How do games speed up and slow down?
#1
There have been a couple of games recently that have seemed to go faster than usual. One single player, on multi. Is there anythign that could happen to speed up games to watcdh out for?

By speed up, I mean monsters go faster, attacks seem to happe nfaster, and things seem to run faster.
I may be dead, but I'm not old (source: see lavcat)

The gloves come off, I'm playing hardball. It's fourth and 15 and you're looking at a full-court press. (Frank Drebin in The Naked Gun)

Some people in forums do the next best thing to listening to themselves talk, writing and reading what they write (source, my brother)
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#2
Minionman,Mar 21 2005, 07:43 PM Wrote:There have been a couple of games recently that have seemed to go faster than usual.  One single player, on multi.  Is there anythign that could happen to speed up games to watcdh out for?

By speed up, I mean monsters go faster, attacks seem to happe nfaster, and things seem to run faster.
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Sometimes when you lag out, it speeds up to catch up to where you should be.
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#3
adeyke,Mar 22 2005, 12:35 AM Wrote:Sometimes when you lag out, it speeds up to catch up to where you should be.
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That explains the multiplayer, as another person in the game was complaining about lag. Just need to figure out single player now.

Edit after some playing: Now that I remember and play a little, it did happen after slows in single player games as well mostly.
I may be dead, but I'm not old (source: see lavcat)

The gloves come off, I'm playing hardball. It's fourth and 15 and you're looking at a full-court press. (Frank Drebin in The Naked Gun)

Some people in forums do the next best thing to listening to themselves talk, writing and reading what they write (source, my brother)
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#4
Minionman,Mar 23 2005, 02:14 AM Wrote:That explains the multiplayer, as another person in the game was complaining about lag.  Just need to figure out single player now.

Edit after some playing: Now that I remember and play a little, it did happen after slows in single player games as well mostly.
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Multishot Shenk is your best bet, I suppose (if that creature can be run on single player). His extra fireworks usually mean one graphic update per two to three seconds on my machine. Lovely stuff.
"My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fibre, and that I am therefore excused from saving Universes."
-- Ford Prefect
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#5
Yogi_Baar,Mar 23 2005, 05:23 AM Wrote:Multishot Shenk is your best bet, I suppose (if that creature can be run on single player). His extra fireworks usually mean one graphic update per two to three seconds on my machine. Lovely stuff.
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Nope. mostly has happened in river of flame, although in that case maybe the lava speeds up and slows down the computer. It may also happen in ice caves, but I don't remember well.
I may be dead, but I'm not old (source: see lavcat)

The gloves come off, I'm playing hardball. It's fourth and 15 and you're looking at a full-court press. (Frank Drebin in The Naked Gun)

Some people in forums do the next best thing to listening to themselves talk, writing and reading what they write (source, my brother)
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#6
Video card, processor, and RAM? Also, still running AGP, or PCI express?

It's a hardware issue. Also, if you are running on a notebook, the gameplay is ALWAYS (unless it's a notebook with desktop vid card) run about 10% slower.

Anyway, only fix I know of is to turn off your automap (except where necessary) (will help where processor and some of vid processing due to overly is concerned) or upgrade your vid card to a higher level card. Also, you could try switching from D3D to glide or DirectDraw, and that sometimes solves the problem.

Most in-game bugs have been fixed (most nortiously Duriel) where the game itself caused the lag.
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#7
It's on the same computer with same hardware I've been using for a year and a half now, and I've only noticed it in the last few days. Maybe extra installed stuff slows it down for a bit, so the game speeds up. Most of the slows have been explained in this thread.
I may be dead, but I'm not old (source: see lavcat)

The gloves come off, I'm playing hardball. It's fourth and 15 and you're looking at a full-court press. (Frank Drebin in The Naked Gun)

Some people in forums do the next best thing to listening to themselves talk, writing and reading what they write (source, my brother)
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#8
Like I say, most of what's been explained, such as Shenk, Caves, and fire rivers, etc. have many overlays (D2 is ALL sprite-based). Each character, effect, etc. is another overlay that bogs your proc and video card, and if your card is small, the ram too. Shenk, Ice Caves, and River of flame have a switching overlay (constantly changing image) which is what causes the slowdown.

