C&C Generals: Zero Hour slow loading problem

[IxianMace]

I am having a problem with the game Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour. This involves loading a map to play on online. For some reason, whenever the game starts to load a map, I notice a high level of disk activity (which can last for as long as 10-15 seconds) before the map actually seems to start to load. During this burst of disk activity, the progress bar for loading the map does not move like it normally used to. This happens without fail, and it seems that the map will only load after all other players have already finished loading. Loading any map for the first time online having started the game will result in normal loading times, but any map loaded after this will result in the problem as described above (and I don't want to have to exit and reload Zero Hour after playing on a map to get normal map load behavior).

There is a slight pause after the high amount of disk activity has ended, then the disk activity indicator lights up again, the map progress bar starts moving, and the map appears to commence loading... which by that time all the other players have finished loading long ago.

I do not know what caused this, but I'd like to try to get the game to load a map quickly and normally again. Command & Conquer Generals (not Zero Hour) does not exhibit this problem, and loads maps just fine at normal speed, both online and offline. Zero Hour only exhibits this problem online, loading maps in single player mode result in normal loading times.

I am not running any other programs in the background while I am playing the game online, except for my firewall (ZoneAlarm), which has been configured to allow the game access to the Internet. Defragmenting all my partitions (C/D/E/F) does not help to improve performance. I do not think a virus or spyware is the problem, since I re-formatted my entire hard drive not too long ago, and the problem still existed before the format.

I've also noticed that since I switched to the NTFS file system when installing WinXP, Zero Hour seems to run and load slightly slower than it used to, when under the FAT32 file system. I was thinking of converting one of my empty partitions (E:) to FAT32, then installing C&C Generals: Zero Hour on it, but wasn't able to reformat the partition to FAT32 under WinXP due to the partition being 'in use'. I only want to convert the E: partition to FAT32, while leaving all other partitions untouched. Is there a way to do this?

System specs:

AMD Athlon 1800+ XP

256MB RAM

64MB NVIDIA Geforce 2 MX 400 (using 56.72 drivers)

80GB 7200RPM HD (Four partitions=> C: 11.1GB D: 21.1GB E: 21.1GB F: 21.1GB all using NTFS)

I have attached my DxDiag for reference.

Any help regarding getting maps to load online normally or only converting the E drive partition to FAT32 will be greatly appreciated.[attachment archived by Gobalopper]

[Andrew]

Is your video card updated?

[IxianMace]

What do you mean by that? As in using the latest drivers? If so, no, but I've heard that the 56.72 drivers are the most stable for older generation cards like mine, so I haven't updated to the current 61.77 drivers.

[Nyarlathotep]

Apart from the fact that I miss service pack 1  for Win XP, I don't see anything wrong in your config.

And you're right about the 56.72 drivers from nVidia for older cards. These are the most stale for "older" cards.

When playing Zero hour, do you play fan made maps, or just the maps that came with the game ? You may want to try and see if there's a difference between these two.