Graphics problem, trees of magical framedrops?

[Crypth]

Oi, this aint for the fainthearted users i spose. I'll begin with explaining the bug. While running/panning in areas with trees, every second it seems to drop a few frames. Something like smooth->freeze->smooth->freeze aso. Now, i'm not the average joe with little or no knowledge about computers, so i'll explain the odd part. Opening the nvidia tray menu, while running through the same area, makes it all go smoothly (can press nvidia tray bar, then quickly before it opens, click daoc, to make the meny stay up, and all is smooth, but works just the same if daoc is not active window) Running inside DL for example does not make gfx choppy, so its not really performance problems in that sense.

So.. this is the setup, and what i've checked/tried, if anyone have any ideas about what the traybar could possibly do on entrypoint, i'd like to know!

MSI 865PE Neo2 Platinum OnboardAudio (realtek) GBLAN (Realtek 8110s)
Prescott P4 3.0ghz, 2x512meg Corsair Value CAS 2.5 mem
Gainward GF4Ti4200 4xAGP
Creative SBLive 5.1

Im running Windows XP sp1 with all updates and directx 9.0c
(Same problem occurs on a Windows XP with sp2 integrated)

Tried the following:

• Detonator drivers: 61.77, 61.76, 56.72, 42.30
• Tried windows original nvidia drivers aswell.
  (however, with old puter, amd1400+512meg sdr, 61.77 ran smoothly)
• Changed performance to quality/performance/high perfomance in nvidia settings
• Changed anisotropic filtering to off/program controlled
• Changed antialiasing to off/program controlled
• Disabled onboard sound
• Removed SBLive card from puter
• Installed creatives drivers for SBLive
• Reinstalled ToA (the problem occurs in both SI and ToA clients)
• Reinstalled Networkcard (after running regmon i noticed windows repeatedly checking DHCP settings, after reinstall of NIC and tcp/ip, no weird registry scanning, but problem with daoc still there)
• Checked filescanning with filemon, nothing unsual.
• Tried with/without skin precaching
• Tried fullscreen/windowed (problem is more obvious is windowed, but exists in fullscreen aswell)
• Tried with/without atlantis trees/surfaces and all water/shadow settings
• Changed priority for game.dll, from lowest to realtime

Probably done a few other things aswell, but as i said, only thing that really makes any differance is opening the damn menu and have it open.. if you dont know what menu i mean heres a picture ...

Atm, nothing is fun about upgrading computer

Any suggestions?

 

[Daedalus]

I have that too. Think it's an engine bug tbh, I got it since 1.69.
I have an ATI mobility9 and a PentiumIV 2.6. Another remarkable thing is that I don't have it /always/. It seems to be random and it changes every port.

 

[Crypth]

Well, it was fine with my athlon 1400, same graphics card, same drivers. And the oddest part is that it works fine with that nvidia menu up