CPU being maxed out...

[Arcadius]

Any body else running into the problem of the game maxing out the CPU of all it's resources? And before any body goes blaming the creative sound card I have, this is the same problem I was having before I turned off the sound card and switched the built in PoS sound card. I did read the posts about the sound card issues causing lag, hence my reasoning to turn the card off and default back to the on-board sound device.

I have also checked my video card to make sure it is working and updated the drivers to the newest ones.

I opened the ports used by the game and made sure my router had the newest firmware.

And now I am clueless as to what else may be causing the problem...
Any suggestions would be grateful.

Thank you for your time,
Arcadius

PS: I have a pentium 4 2.6 processor, if that helps any.

[Sigi]

HZ takes all it can get, CPU, RAM, it's a very hungry program.
Besides "maxing out the CPU of all it's resources?" can you play the game?

[AA0]

Most games take all your cpu power to maximize fps, this isn't abnormal at all. Just set hz to low priority and have multitasking run better, it won't affect the game.

[Arcadius]

I can play the game for about 30 seconds at a time then it freezes for about a minute or two the runs again for 30 seconds then freezes again... I can't say I've ever had any game or program use up my whole cpu like this before. It's just really odd, but I will try lowering the priority to see if that helps any.

Thank you for your time again.
Arcadius

[AA0]

You are only noticing the cpu usuage because of a problem, its not causing this. I don't know what is, but you probably have another issue.

[Droth]

this isnt going to sound right on these forums but there is no way to rp this what are your system specs? i'm running an older box but i've made some modifications *grins* to bring it back to life and with everything turned all the way up i only sometimes run into your problem. get back to me and maybe i can help

[Arcadius]

CPU: Intel Pentium 4 2.6
Graphics: Nvidia Geforce 4 128 MB
Audio: *Soundblaster Audigy 2zs (disabled)*
Ram: 2048 MB PC2700 DDR Ram
OS: Windows XP Professional with all updates
Hard disk: 300gig Maxtor

Running Mcaphee for Virus protection and firewall...
Scanned comp for virus' and defragged already, running scan disk on the hard drive right now to check for errors..

Let me know if you need any more info and I'll try to remember this is all just off the top of my head since Scandisk is running currently, so I can't check specifics.

Thanks again,
Arcadius

*Edit* the Audigy is disabled because I was reading that there was some kind of coding issue between the Creative labs drivers and the game...

[tramsan]

Ok, I hope you don't run the virus scanner while playing, because that will indeed produce the kind of issues you've been having.

[Arcadius]

Nah I shut it down.

*Edit* ok Scan disk is done and it didn't find any problems with my Hard drive... So I'm still at a total loss as to what's causing it to happen.

[tramsan]

You should check any other process you have running, google it and make sure it's vital for the functioning of Windows and your ability to play. If not, shut it down and see what happens... Of course, it should go without saying to be VERY CAREFUL while doing this, and research each item very carefully if you don't have prior knowledge.

[Arcadius]

to be honest I just think it's odd that this is the only game it does this with... I played WoW without any problems and thats including an 80 man raid on the undercity. I've played games more graphically enhanced then this without a problem without the cpu maxxing. I'm not saying it's the game that's causing the problem, but rather there is something on my computer that it doesn't agree with, that most other games don't have a problem with... if that makes any sense at all.

Right now I'm playing the game on my father's brand new machine that has nothing but onboard sound and graphics, he also uses more programs that run in the background then I do(including all the same ones as me) and this computer doesn't have the same problem as mine. Only problem this computer has is the graphics looking crappy but that's from the on board graphics.

[tramsan]

Have you upgraded to the latest drivers of everything (except audigy =P) Like graphics card, ATA driver, etc.

[Arcadius]

yup, did that when I first tryed playing the game.. I even uninstalled the drivers on most of them just to replace them with the same driver cause they were already the newest drivers.

*edit* ok this is odd... the game plays smoothly now for the most part for a while roughly 5-10 minutes then lags severly, then goes back to normal after a minute. So I guess it's playable, maybe... I don't know sigh.. I'd build a new computer but can't afford it with working on making the payments for my house ><

[tramsan]

Well... I can't think of any other common issue. Your best bet now is probably to file a support ticket, giving as much information as you can and hope they can tell you something.

Oh, and include a dxdiag log with the ticket... Start menu -> Run -> dxdiag

[Droth]

how high do you have the graphics turned up? my box has a little better vid card and if i turn everything up to high it will wig out on me. try turning everything down to crappy then slowly add things. things like the shadow option dont add all that much and really slow mine down

[thor777]

I once had a problem that occurred when I reinstalled my computer.

I usualy reinstall my computer couple of times a year so it was a rare occurance that it was not working fine as usually.

Here are some things I found out with computer software and xp installations.

1. Sometimes a clean reformat and reinstall from ground zero with the drivers and xp os and everthing cleans things up. Assuming you know how to do this.

2. Right after installing Xp. sometimes you have to make sure the bios firmware on the mother board is sometimes saved on the hard drive is installed properly. some motherboards save bio software on the hard drive for cd roms, usb, ports etc. if the cd is not working at optimal that can cause strange problems where files are not perfectly saved on program installs . problems that occur seems to have no cause at all .

3. default drives. the default drive for the os hard drive is best to be kept at c:\ if its not defaulting to c:\ reinstall or reconfigure to make sure the default is c:\. Reason is most programs are very very complicated animals and need to know where the data and various program modules is. I am not sure if its practical for a programmer to programs installations to be supremely flexible where the default os drive is d: or e: and still work well. This is attempted i am sure but I think to prevent potential problems best to keep main os harddrive set at c:\

what else.. hmm could be many many things but making sure the foundation of the computer hardware and software system is sound will help tremedously.