Spiral Knights - Game seems to lag for no reason.

Game seems to lag for no reason.

13 replies [Last post]

Sun, 06/05/2011 - 12:30

Kasako

Legacy Username

So this all started randomly on Thursday evening, while I was playing.
It's like my game is lagging. I'll walk a few steps, the game will pause, and I'll end up a few steps away from where I was before. In between pauses it will run fine, but these mini-freezes are frequent. Trying to manage going into a dungeon is hell.
The problem is, I'm fairly certain it CAN'T be lag. My computer is only 3 months old, and it's got good hardware in it.
My internet connection hovers around 1Mb/s during downloads.

Any suggestions here? I basically can't play Spiral Knights and it's a huge pain.

I have a feeling people will want to see computer specs, so here:

AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Processor 3.20 GHz
8.00 GB of DDR3 RAM.
Windows 7 Home Premium
ATI Radeon HD 5670
Dell Studio XPS 7100

That's the most useful stuff I think.
So yeah.

Help please, if you can. This is really bothering me.
I've gone through all the support steps. I've updated Java and reinstalled the game twice now.
It's still happening.
Any help would be appreciated.

Sun, 06/05/2011 - 13:05

novareid

Legacy Username

Refer to this thread:

Refer to this thread: http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/7252
The issue in the above thread may or may not have been resolved by the devs, but I haven't experienced it for a while now.

You may also want to take a look at the Technical Support FAQ to see if any of those suggestions help. If you're using a router, that's most likely the source of your issues (try port forwarding) but that's just a guess on my part.

Sun, 06/05/2011 - 13:49

Kasako

Legacy Username

I think that thread was more

I think that thread was more related to dungeon problems?
This problem occurs every where I am, whether it's in a dungeon or in the Bazaar.

Though I'm not sure what port forwarding is I don't think it'd be a router problem, but it could be.
My computer and internet work absolutely fine with other games. I play Team Fortress 2 and other online games on a regular basis.
Youtube and streaming things work well too.

Sun, 06/05/2011 - 15:46

Dogrock

What version of the ATI

What version of the ATI Catalyst drivers are you using? Some have problems with OpenGL.

Sun, 06/05/2011 - 16:15

Kasako

Legacy Username

This may or may not be what

This may or may not be what you're talking about, but when I go into the properties of my graphics card, it says the driver version is 8.850.0.0.

Sun, 06/05/2011 - 16:33

Dogrock

That is Catalyst 11.5. Some

That is Catalyst 11.5. Some users on HD 4000, 5000 and 6000 series parts have been experiencing what you've described when using these drivers. There has been some success in using the Catalyst 11.5b Hotfix, otherwise Catalyst 11.2 is your best bet.

Sun, 06/05/2011 - 18:49

Kasako

Legacy Username

I tried with the 11.5b

I tried with the 11.5b version, and that didn't seem to do anything.
With version 11.2 though, which exactly am I downloading? Just the Catalyst control centre?

Sun, 06/05/2011 - 19:41

Dogrock

If you like the Catalyst

If you like the Catalyst Control Center you can install the packaged download. If you just want the display driver and nothing else you could do that too. You may have to manually uninstall the current driver first as the installers like to force things forwards and not look back.

Sun, 06/05/2011 - 20:17

Kasako

Legacy Username

Okay, phew. Downloading

Okay, phew. Downloading version 11.2 seems to have done the trick!
I can't thank you enough for figuring this out! I never would have thought to download other driver versions.
Thanks a bunch, is the least I can say!

Sun, 06/05/2011 - 20:27

Dogrock

No problem! Have fun with the

No problem! Have fun with the game.

Wed, 06/08/2011 - 08:33

#10

Vichtorya

How do you identify the

How do you identify the version number from the Driver Packaging Version, and vice versa?

I discovered, thanks to this thread, that my ATI Mobility Radeon 4330 was still running *last year's* driver - but because my laptop is a Dell, I can't install new drivers from the AMD website. I can only upload Dell-blessed driver packages. And Dell wasn't giving me any updates since APRIL 2010. No idea which version of the driver it was, in terms of 10.x or 11.x, but its packaging version was 8.692.1.

Thanks to a bit of advanced Googling, I found a package dated March of 2011 for a different computer model, downloaded it, and installed it.

I am now running Driver Version 11.1, which according to Catalyst Control Center is Driver Packaging Version 8.783.3.0.

