I have noticed recently that if I am running SK in windowed mode, with another application behind it (in particular google chrome), the SK client will at some point begin to lag and drop a lot of frames. At first I thought minimising chrome was fixing my problem, but then I noticed that even dragging the SK client window a couple of pixels in any* direction would also fix the problem.
Apologies if this has been noted before, I hope this suggestion helps others.
It lags for me too, and sometimes when I'm not running anything in the background. I know it's not my connection because more data intensive games don't lag as badly as this one does. ooo really need to get their act together, it's been an issue for months now, and why pay for a game where lag makes it unplayable in some circumstances.
@NoirLapin: Your argument is going in 2 different directions, and you don't even realize it.
@starlinvf: I am on win7 64bit, I dont even need to kill chrome, just minimizing it seemed fine - as I said, even just dragging the SK window can help, after doing this it seems to run super smooth. I dont know if this jogs a Java process or something when a user does this, or if there is some kind of battle for Java process priority with apps like Chrome (I am taking a completely random guess here).
I did today have a problem with it pausing every 10 seconds, I tried my mentioned methods and they didnt fix it, checked task manager and SK had gone to 1gig mem usage, killed it, re-opened and it was fine again. This only seems to happen if I have the SK client open for over (approx) 4hours.
@NoirLapin: I am sure OOO dont want it to lag for you - there will be a reason somewhere for the problem, identifying it can be one of the hardest things with computers. If it is lagging all the time I can suggest turning options down, turning vsync off, and reviewing existing process in task manager and or settings with your GFX card.
My spec is:
3.4ghz cpu
6gb tri chan mem
2x 5770
ocz vertex 3
I run the game with most things turned down (mainly due to the rom twins levels), also, I blame Java :`P
I did today have a problem with it pausing every 10 seconds
What Catalyst driver are you using? This problem is a lot more sever with the spring versions of the Catalyst Drivers. Also, if you get problems specifically while running Chrome it could be a problem with how your graphics driver is behaving with a GPU accelration enabled browser and resources not being allocated properly. (I know Cat 11.5b created problems using SeaMonkey (Firefox based) with GPU hardware acceleration.)
10.5 for me, I run 5770's in crossfire and they seem to be the best drivers for most games. I play a lot of BFBC2 and its definitely a priority for FPS over SK.
I dont have a problem with dropping frames normally, I just drag the client or minimize whatever is in the background and its back running smooth - just wanted to post something in-case other people were having the same problem.
The pausing issue is separate, I probably shouldn't have mentioned it, I am guessing its a mem leak that creeps in after hours of having the client open.
Heres some food for thought. When moving windows running 3D apps, it has a tendency to pause the display until you release it. So is the OS halting the parts of the thread, or just halting the display output? In the latter case, this could cause frames to back up into the buffers and force it to either drop frames, or flush something in the queue.
Any programmers out there familiar with the mechanics?
Are you using Win7? And what happens if you kill chrome after the game is launched?