21 replies to this topic

[AirPowerBro]

I just bought a new laptop dell xps 1530 with 4 gig ram and good spec and ra2 lags bad. Prowinz also has the same laptop with the same problem!? I had tried changing the compatibility to windows xp sp2 and ticking run as administrator and it sped it up but it still lags. This is both online and skirmish.

Help please

[t00much4u]

I just bought a new laptop dell xps 1530 with 4 gig ram and good spec and ra2 lags bad. Prowinz also has the same laptop with the same problem!? I had tried changing the compatibility to windows xp sp2 and ticking run as administrator and it sped it up but it still lags. This is both online and skirmish.

Help please

http://xwis.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=137033

[AirPowerBro]

Thanks toomuch

OK I tried:

1. After updating to version 1.006, open your RA2 folder.
2. Delete language.mix.
3. Reinsert your Red Alert 2 CD.
4. Click Explore CD.
5. Open folder INSTALL.
6. Open Game1.
7. Copy this language.mix to your RA2 folder.

But it still lags bad in skirmish halfway through the game. It is super fast at the start for the first 2 mins on speed 6 but then slows right down and is jumpy. I then tried sticking the csf in ra2 directory but that didnt work either

http://ra2maps.net/temp/ra2.csf

Only thing I havent tried is turning off hard ware acceleration how do I do that?

If that doesnt work do you have any other ideas? I have the Nvidea GeForce 8600M GT graphics with 1440 by 900 reso

Edited by Carl, 24 January 2009 - 11:17 PM.

[dotnet]

any other ideas

Yes, install XP

[AirPowerBro]

Yes, install XP

I have an xp downgrade disk but I heard it an be a pain to install on vista? Does anyone know anything about this?

[AfC]

I never had any problems with it, as I said on msn, try the other disk and completely uninstall then reinstall if it's not too much trouble mate.

[AirPowerBro]

I never had any problems with it, as I said on msn, try the other disk and completely uninstall then reinstall if it's not too much trouble mate.

I just did that and tried it before installng any patces or anything else. The game still lags in skirmish mode right from the beginning!?

Would it be better in any of the other compatibility settings? Or may it work best with the box compatibility box unticked?

[NeoGrant]

do you have the graphic card (NVIDIA) and the driver software (NVIDIA)?

[t00much4u]

Thanks toomuch

OK I tried:

1. After updating to version 1.006, open your RA2 folder.
2. Delete language.mix.
3. Reinsert your Red Alert 2 CD.
4. Click Explore CD.
5. Open folder INSTALL.
6. Open Game1.
7. Copy this language.mix to your RA2 folder.

But it still lags bad in skirmish halfway through the game. It is super fast at the start for the first 2 mins on speed 6 but then slows right down and is jumpy. I then tried sticking the csf in ra2 directory but that didnt work either

http://ra2maps.net/temp/ra2.csf

Only thing I havent tried is turning off hard ware acceleration how do I do that?

If that doesnt work do you have any other ideas? I have the Nvidea GeForce 8600M GT graphics with 1440 by 900 reso

http://www.pixelmetrics.com/Tips/VidBlank/...cceleration.php

[NeoGrant]

Thanks toomuch

OK I tried:

1. After updating to version 1.006, open your RA2 folder.
2. Delete language.mix.
3. Reinsert your Red Alert 2 CD.
4. Click Explore CD.
5. Open folder INSTALL.
6. Open Game1.
7. Copy this language.mix to your RA2 folder.

But it still lags bad in skirmish halfway through the game. It is super fast at the start for the first 2 mins on speed 6 but then slows right down and is jumpy. I then tried sticking the csf in ra2 directory but that didnt work either

http://ra2maps.net/temp/ra2.csf

Only thing I havent tried is turning off hard ware acceleration how do I do that?

If that doesnt work do you have any other ideas? I have the Nvidea GeForce 8600M GT graphics with 1440 by 900 reso

oops didn't see that, also try

Just recently I got Call of Duty 4 and I noticed that it was EXTREMLY choppy all the time in gameplay. I read a couple of posts on this site and found out the problem was Vista and graphics, which both went hand-in-hand. So I figured that the graphic card I have (NVIDIA) and the driver software for it may help. I went to the NVIDIA controll panel and I found a way to fix the laggyness. This is only for NVIDIA graphics card and NVIDIA driver software users.

1. Right click on the desktop of your computer
2. Open up the NVIDIA controll panel
3. If prompted, click "advance" in the dialog box. If not prompted, make sure you are going to edit the advance options.
4. On the left in the "slect a task" box, under 3D Settings, go to "Manage 3D Settings"
5. In this, go to the second tab, labeled "program settings"
6. Click add and add the game's main .exe file
7. Next, go to the bottom text box and scroll down to where it says "Texture filtering - Quality"
8. Click on the drop box and select "High preformance"
9. Click the apply button on the bottom right of the screen

What this feature in the NVIDIA Controll Panel does is it overrides the program's preformace and graphics setting to make it to whatever you change in the 2nd text box. What we did here is we made it so NVIDIA overrides the game and puts it on poorer graphics quality, but it improves the gameplay SIGNIFICANTLY to get rid of the choppyness/lagg. The poorer quality graphics is worth it. This works with every game you can install on Windows Vista.

