Technical support > Windows

CPU problem while playing

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Falion:
384 meg of Ram? Dang...thats a LOT of your problem...XP needs a minimum of 512 meg just to run fairly decently. With so little system ram left over after running the OS, there isn't much left for gaming. Which is why your getting occasional lags...

As you play...your system is having to switch back and forth from ram, to "virtual memory"  ( your paging file ) on your hard-drive...which over playing time is a good bet why your performance degrades.

Try installing a 1 gig ram module or more if possible...you'll see an immediate difference. Many people when getting a PC are looking at the processor speed...while important...if you have very little system ram, it's like putting the CPU in a mind vise...it just can't process very effectively :)

BAM:
I'd say you need 512MB if not a gigabyte for occaisional gaming (anything not so huge). Although I've been on decently-running XPs with 128MB, they were only for typing, etc.

EchizenR:
Thanks. Is there a way to lessen this switching? I don't understand how this makes my CPU slower, but is there any way to change some settings and alleviate the problem?

blondandy:
apart from upgrading your memory, i do not think you can lessen switching.

512Mb DIMMs are not so expensive these days. (I guess you could have more of a problem if your motherboard is so old that it cannot take it)

BTAxis:

--- Quote from: EchizenR on June 16, 2008, 03:18:30 am ---I don't understand how this makes my CPU slower

--- End quote ---

It doesn't, technically. Your CPU will still process instructions at the same speed. However, the CPU needs data to work with. This data is stored in the processor's cache. This is a small amount of very fast memory located very close to the CPU. The data in the cache comes from RAM. Moving it from RAM to the cache takes time, but it's fairly fast. If you don't have enough RAM to store all the data the game uses, it's stored in the swap file, on the hard disk. If the CPU needs data that happens to be swapped out, that data first needs to swap with some other data in RAM and then be transferred to the cache. This takes a very long time, in terms of clock cycles.

So basically, when your computer is swapping your CPU is just waiting for it to complete. Your CPU doesn't get slower, but it can't process at maximum efficiency because it's not getting the data fast enough.

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