Emperor slows down into slide show mode!

[Karthik]

I'm playing Harkonen campaign and am now at the 2nd last mission(in Caladan). After playing for awhile, I noticed that Emperor slows down to the point that it's like watching a slide show! I don't understand why it happens. Then it will resume normal speed then a few minutes go back to slide show mode again. WTF?!

This never happen to me before, even during the Atredis campaign against the emperor worm. The weird thing is there's no huge army!

Anyway my specs are:

800MHZ

384MB SDRAM

GeForce 4 Ti 4200

Vibra 128

40GB HDD partition to 2 sides

I already defraged and scanned my HDD, just to make sure I ran a few skirmish mission and it worked flawlessy! Please help!

[Terror]

hmmm, that sounds weird... I suggest you check your harddisk free space. Make sure you have at lest 200 mb free on your C: partition.

[gryphon]

This is an option usually used if the video grafics arn't running propperly, although it might also work with game play.

Right click on the shortcut of Emperor, and then select the properties option. You'll then see a text field that has a directory listing, something like "C:westwoodemperoremperor.exe". You'll need to place a +w at the end of this line, resulting in "C:westwoodemperoremperor.exe +W".

[Karthik]

I see I'll try it as soon as possible!

[Skilzat99X]

this happened to me two. but once sumthing got destroyed it sped up. i think it only happened with hark in the game. i think this is cause all of the smoke and special effects of their suff. more fogging=less speed. there should be nothing wrong with your game or computer.

[Karthik]

I think I know why! Th AI is making tons of scouts. An it's slowing down the game to a horrible level!

[Terror]

how many computer players do you have in that game?

[Karthik]

how many computer players do you have in that game?

Um, just like 1 AI I'm pn the 2nd last stage of Harkonen!

[Atomic Mitten]

It sounds to me as if it could be 2 possible things causing your problem.

1: It maybe a memory bottleneck causing your comp to slow down whilst the memory catches up.In this case download and install the latest IDE controller drivers for your motherboard,the best way is to install all new drivers for your particular Motherboards chipsets.

Should be available at the Mobo's web site.

If you don't know what Mobo you have (mobo=Motherboard) then download this free utility,it will give you a summary of all programs ,hardware etc that are installed on your comp,amongst other good and useful information.

http://www.aida32.hu/download

You want the personal system version,second one down the list on the web page.

2:If your running win XP check that your virtual memory settings are correctly set,to do this open Control panel/System/advanced etc.

When you click on change ,windows will allow you to set the amount of harddisk to use when your comp runs out of physical Ram Memory.

If you have say 512MB of Ram memory then set minimum value in the virtual memory box to 2.5 times your Ram., ie roughly 1500MB.

Another trick if you never want to have to defrag your hardrive again, Is to set the minimum and Maximum memory to the same value,ie 1500MB.

Since I did this I don't have to defrag anymore,the reason being when you install or un-install any software,windows virtual memory changes,thus creating fragments of info,when windows loads a program,it searches all over the Hard drive for the bits of info it needs to run the program.

Obviously if these bits are all over the Hard drive and not neatly next to each other,then it will slow down windows alot.That is the reason why people should defrag once a week.

If you set the virtual memory values the same,then the Virtual memory size doesn't change so it doesn't get fragmented.I hope this helps ? :)

[Karthik]

Thanks for all the tips, but unfortunately I've uninstalled it a loooooong time ago! Might give it ago in the near future!