up the game. However,
on the graphically more intense parts of the game it might still run slow. Too bad, even
though PC's these days are MORE than powerful enough to handle games like this, you still
have to set all graphics to low... There should be a patch for this, but since the game is so
old I don't see Ubisoft doing that.

BTW: the same method can be used on Prince of Persia: Warrior Within and Prince of Persia:
The Two Thrones. Because those will also run slow on dual core computers."

Works like a charm.

 

Open the task manager while the game is running, go the game process, right click and set the affinity to only one core.

 

game is awful btw. Looks like a ps2 game.

 

Uh...

are you aware it IS a PS2 game? It came out in 2003, what did you expect?

Also, playing it now, it's running well like 85% of the time, but it does still slow down even on one core. Oh well.

EDIT:

Hmm, after more playing it seems that the problem hasn't gone away. It's better than it was, but still not great. Any other possible ways to deal with this?

 

I have the same problem

 

well the game is old running on multiple core.. if youre running vista or 7.. i got a game loader here


just download the game loader here.. PoPSoTMulticoreCPUFix.zip

 

Strange
I have it running just fine maxed out with AA at 40-60 FPS, without any of the slowdowns you mention

I have a P8400

Seems strange