Re: Periodic sluggishness in games

[Joel Konkle-Parker <jjk3@msstate.edu>]

Ron Johnson wrote:
> On Tue, 2003-11-11 at 18:03, Joel Konkle-Parker wrote:
>
> > I'm experiencing periodic sluggishness when I play 3d games like Unreal 
> > Tournament (natively) and Max Payne (WineX). It's not a framerate 
> > problem, because there's no choppiness, it's periodic (a minute of 
> > slowness, a couple minutes of normal, a couple of slow, et c.), and 
> > there's no apparent relation to the complexity of the action when it 
> > happens. The effect is as if the game itself is going into a slow-mo 
> > mode (yes, I know, Max Payne has a slow-mo mode, but that's not what's 
> > going on here).
> >
> > I have a new Dell 5150 with an nVidia GeForce FX 5200 using the latest 
> > nVidia-supplied drivers. I don't have any apps running while I'm playing 
> > the games, save for Gnome and its applets and such.
> >
> > Does anyone have any clue what could be the problem here?
>
>
> Can you ssh in from another system, and run top(1) in P mode?
> Maybe some intermittent process is jumping in.

Assuming that any such process would be running even when I'm not in a 
game, would simply watching top for a while work?

Unfortunately I don't have another system to ssh from.

As a test, I tried playing UT from twm, with none of the Gnome stuff 
running. The same problem occurs. It appears to be kind of progressive: 
it's fine for a good while, then slows for a moment, then is fine for a 
shorter time, then slows, then fine, slows, fine, slows, et c.

Just from sitting here watching top for a while, it appears my highest 
memory hog is Mozilla Mail checking for new messages, but that never 
gets above 4%. I've run the game without Mozilla in the background, with 
the same behavior.

I've never noticed this effect in Windows.


--
Joel Konkle-Parker
Webmaster [Ballsome.com]

Phone     [+1 662-518-1636]
E-mail    [jjk3@msstate.edu]