So, without knowing anything about your computer, all I can say that will help you speed up the system is to make sure that in those areas where it slows down, agian, make sure the automap is OFF, and you only use it to orient yourself, and only for a moment, as with a weaker system, the slowdown that is caused by actually moving with your character while the automap is on, (and the subsequent speed-up) can last anywhere from 10-20 seconds.
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#9
The advice is good, but I was just wondering where the slowdowns came from. They dodn't screw up the game playing that much, just were strange.
I may be dead, but I'm not old (source: see lavcat)

The gloves come off, I'm playing hardball. It's fourth and 15 and you're looking at a full-court press. (Frank Drebin in The Naked Gun)

Some people in forums do the next best thing to listening to themselves talk, writing and reading what they write (source, my brother)
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#10
Minionman,Mar 25 2005, 04:12 PM Wrote:It's on the same computer with same hardware I've been using for a year and a half now, and I've only noticed it in the last few days.  Maybe extra installed stuff slows it down for a bit, so the game speeds up.  Most of the slows have been explained in this thread.
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If you're just noticing it in the past few days you may have a spyware running on your computer, or a trojan/virus. I would run the usual spyware scans first, Spybot S&D and Lavasoft Ad-Aware.
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#11
BFD,Mar 27 2005, 11:01 PM Wrote:If you're just noticing it in the past few days you may have a spyware running on your computer, or a trojan/virus. I would run the usual spyware scans first, Spybot S&D and Lavasoft Ad-Aware.
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That's probably what it is. I've been running spyware catchers for the past few weeks, and extra stuff gets in every week. One reason I started this thread is to see if the anythign else causes a slowdown or whether it was the spyware that sneaks in after all.
I may be dead, but I'm not old (source: see lavcat)

The gloves come off, I'm playing hardball. It's fourth and 15 and you're looking at a full-court press. (Frank Drebin in The Naked Gun)

Some people in forums do the next best thing to listening to themselves talk, writing and reading what they write (source, my brother)
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#12
I've noticed the overhead AutoMap can sometimes cause slowdowns too. I'm just wondering -- why does an "automap" cause such delaysl/lags? It's just a 2D (not 3D?) simple line graphics, isn't it? or maybe not?
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#13
Quite a while ago, I remember someone (Sirian? Charis?) reporting about a game on b.net where it seemed the server was going at hyperspeed. It was as if time on the server was sped up by a large amount.

-- CH
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#14
dta,May 8 2005, 08:09 AM Wrote:I've noticed the overhead AutoMap can sometimes cause slowdowns too. I'm just wondering -- why does an "automap" cause such delaysl/lags? It's just a 2D (not 3D?) simple line graphics, isn't it? or maybe not?
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It is a 2D transparent overlay that is rendered above the main image. It slows your machine down a bit because bliting operations (layering of .bmps and .gifs to create a composite image) are computationally expensive.

Now, you might say, 'but I own a GeForce28000 gtxpml, with 2 terrabit 1024 thermo-overdrive graphics piplelines in sterio, and it still runs slow!'

Diablo2 is a hybrid 2D/3D graphics engine, where most of the images you see are 2D pre-rendered sprites, lit using 3D lighting. Because most of the game is 2D, you get a limited performance gain from having a fast 3D card. 3D accelerators are great for computing 3D math, but they largely sit idle when working with a sprite based engine.

Anytime your computer trys to draw a lot of sprites at once, D2 will slow down. Your overhead map is one way to increase the sprite count. Joining a hell baal run with 7 zookeeper necros is another....
"Bestest D2 Rocket Jumper EVER"
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