Sudden Lag

[Babarigo]

Hello, a few days ago I noticed that my game was running with an annoying lag. The music and voices of generals or agents skip and there are frequent moments of lag on both the campaign map and the battle map. It has reached the point where the game is unplayable. My computer specs are:
Intel Core i7 CPU
NVIDIA Geforce GTX 560 Ti
Windows 7 OS
Studio XPS 9000

So, I shouldn't be having any problems. I tried lowering the resolution, which helped only slightly, and I re installed the game, but that didn't help either. Any solutions or help would be greatly appreciated.

[irishron]

The game being as old as it is , turn off shadows, grass, lower unit details, building details in a siege can cause this easily, etc.

Run Windows Update and install all software options in case something got missed.

After this, it's the game's fault, not your nice computer. The game is already 6-7 years old.

[Babarigo]

Thanks for the tips, unfortunately it still lags, at least it's slightly better now, but I'm still not sure what caused it to do so all of a sudden. It's been working fine for years, it randomly starting lagging just days ago. Guess I'll just have to wait for either a mod in Shogun 2 or Empire, or wait for Rome 2.

[irishron]

Just started? Have you cleaned out your case recently? Mine's overdue.

[Babarigo]

What do you mean? I'm afraid I don't follow. Do you mean my literal computer case?

[irishron]

Yes, I mean open up your computer case and use a can of compressed air to clean out the dirt and dust bunnies and anything else that is loose.

After you clean it out and before you put the cover back on, start your computer and see if all the fans work.

[Babarigo]

I recently took my computer in for repair, so I don't think that may be the issue, but I will do that soon.

[irishron]

The other reason could be a virus, depending on how reputable they are.

[Babarigo]

I've used Malwarebyte's Anti-Malware on the medieval 2 folder and performed a full scan, but no viruses came up, so hopefully that means I don't have any, or that the program can't find one.

[irishron]

Malwarebytes is good. I'd say you are clean, then.

Have you defragged your computer lately?

[Babarigo]

Yeah I did that sometime recently. But the other night I was looking at "Processes" under Task Manager and I noticed I had two processes, sidebar.exe and DellDock.exe, that both took up a lot of memory and they continually take up more. It seems that they both have a memory leak, and when i stopped DellDock and another process i had in the background, Memeo Instant Backup, the game ran noticeably smoother. So It seems these processes that take up a lot of memory have a much more noticeable impact when your computer is only using one processor core.

[irishron]

Windows sidebar can be disabled. Dell Dock is possible to disable, too.

Have you tried disabling them from even loading in msconfig?

[Babarigo]

Even when I disable most of the big processes that I don't need, the game still seems to lag. While improved, the lag, on lowest settings, is still frustrating.

[irishron]

Is the lag in wide open country? Mountains? Forests? Deserts? Cities?

[Babarigo]

The lag generally is constant on the campaign map, no matter where i am, and i'm usually at a medium zoom out speed, so i'm not extremely close nor am i as zoomed out as i could be. Same thing with the battle map, whether it's during a siege or in the open pastures.

[irishron]

In the Nvidia Control Panel, in the game's profile, is it set for the i7 or the 560ti?

Do you have it set in the same profile Prefers maximum performance?

[Babarigo]

On the NVIDIA Control Panel, the PhysX Configuration is set to auto-select, which has the Geforce 560ti as the processor, though I'm not sure if that's what you're asking for. Also, the Image Settings were at Maximum Quality but I've set it at Balanced, and I'll set it to Maximum Performance to test how the game runs on both and see if there's a difference. If I didn't answer the part about the game's profile, my bad, I didn't find it on the Control Panel.

[irishron]

You'll see the path and the settings in the pic.

I really don't think Medieval2 knows what Physx is much less use it.

[Babarigo]

Ah, thanks. In that case I believe the program is using the Geforce 560ti, and I've set the power management mode to maximum performance as well.

[irishron]

Any better?