Machine far above the minimun but unplayable!

[Freddy Hajas]

Hello,

I have 4 machines in my home with 4 MOMOs and I love to play the Race Driver series with my family and friends.

Our worst machine is this one:

CPU Pentium 4 HT 3ghz
MOBO ASUS P4P800
RAM Kingston 2GB DDR 400
VGA BFG nVidia 7800GS OC 256mb AGP
HD 2x 120gb IDE
OS Windows XP Professional SP2

The game is original and patched to 1.2
I'm with the latest nVidia, Logitech (MOMO) and Sound Blaster drivers too...

This machine was formated and I spent the entire last week installing everything and all is working great, except GRID.

in the default settings at 1024x768 was lagging so much, then I reduced to 800x600... no much difference.
I tryed to turn off few things but also didn't changed much... then I went there I chose ULTRA LOW and just turn off everything in the screen (lap info, etc...)

and still have LOTS of BIG lags...

when we reach close the other cars the game become unplayable with so much lags... it's really impossible to keep the car in the street with so many lags.

I can run in this machine (which are installed and running well) these games from Codemasters on 1024x768 at max (or almost there) without ANY lag:

ToCA Race Driver
ToCA Race Driver 2
ToCA Race Driver 3
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2
Rainbow Six Vegas

in the other 3 machines GRID runs very well at max without any problems.

of course I don't expect to run GRID in this machine with high quality graphics/effects, but I should be able to play, at least at minimum...

please help me to tweek this game to be played in this machine which is far better then the minimun requirements.

DXDiag HERE!
http://www.hajas.org/files/BLUEdxdiag.txt

thanks!

[electronichead]

your link doesn't work

which soundcard are you using?

[Freddy Hajas]

I have an Audigy 2 ZS on that machine.

the file is fine, try to right click and save as... tested right now, np.

thanks!

[Freddy Hajas]

Well, I found the problem... which was the AI Players X CPU...

seams that a Pentium 4 HT 3.0ghz CPU is not enough to run the Single Player game even and the most ridiculous low quality...

when I can play Multiplayer without problems/lags with HIGH quality and in 1024x768 in this same machine... so I presume it's the AI Players that consume the CPU, since it's the only difference from SP to MP that I can see.

I'm glad I'll not use this machine to play SP and will just be used to play in MP... but if you had an old CPU even it's above the minimum, if you experience lags when get closer to the AI cars, it's your CPU...

Codemasters should update the minimun system requirements, this CPU is NOT enough to handle the SP game, or at least put 2 requirements, one to MP (the actual one) and another for SP.

for people with problem with MOMO, you need to update your drivers!

aside that, it's all great in my all 4 machines over here, with lots of fun! :D

sad that we don't have AI players in MP this time... a new patch with this should be released, then this game will be really PERFECT!

[Mike80]

Really strange...my computer is similar to yours and I play the game in SP without major problems in normal mode at 1024*768....I have:

P4@3.00 Ghz with HT
1GB DDR3
XFX 6800XT 256MB DDR3 AGP (overclocked@423/701Mhz)
2x 120GB HD
Windows XP Professional SP3
SoundBlaster 1024 Live! with Lifetech's 5.1 surround system
Logitech WingMan Cordless Gamepad


Have you tried some older graphic drivers? my experience tells me that the most recent drivers aren't always the better choice....I'm still using the Forceware 93.71 drivers because the most recent I tried only gave me problems (including not recognizing my TV connected to the S-Video Out...wich I sometimes use to play driving games in my TV)

Have you defragmented your HDs recently? Do you have your graphic card well configured? something is wrong for shure, your machine is a bit better than mine, it should work fine in normal mode....



P.S.- Saudações Lusitanas! :)

[Freddy Hajas]

really weird... but that machine is great to all games with the latest nVidia drivers... and the HD was formated and I did a fresh install of the winXP and all the games that I play... is like new... I don't use this machine to anything else than play in LAN/Internet...

but that's ok, I'll never play SP in that machine anyway... no big deal...

I'm glad it's working the MP... :D

obrigado amigo mesmo assim! ;)