game slowing down

Coot · Post by **Coot** » Wed Feb 18, 2004 3:47 pm

The game is seriously slowing down on me. When I enter/exit buildings, dungeons etc. or when reloading...
Even when my pc turns around fast, or enters an new region, the game freezes for a few seconds.
The problem is that it's getting worse.
I've a Pentium 4, 2.66 GHz and 512 MB RAM... that should be more than enough. I use RegCleaner on regular basis and I don't need to defrag my hard disk. Could Windows XP be giving me trouble?
Does anyone else have this problem and more importantly

, how did you solve it?

Sojourner · Post by **Sojourner** » Wed Feb 18, 2004 4:29 pm

I had problems with choppy performance, too, in the beginning. Messing around with DirectX settings helped. As usual, make sure your drivers are up to date, and your game is patched. Morrowind is a resource hog, so shut down virus-scan programs and other unecessary background processes like Instant Messenger. Also, check this Morrowind-tweaking thread.

python · Post by **python** » Thu Feb 19, 2004 3:55 am

turn off shadows all the way 2 zero, set view distance 2 80, think thats about it

Coot · Post by **Coot** » Thu Feb 19, 2004 8:45 am

Thanks for the replies. The problem's not completely solved but at least the game is playable again.

The funny thing is that for the longest time, I had no problem at all while playing. Game performance has just been sloppy for the last few days.

python · Post by **python** » Thu Feb 19, 2004 4:54 pm

clear space on harddrive the game is hungry 4 empty space and also try getin a crack 4 your game then computer wont check 4 cd every knwo and then

Coot · Post by **Coot** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 4:46 am

I've 94,2 GB free space on my harddisk, that ought to be enough methinks... What do you mean by getting a 'crack'??

Galak · Post by **Galak** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 7:05 am

CRACK

A CRACK IS A ILLEGLE PIECE OF HARD WERE THAT TRICKS THE GAME INTO THINKING THAT U HAVE THE DISK WHEMN U DON'T U MAY ACTULY HAVE THE DISK IN WHICH CASE A CRACK IS NOT NEEDED

Galak · Post by **Galak** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 7:06 am

mORROWIND SOMETIMES SHUTS OFF ON ME WHEN I AM IN THE MIDEL OS SOMETHING I ASKED MY FREIND WHY HE SAID BECAUSE MORROWIND IS SO BIG THE COMPUTERS AUTO SYSTEM CHECKS SWITCH IT OFF ACIDENTLY NO WAY AROUND THIS

Coot · Post by **Coot** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 7:37 am

Re: CRACK

Originally posted by Galak
A CRACK IS A ILLEGLE PIECE OF HARD WERE THAT TRICKS THE GAME INTO THINKING THAT U HAVE THE DISK WHEMN U DON'T U MAY ACTULY HAVE THE DISK IN WHICH CASE A CRACK IS NOT NEEDED

Ah, ok. I see. Thanks... but I do believe I've enough diskspace.

Monolith · Post by **Monolith** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 2:38 pm

try out the Morrowind FPS Optimizer. A great tool with which you can set constant fps and it will try to keep them by changing the distance, shadows and so on.

Coot · Post by **Coot** » Sat Feb 21, 2004 3:12 am

I'll try the Optimizer, thanks. But the biggest slow downs occur while loading something... a saved game, a region, an interior or exterior.

Monolith · Post by **Monolith** » Sat Feb 21, 2004 7:26 am

hum.....open the morrowind.ini and change this:
[ThreadPriority=0] => [ThreadPriority=1]

Removes the frequent brief pauses for loading terrain and replaces it with less frequent but longer loads.

Maybe it will help, maybe not.

Coot · Post by **Coot** » Sat Feb 21, 2004 7:56 am

I'll try that, too. Thanks.

Coot · Post by **Coot** » Fri Mar 05, 2004 3:38 am

Blast it all, even after trying all the suggestions posted above, the times that the game is 'loading exterior' keep getting longer and longer... and they're quite frequent too! It really is taking the fun out of the game!!
Does ANYONE have any ideas how to fix this? If only partially?

Moleman · Post by **Moleman** » Fri Mar 05, 2004 4:42 am

As you have such a powerful cpu and especially if the game worked OK before, I don't think it's the game itself that's causing slowdown. And therefore tweaking the game probably is not going to solve it (but of course tweaks mentioned in this thread might improve the performance beyond the original speed once you find the cure for these slowdowns).

Try to remember if you have installed any plugins after the game worked OK, and also you can test running the game without plugins (you might run into problems with loading a saved game without all the plugins that were used b4 so start a new game for testing purposes).

Also, close any programs/processes that run on the background while playing the game, with an exception of FPS optimizer, of course

. Do this with task manager (shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+Esc work on WinXP) or by closing programs from their icons in task bar.

And check if you have any malicious ad/spyware on your computer, recommend using this program: Spy-Bot S&D

Fer'or · Post by **Fer'or** » Fri Mar 05, 2004 7:13 am

Re: CRACK

Originally posted by Galak
A CRACK IS A ILLEGLE PIECE OF HARD WERE THAT TRICKS THE GAME INTO THINKING THAT U HAVE THE DISK WHEMN U DON'T U MAY ACTULY HAVE THE DISK IN WHICH CASE A CRACK IS NOT NEEDED

First of all:

Second: That's not a crack, it's a no-cd patch which is not illegal... And it's not hard were, it's software.

Coot: In the morrowind.ini at the third line is this:
Max FPS=XXX

You could try changing that.

Coot · Post by **Coot** » Fri Mar 05, 2004 8:06 am

Holy helping hand, Moleman!

I downloaded Spy-Bot and although it didn't improve the gameplay, it did show me how much crap there was on my computer. I was really amazed.
I did, however, turn off some programs that were running in the background and that actually helped some. Thanks.
Plug-ins I don't use - not right now anyway. It's my first run through the game and I want to play the vanilla version first.

@Fer'or: should I increase or decrease the MAX FPS?

Monolith · Post by **Monolith** » Fri Mar 05, 2004 8:40 am

ehm....doesn't the FPS Optimizer mess around with that line?

Moleman · Post by **Moleman** » Fri Mar 05, 2004 9:14 am

Monolith: AFAIK, it doesn't.

Coot: try lowering the Max FPS value. You could try the same amount there which is your display frequency at the screen mode you run Morrowind, for example 75 or 60. But I don't believe that has nothing to do with long load times...

Coot, pls post your hardware specs. At least motherboard make and model (or at least what chipset it is using), Windows version, display card and hard-disk.

Fer'or · Post by **Fer'or** » Fri Mar 05, 2004 9:39 am

Originally posted by Coot
@Fer'or: should I increase or decrease the MAX FPS?

I've increased it... But you should experiment a bit with it until it runs proper.