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meter

• VanHalenLover 1,422 Posts

  Wed, Apr 14 2010 6:52 AM

  Richard4168:

  Norton 360 is gone. It slows everything down way to much.

  Symantec has a long standing history of being a resource hog, I agree with all the posters above who voices the opinion. Avg's free version isn't the easiest to find (no shock there) and once you find it, you still have to be careful to click the right choices, they don't give it away for noth...... oh, forget it, just follow the path that says free.....

  http://free.avg.com/us-en/homepage

  edit: Don't be surprised if your next AV program won't install properly the first go around, Norton has a habit of leaving a trail behind, even after uninstalling. It's darn near spyware in and of itself.

  This will help:

  http://service1.symantec.com/support/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039

  and if you are not comfortable cleaning your registry, it is highly recommended to get to that point, few things are more critical to keeping your system running efficiently.

  Here's a good one:

  http://www.rosecitysoftware.com/reg1aid/

  Funny thing is, you can't use enough different reg cleaning programs. Each find things the others don't.......

   

   

• Richard4168 4,309 Posts

  Wed, Apr 14 2010 6:58 AM

  I had a thought. Does the amount of Internet speed (Mbps) directly correlate with Adobe flash (meter)? 

  It seems the higher the Internet speed, the smoother the swing meter. I read a thread the other day where a guy said he had 30 Mbps Internet speed and his swing meter lag was non-existent.

  Also, does RAM have anything to do with (flash) meter lag? The same guy said he has 8 Gigs of RAM as well.

  I just wonder if that's not the answer to the meter stutter. Mbps + RAM.

  Any thoughts on this?

• VanHalenLover 1,422 Posts

  Wed, Apr 14 2010 7:12 AM

  Richard4168:

  I had a thought. Does the amount of Internet speed (Mbps) directly correlate with Adobe flash (meter)? 

  It seems the higher the Internet speed, the smoother the swing meter. I read a thread the other day where a guy said he had 30 Mbps Internet speed and his swing meter lag was non-existent.

  Also, does RAM have anything to do with (flash) meter lag? The same guy said he has 8 Gigs of RAM as well.

  I just wonder if that's not the answer to the meter stutter. Mbps + RAM.

  Any thoughts on this?

  I wouldn't call any of it a direct correlation RIchard, as there are always numerous processing methods happening. Higher memory, processor speed, multiple cores, bandwidth will ALL make for an overall better experience, but you have to remember that your computer can only do one thing at a time, and it is all prioritized and scheduled by your processor. That's when memory comes in to play. Memory is used to hold the most important and highly prioritized tasks, because it is faster than reading it from the hard disk.

  The settings for your hard disk cache (virtual memory) are also very important to optimizing a system, and most are unfamiliar with this step. For the novice, it is best to allow Windows to set and maintain the virtual disk size.

  in control panel, select 'system', then under the 'advanced' tab select the 'Settings' button under the 'Performance' section. In there, select the 'Advanced' tab and look for the 'Change'  option under 'virtual memory'.

  The best setting depends on hard drive size, free space, etc, compared to the amount of actual memory installed. If it isn't already selected, select 'System managed size' and click ok, then reboot the system for the changes to take effect.

  There is a ton of information available online for this, if you want to experiment with different page file sizes and see how they do - just don't do it until you are comfortable finding this, so you can undo any changes that don't help. And ALWAYS document where you started, and the changes you make as you go, so you KNOW what worked and what didn't.

• VanHalenLover 1,422 Posts

  Wed, Apr 14 2010 7:20 AM

  Richard,

  If you want an interesting perspective of the changes your machine goes through while playing, open the Windows task manager (Ctrl+alt+delete) and click the 'Processes' tab. Click twice on the header for the 'CPU' column so it shows the highest load processes at the top (it is dynamic and real time, and will show real time load changes). Let the computer sit idle for a few minutes and watch what happens, then do some normal activities on the pewter, and see what happens to the cpu load. Then fire up WGT and watch what happens during game play (and WHEN!) 

  The performance tab also has stats on memory usage and page file usage, and is an interesting tool also, if you are in to that kind of thing.

• Richard4168 4,309 Posts

  Wed, Apr 14 2010 8:06 AM

  Wow VH, that is some great advice.

  Thanks for the lesson. I'm learning something new everyday.

  I have an Acer Desktop with only a 160 Gig hard drive, and I share it with my wife, so I only have about 12 Gigs left of space with a few high Gig games, pics and other things stored on the hard drive. My processor is only dual core with only 2 Gigs of RAM. My meter lag isn't really all too bad like I said in past posts. My Internet connection is running at 10+ Mbps. I called and had Charter test it a couple of nights ago.

  Just so I understand. We need a fast quad core processor, lots of hard drive space, and a lot of RAM (memory) to have a fully optimized system. All this coupled together should give us a smoother meter, or flash quality across the board, right?

  Does the quality of RAM make a difference such as the Latency?