I'm really happy to have been able to update even that much. But if the best version for SK is 11.2, I'd like to keep trying to track down a way to install it - either by finding it at Dell's support site in a different computer model's list of recommended drivers, or by finding some third party hack to defeat the OEM lock on driver updates (something like Mobility Modder, only MM didn't seem to do the trick; community says it hasn't worked since 10.1 or something like that).

So... what's the Driver Packaging Version that I should be looking for, for Driver Version 11.2?

Thanks!

Wed, 06/08/2011 - 08:35

#11

Vichtorya

Hmm. Not sure that editing my

Hmm. Not sure that editing my previous post worked.

I seem to have answered my own question, 'cause I couldn't stop poking the internet about it. According to this page, Catalyst Version 11.2 is Driver Packaging Version 8.821-110126a-112962C-ATI .

And if anyone has any advice as to hacking my way around Dell's iron fist on my driver updates, I'd love to hear it.

Thanks!

Wed, 06/08/2011 - 15:59

#12

Dogrock

Vortexae, usually you can get

Vortexae, usually you can get around this driver block by fully uninstalling the Dell driver beforehand (works quite well with Intel + Dell). You shouldn't actually need a modded driver after that as ATI/AMD combined mobility and desktop drivers into a single package.

Try following the "Black Jelly Texture" instructions, only with the applicable ATI driver, of course.

That method should help you avoid having to fiddle with the more complex driver version numbering.

Wed, 06/08/2011 - 21:29

#13

Vichtorya

Done all that, actually...

Actually, that link you gave me - that's exactly what I spent most of last night doing. I uninstalled EVERYTHING. First, I went into the Programs And Features menu and uninstalled from there. I started by using the ATI Install Manager's "Express Uninstall Everything" feature (may not be exact wording). Then I systematically removed everything left in the Programs And Features menu that said ATI. THEN I did just what your link's instructions said - I pulled up the Display Adapter properties under Device Manager, went into the Drivers tab, and pressed the Uninstall button. By the time I was done, "Display Adapter" was gone from the Device Manager list.

Then, after having done all that, I rebooted. When the computer came up again, Windows immediately automatically installed Microsoft's default "4300 series" driver. It was done before my Start Menu was even entirely available, it was that automatic. I guess Windows 7 abhors a vacuum.

At this point I tried to install 11.2 from the package I got from the AMD website. And it didn't even TRY to install a driver. Seriously! I did this several times. When I chose the "custom" option at install, there were only two components in the list I could choose to have installed: the install manager, and some developer kit thingie. The driver itself? Catalyst Control Center? Both missing!

Finally, just so I could use the computer again, I re-downloaded from support.dell.com the package Dell seems to think is current for the Inspiron 1564 (the one from April of last year). Running it gave me the same install wizard, but the custom install had about two or three more items on the list of things I could select for installation, two of them being the driver itself and the Catalyst Control Center. Then, when I found the 11.1 / 8.783 version floating around support.dell.com for some nVidia laptop (and why not for mine? I would like to know! *gives Dell the stink-eye*), I had the same success. As long as it was a Dell-packaged version, the driver and CCC components installed. If I got it from AMD, those components were entirely missing from the install wizard's to-do list.

I don't know what to make of that except that Dell effectively OEM-locks the driver update process.

The only thing I haven't tried - and I didn't have time to try it today - was uninstalling down to nothing again, letting the Microsoft default drivers install themselves (so that I actually have a Display Adapter item in the Device Manager to get to), and then pointing the Device Manager's "Update Driver" process at the appropriate c:\ATI\support directory for the 11.2 files. If I do that while 11.1 is installed, Windows just tells me "Windows has determined that you have the latest driver." Maybe if I do that when I've uninstalled down to the generic 4300 series driver, it won't tell me that.

As for more complex driver version numbering, I think that just goes with the territory when it comes to ATI drivers. AMD's download site calls them 11.2, 11.5 etc. at their download site, but if you pull up CCC, it'll show you the Driver Packaging number that's 8.783 or the like. Just like y'all were saying upthread: Kasako says "CCC tells me '8.850'," you say "Oh, that's 11.5." Or I find at Dell something released in March of this year that turns out to be 8.783, and only after Googling around can I find that correlates with 11.1. I really wish I could find a master list correlation of Catalyst Versions (11.x) to Driver Packaging Versions (8.xxx). It would make things a bit easier.

Well, hopefully by upgrading to 11.1 I'll have less lag problems than I have been. Do you think upgrading from 11.1 to 11.2 would be a significant improvement? Or should I just rest on my laurels here?

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Game seems to lag for no reason.