Anyway, I hope this helped anyone who was going to switch back to Windows XP just to resolve this.

[AirPowerBro]

http://www.pixelmetrics.com/Tips/VidBlank/...cceleration.php

When i go to turn it off I cant click the change settings button. It is opaque and says 'your current display driver does not allow changes to be made to hardware acceleration settings'. Do you know what I need to do in order to get it to allow the change?

Thanks

oops didn't see that, also try

I will give this a try thanks

[NeoGrant]

just so you know to find exe, C:\Westwood\RA2\game.exe

[AirPowerBro]

just so you know to find exe, C:\Westwood\RA2\game.exe

I just tried that and I thought it had worked but then again after 2 mins it went super laggy. I have tried everyones suggestions so far except turning off hardware acceleration which I dont seem to be able to do. Does anyone have any others?

Thanks

[Rifle]

I just tried that and I thought it had worked but then again after 2 mins it went super laggy. I have tried everyones suggestions so far except turning off hardware acceleration which I dont seem to be able to do. Does anyone have any others?

Thanks

yea come to yr, my vista works fine there but not tryed ra2

[Fenring]

Please please please... stop suggesting things like putting the CSF in the directory or rolling back a MIX file to a pre-patched version. These have absolutely NOTHING to do with the problem or why they persist. Video lag comes from the newer operating systems having trouble with the video on newer displays, which has to do with DX versions, not files. Much can be attributed to hardware acceleration but even that's not a good fix since other games and applications use it fairly widely.

In ra2(md).ini;

[Video]
VideoBackBuffer=no

That alleviates the stress with the videos being out of sync since it essentially disables hardware acceleration. If that doesn't work, disable hardware acceleration system wide as a test but revert when you have your results.

And game lag is literally all in the game code and in the way is handles rendering objects on the screen. The software wants to render instead of using DirectDraw but DD tries to do it anyway and bogs the game down with unnecessary actions. This modified DLL has a high success rate of reducing lag on most configurations. However, it's not 100% since a few machines here and there experience a black screen with audio and mouse input but no video. That means it does not work on your configuration. However, I am completely unsure of the success rate on Windows Vista but I know it's higher on Windows XP of both flavors.

[AirPowerBro]

Please please please... stop suggesting things like putting the CSF in the directory or rolling back a MIX file to a pre-patched version. These have absolutely NOTHING to do with the problem or why they persist. Video lag comes from the newer operating systems having trouble with the video on newer displays, which has to do with DX versions, not files. Much can be attributed to hardware acceleration but even that's not a good fix since other games and applications use it fairly widely.

In ra2(md).ini;

[Video]
VideoBackBuffer=no

That alleviates the stress with the videos being out of sync since it essentially disables hardware acceleration. If that doesn't work, disable hardware acceleration system wide as a test but revert when you have your results.

And game lag is literally all in the game code and in the way is handles rendering objects on the screen. The software wants to render instead of using DirectDraw but DD tries to do it anyway and bogs the game down with unnecessary actions. This modified DLL has a high success rate of reducing lag on most configurations. However, it's not 100% since a few machines here and there experience a black screen with audio and mouse input but no video. That means it does not work on your configuration. However, I am completely unsure of the success rate on Windows Vista but I know it's higher on Windows XP of both flavors.

Thank you for replying. I currently have (see below) so should I add in VideoBackBuffer=no at the bottom?

[Video]
ScreenWidth=1024
ScreenHeight=768
StretchMovies=no

[Fenring]

That's how it's done.

[AirPowerBro]

That's how it's done.

OMG it actually works. The dll file caused the screen to go black like you said. But when I removed it and just kept VideoBackBuffer=no in the ra2.ini it works fine.

Thank you so much.

Problem solved.

[Fenring]

Ha, and truefeel started to doubt me. Oh how wrong he is.

Glad that worked for you.

[AirPowerBro]

This has worked on many other computers to help speed up gameplay even if people werent experiencing jumpy movements. I don't know if you wanted to suggest or pin this information as it seems to improve performance by a significant amount. Thank you again from me and my friends.

[ProWiNz]

ye thx m8

[lordtib]

I had alot of problems with vista the first thing to do is update all your hardware drivers (accually save them to a cd) then make sure u have the vista sevice pack installed it fixes many problems even some you dontt know about. (make sure u have you newest drivers on saved on a cd first) after you upgrade vista service packs your hardware may not work properly untill you install the newest drivers.