FPS Issues

[Lucifer]

Recently obtained a computer from my mom's work. Every once in a while they replace and update their equipment, and since our laptop's screen cracked we were in need of a second computer around the house.

I'm not very tech-savvy, but from my limited perspective it's not a terrible computer; I don't believe there's anything about it that should stop it from smoothly running Stick Online in any case. However, it doesn't. The starting menu is slow and awkward, and after I log in my account the game begins at 30fps, then drops to a constant  ~20-25.

I've done some basics; CCleaner, Malware Bytes, updated my graphics drivers, and closed all other unnecessary running programs in task manager as well as startup programs with msconfig. As of now I'm going to try running Defraggler, see if that helps. Any other thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated, I've included a Speccy Snapshot and .txt dump for more detailed information.

Basic System Specs
Windows XP Professional 32-bit SP3
Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz
2.50 GB Single-Channel DDR @ 199MHz
256MB GeForce 6200
117GB Seagate (60GB Free)
Speccy Snapshot
Speccy .txt

[havok]

Recently obtained a computer from my mom's work. Every once in a while they replace and update their equipment, and since our laptop's screen cracked we were in need of a second computer around the house.

I'm not very tech-savvy, but from my limited perspective it's not a terrible computer; I don't believe there's anything about it that should stop it from smoothly running Stick Online in any case. However, it doesn't. The starting menu is slow and awkward, and after I log in my account the game begins at 30fps, then drops to a constant  ~20-25.

I've done some basics; CCleaner, Malware Bytes, and closed all other unnecessary running programs as well as startup programs with msconfig. As of now I'm going to try running Defraggler, see if that helps. Any other thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated, I've included a Speccy Snapshot and .txt dump for more detailed information.

Basic System Specs
Windows XP Professional 32-bit SP3
Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz
2.50 GB Single-Channel DDR @ 199MHz
256MB GeForce 6200
117GB Seagate (60GB Free)
Speccy Snapshot
Speccy .txt

If i remember right 30fps is all your can get on SO and  20-25 is not bad.

but only other thing is look into your graphics settings

[ARTgames]

It sounds like overheating. Anyway something else you can try is press Ctrl+Shift+Esc (it opens taskmaster) and goto the "Processes" tab. Once there look under CPU and see if anything is using a large part of CPU other than stick online. If its an application you know stop running it or uninstall it. If you don't know it Google it or ask here. And if you just want to go for it then end it with the "End Process button" when its selected.

If you don't see anything using that much CPU than it could be that the PC is dusty and is getting hot while running. And when it gets hot it could be slowing down your PC not to get too hot. This could explain why it starts out fast and slows down.

Hope one of those helps you! :)

[Lucifer]

@HavoK
I know that SO's maximum FPS is 30, my problem is that the game runs at a constant ~20-25fps or lower. I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "check your graphics settings", could you elaborate? If you mean updating my graphics driver, I have indeed done that.

On a side note, quoting my entire post is not really necessary; it's generally assumed that posting in a topic is responding to the original poster unless otherwise stated.

@Artgames
I have closed any unnecessary programs that I know about with task manager, and nothing takes more than a few percents out of my CPU. I haven't done an in-depth look at what each process is, I'll try that.

Thanks.

[ARTgames]

It looks like your doing everything ok from what i can see. I would start seeing if its just needs dusting.

Also you can try and set SO CPU priority higher then normal. (your probably already tried that) It could also be hiding malware but i'm not sure.

[Meiun]

The first thing I would try would be updating your graphics drivers. For nvidia geforce based cards you should be able to get the latest drivers here: http://www.geforce.com/Drivers

[sly 3 4 me]

I have this same processor on the old desktop I'm using, although it is 3.2 GHz. It's not great, but not bad. Pretty outdated, but it gets the job done. It runs SO with 30 fps for me. The only time it has ever been lower than that is when I tried to run two clients on it with a VM, then the second had 15 FPS and the first still had 30 FPS. Other than what was suggested about checking if anything is eating up your CPU, you could try running it at a lower resolution. From what I can see of the second link, it looks like your Automatic update is running (It looks like you have SO open, so I'm assuming it's logged in)  and installing updates. This could be why. Other than that, the one svchost.exe which is using the 317MB of the CPU. I looked it up and couldn't find what it was. I remember there was a utility which let you see the files associated with the svchosts, but I'm too lazy to google it right now, you could try. I found some vague information that it could be Kapersky? Anyways, try setting the resolution down to 1024x768, turn off the automatic updates, or set them to download when you specify, and try ending that svchost process and see how it runs. If the svchost is important, the worst it would do it trip a restart in 1 minute.

[Chaos]

I've actually had a similar problem occasionally with my computer (and my computer isn't exactly weak).  I found that there would be a certain svchost running that, once I ended it, SO magically stopped being slow.  Other times, SO runs fine without any issue at all.  Try restarting your computer and then running SO, and see if it's being slow then.

tl;dr If it's the same as my problem, it's some service hiding in a svchost that's being douchey.  Haven't tracked down which service, though.