Six Million Dollar Paladin. This is a bit of a headscratcher

[Oro]

My char moves in slow motion. The graphics are smooth as silk, but happens as if you're watching the Six Million Dollar Man. My movement rate is as if encumbered, even with an empty backpack and no armour. This happens regardless of what char I log on. I have to say it looks utterly cool in combat mode but is equally just as utterly unplayable.

I'm running a 3.06GHz P4 laptop with 1GB RAM, 90GB HDD, GeForce FX 5200 and connecting on a 56K internal modem. I am running Win XP Pro.

I have no other applications running, and the effect is the same in both windowed and full screen mode. I have tried disabling various services and background stuff to see if that makes a difference and it makes none. Have tried running without antivirus and firewalls but again no difference.

I have reinstalled the game and it has made no difference.

This does not happen in a particular area, but again happens regardless of what character I log on and what zone I log it on.

I have tried running the game on the SI client instead of the ToA client and the same thing happens.

Just to add to the confusion: If I use Mouselook to rotate or move the camera, it happens at normal speed as fast as I can move the mouse, but this is the only thing that does. The graphics while rotating with the mouse are silky smooth as well.

Anyone got any ideas?

 

[Honza]

1. download all available patches for Windows XP and implement them
2. download newest drivers for your graphic card ( I think it has to be driver from your notebook developer company, not nVidia ).
3. if it all fails, try to install windows xp home edition, it's being said it works faster with notebooks, dunno, don't have notebook to try it.

 

[Ssera]

1. download all available patches for Windows XP and implement them
2. download newest drivers for your graphic card ( I think it has to be driver from your notebook developer company, not nVidia ).
3. if it all fails, try to install windows xp home edition, it's being said it works faster with notebooks, dunno, don't have notebook to try it.

how is it at all possible, in any way shape or form, that XP Home is better than Professional? Genuine questions here, I've always thought Home was the antichrist of all OS systems....?

As to the question at hand: do you mean that your character still moves at the same speed (relative to everyone else) and it's just the animation of your pally running that is in slow motion or that he really is running slower?

 

[Honza]

To be honest, I really don't have slightest idea why XP home work faster than XP Pro.... and why it's so ONLY on laptops...

So it's only your character's animations what is slowed down? Then there is some compatibility trouble between your graphic card driver and DAoC. You can always try to simply put classical nVidia detonator drivers (or Forceware who damn know how they call em now). It's about 50%-50% for beeing succesfull/need for reinstalling Windows after this. But as I said, first check with newest OFFICIAL drivers (don't use beta drivers or some hacked drivers etc...)

 

[Brunore]

XP home faster than Pro??

total shit, they both use the same kernel, the only diff between the 2 is one can utilise 2 cpus and can join a domain.

And yes, I do know what I am talking about.

Does the sound play slow as well?
Does this happen in other games?
Have you tried reinstalling DX if it happens in other games?

 

[Honza]

I agree, they both use same core and theoreticaly there should not be any significant performance difference between those two. BUT, if you don't believe me, try it

And yes, I really know what I am talking about.

 

[Brunore]

There is no diffrence whatsoever, I have used both on the same machine and diffrent ones.

By your logic, everyone using XP pro and playing daoc on a laptop should be having problems and should buy home instead...

Do you work for M$ sales by anychance?

 

[Honza]

No, I don't work for $$$. Neither I am saying XP Pro are cause of that strange behaviour of DAoC. I just made test with my friends when we took 5 laptops w/o OS, installed XP Pro, benchmarked, formated HDD, installed XP Home and benchmarked. On all 5 laptops, there was performance boost with XP home. Fact is all laptops had Celeron CPUs, we had no means for wider testing with full mobile P4 CPUs. Another fact is I would never install XP home on my desk computer, because I consider it uke:
But we are getting offtopic with this.

 

[Gahn]

Uhm

Try launch TOA in compatibility NT 4.0 sp5 mode (under properties of the icon, last tab).

Let us know

 

[yaruar]

XP home faster than Pro??

total shit, they both use the same kernel, the only diff between the 2 is one can utilise 2 cpus and can join a domain.

And yes, I do know what I am talking about.

There are a few more differences than that. XP home is essentially a stripped down version of XP pro with a lot of the functionality removed from it. Such as remote desktop connection, protected file storage, etc.

Although interestingly enough I didn't realise that XP home is more optimised for applications which might be the issue here.

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_home_pro.asp

 

[Oro]

Thanks for replies chaps.

Have tried compatibility mode for Win NT and Win 2K which makes no difference. Windows XP is fully patched up to date.

I have tried both the nVidia reference drivers and the manufacturer's drivers. Sound seems to be ok, but I tend to run with only effects and have
ambient sounds and music switched off.

I need to stick with Win XP Pro partly for work stuff which I do hence the rather meaty laptop.

Just to add to the confusion: occasionally, and for no apparent reason, everything runs fine. It can be when something is tweaked or not but is not permanent, usually its for the remainder of a session then its back to wading through treacle the next time I log on. This suggests an app or internet conditions interfering but I've not been able to track down any services or applications that might be interfering.

I wondered if there was something happening with keyboard input given that the mouse look works fine but haven't found anything that might be causing a problem there either.