strange slowdown in rallisport and mafia- unreal 2k3 runs fine

[klatty]

ok so in microsoft rallisport and mafia i have this program where the game runs smoothly, but every 30 seconds or so i get MASSIVE slow down. im runnin 512mb ddr 226 ram , xp professional, athlon 1700+, and a radeon 8500 128mb LE, overclocked to 270/255...tried with it clocked at the regular 250/225 (i know...powered by ati, not built, but hey it was cheap), and it still does it.

the hard drive does not access during this slowdown at all so its not like its swaping to the hard disk. i have the latest omega drivers which fix most of the slowdown problems i was having with rallisport (the stuttering)....return to castle wolfenstein runs perfectly fine, so does unreal 2k3 at 1024x768 with ALL options set to their highest. i tried running rallisport at 800x600 with some options turned down and i STILL got slowdown. that should NOT happen

[rzb932]

All i know is that Mafia takes alot of something. I got an XP 2000, 512 megs DDR 333, and a Radeon 8500 250/600(300x2). I run it at 1280x1024 and it runs ok. it does slow down when i get into areas where there are lots of cars and people. When i drive out of the city the framerate is fine. If i read those clock reading right you have very slow memory. Thats only 510 max speed. this might be the problem. I heard the Radeon works better when it has the same memory and core settings. Like the Retail 275/275. The memory is definately a concern. I think the Radeons memory just sux or something, mine should be doing better. Oh, and since you have a close setup compared to mine, do you get any glitches in the shadows and does the street in the dark look like a bunch of squares. Like the road having an outline around the textures? It just bugs me.

[klatty]

well i can push the memory harder. ive had it up to 285 with no artifacting but it scares me haha. i mean its runs fine in every other game but these two. i mean unreal 2k3 from what i hear takes a "monster" system to run....

i dont get those black lines but a lot of the on screen HUD stuff gets messed up once in awhile and it looks like i have random and like an alphabet flying all over the screen. kinda weird.

[rzb932]

I really dont know what the problem is then. My computer slows down when playing Mafia. Maybe these Radeons cant play Mafia that well. It doesnt slow that bad on my system. If you have the Retail version of these games,(using the cd) maybe your cd rom needs replaced or something. You can go to the hardware manager and check if the cd rom is set to be in PIO mode or if its in DMA mode. There is a difference on my system. PIO mode slows my whole computer down but DMA mode doesnt. Try this it might work.

[klatty]

hmm naw thats not it. im running the cds as virtual cd rom images on my 2nd hard drive actually so that should be way faster than any cds.

[NDD]

Memory/clock speeds is not an issue here.
That's the case with ATI. They just got more problems.

Ran Mafia, Rallisport Chellenge and UT2k3 without any problems at 30+fps 1024x768x32, all settings generally maxed out.

1GHz T-Bird.
GF3Ti200.
:)

[klatty]

Originally posted by ND

That's the case with ATI. They just got more problems.



thanks ND, i think that just solved all our problems...wait...no that didnt help at all , my mistake.

[NDD]

Sorry, didn't mean to sound that bad ...

Still, what I'm saying is true, and directly related to your problem, even if it doesn't answer it.

You fix one - another stops working. Sad, but that's what happens when you go cheap.

Try updating your chipset drivers, install latest Catalyst v3.0 and DX9.