   

• YankeeJim 25,827 Posts

  Wed, Apr 14 2010 8:18 AM

  VanHalenLover:

  Let the computer sit idle for a few minutes and watch what happens, then do some normal activities on the pewter, and see what happens to the cpu load. Then fire up WGT and watch what happens during game play (and WHEN!) 

  What would you consider normal, or acceptable?  Mine never gets above 50% CPU usage and stays mostly around 14-30%. There's always minimum 1.4 GB RAM free (4 total)

• VanHalenLover 1,422 Posts

  Wed, Apr 14 2010 8:40 AM

  YJ,

  If you are talking about at idle, not doing anything, I would say the CPU utilizations should typically bounce between 0-10% with occasional spikes to 20% or so, depending on what you have running on your system, within your browsers, etc. I have 4 windows open with aprox 20 tabs at most time, and also have Outlook and Outlook express that poll for new messages on a regular basis.

  If you are referring to sitting idle, 14-30 continual seems a bit high, but again, I don't know what you have running on your system.

  I am on a 32-bit system right now, which will only recognize and utilize a bit over 3 Gig of RAM, and have aprox 2.2GB available at idle. When I'm playing, my available RAM drops to aprox 1.8GB, and page file usage increases very slightly, which is correct, as it SHOULD write to RAM for faster results. Generally the page file is only used when memory is maxed out, or close.

  Did your free RAM numbers come from the 'physical memory' box (Shows in Kb), or were you reading the PF Usage that shows the results in GB?

  Processor usage for me jumps to 40-70% when playing, which is where the majority of most lags probably occur for most people. While the processor isn't maxed out, it is a much higher and much more consistent load during game play than what it sees during most typical daily tasks. This, to me, is a big part of successful gaming.

  Having the newest and fanciest processor will do you no good if the communication channels to and from it can't keep up. Motherboard Bus types, sizes and speeds are the critical link here, and unfortunately are not adjustable, short of replacing a motherboard. What you buy is what you get, and I'm guessing that the majority of users have very little knowledge of this when making a purchase. Off the shelf store bought computers typically don't even have these numbers advertised on them, and most people don't know to even question this.

  Newer computers are getting better at addressing this, but there is still a lot of room for improvement. Part of selling these systems retail is keeping costs low, and the easiest way to do this is to trim costs on motherboards, memory, and hard drive. CPU's are a selling point and normally not an issue. But believe you me, you can put the exact same CPU in 4 different motherboard and the results you get will be quite different.

• Richard4168 4,309 Posts

  Wed, Apr 14 2010 8:42 AM

  YankeeJim:

  What would you consider normal, or acceptable?

  The CPU on the score card screen read an avg. of 35 at idle.

  FireFox was the only process that showed any type of value and it too was a 35 avg. at idle. Avast (Anti-virus program) showed a 02 avg.

  I'm using game booster, so I imagine all the other processes where shut off and all showed 00.

  Screen loading in the game showed hits in the upper 90's range, and CPU was at 99% and never changed much at all. Memory usage was about 450,000K avg.

  Jim, I imagine your sitting pretty good. Those numbers aren't bad at all compared to mine. Are those your numbers in game mode?

• VanHalenLover 1,422 Posts

  Wed, Apr 14 2010 8:49 AM

  Richard4168:

  My Internet connection is running at 10+ Mbps. I called and had Charter test it a couple of nights ago.

  Test it yourself too Richard, it fluctuates at times and you are most likely getting a rated MAX speed from your ISP. You can test your actual sped any time you wish. LINK

  Just so I understand. We need a fast quad core processor, lots of hard drive space, and a lot of RAM (memory) to have a fully optimized system. All this coupled together should give us a smoother meter, or flash quality across the board, right?

  Does the quality of RAM make a difference such as the Latency?

  I don't want to say that all of this will fix the meter, but they ALL give you a better chance at success. See the BUS speed comments in the previous post. RAM speed and latency fall into the same category. RAM is the best bang for your buck to optimize a system and keep it responding quickly as it is the FASTEST storage available. More memory = more stuff that can be accessed in the most efficient manner.

  This is why, for example, I get a lot better results on my partition where I have nothing else but a clean version of Windows installed, a AV program, Firefox, and game booster. It is the exact same hardware, just less demand on the system and more resources available for the game to use!

   

• VanHalenLover 1,422 Posts

  Wed, Apr 14 2010 8:51 AM

  Richard4168:

  I'm using game booster, so I imagine all the other processes where shut off and all showed 00.

  Nope, lol. It's good at shutting down all unnecessary processes, but if you watch the 'processes' tab in task manager before/after you run game booster, I think you'll be surprised on what is still running when GB is deployed and does its thing.

   

  edit: and how many of are disciplined enough to reboot our computers before we play? While windows is better at memory utilization that it was with older versions, it STILL isn't perfect. Shut it down, let it sit for several minutes to clear your memory, and then fire it up and run only what you need to play, and that will help, too!