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For Gamers Or Anyone Who Can Help


Wolkenlaufer

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Hi Everyone

 

64 and in the beginning stages of Alzheimer's (Stage IV). I play World of Warcraft and similar games to preserve my cognitive functions and to interact with people.

 

Maybe you're thinking to yourselves, "So?", but I have a reason for posting and it is as follows: There are many times when, due to an older NVidia 9600 GEForce card, my machine will hang up on me, causing things such as black screens, jittery movement of characters, and very loud cursing from yours truly. :o

 

So I'd like to ask you gamers for some tips on what services to use and when. I am using AVG free and Microsoft Security Essentials as well as CCleaner, Spybot and Defraggle free. I have virus scans daily on my Windows 7, 4 Gig AMD ATHLON IBUYPower machine with 257 gigs of space left after a very long free CCleaner space wipe, but am still having problems. Since we are on a fixed income, I can't get a new card right away and so I am tweaking my 7 year old computer as much as possible, because the gaming is very important to me.

 

So what can I do on a daily basis and what services should I use regularly in order to keep my computer safe and running as smooth as possible?

 

I thank you in advance for your assistance.

 

Bill

My Dementia Blog is at www.wheretobud.blogspot.com

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Welcome Bill.

 

As you will soon discover with the forthcoming replies, there is no one-fits-all answer.

You will have to take it all onboard and determine for yourself what works best.

 

From what you have given, there's a couple of stand-outs that I would recommend you change.

 

First is your 2 anti-virus programs.

No need for both, they will just be consuming your limited resources.  So decide which to remove.  Personally, I'd keep AVG.  I've used it for years, without problem.  I've tried MSE a couple of times with mixed results.  Others here are going to disagree as they use it and love it (so there you go with the different opinions i was referring to earlier) but I have always thought the general consensus is it's a bit light-weight and I've never read glowing reviews for it in PC mags.

 

My next recommendation would be to stop (which-ever AV you keep) the daily scans.  There simply isn't a need unless you think something has crept in.

Update your AV, do an entire system scan and you know you have a clean slate.

As you open files, read web pages, run programs etc, your AV scans everything you do as you do it so if anything has a nasty in it, your AV will detect it then.

Running daily scans just slows everything down as the scan runs, for maybe 30 minutes, and probably finds nothing anyway.

If you want a 'warm fuzzy felling' that your PC is clean, then by all means leave the daily scan on - but the downside is PC slowness.

 

As to regular maintenance, what you already use is good, I would add AntiMalware by MalwareBytes to that list.  The free version is reactive, not proactive.  In other words, it removes malware not prevents it.

 

Defraggler I would only run a few times a year.

CCleaner I run maybe monthly.

 

To have a 'layered' security approach, I would also suggest getting the HOSTS file from MVPS and to add a couple of add-ons (or extensions, depending on what browser you use) called Adblock Plus and Ghostery.

Backup now & backup often.
It's your digital life - protect it with a backup.
Three things are certain; Birth, Death and loss of data. You control the last.

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I'd think the two antivirus' would wreak havoc, and like mta stated in the previous post ditch one of them. I don't know if AVG has a full screen game-mode or not, if it does that may be more desirable for a game player.

 

Other than that the Nivida drivers could be re-configured, i.e.; turn-off some features if it's causing stuttering/sluggish graphics, etc.

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When it comes to which services to disable and enable it's a extremely delicate subject as each PC/Laptop user requires  different services based on their PC/Laptop usage.

I found this on one site that I think is truly a good answer about services

 

 

Is There Any Benefit to Adjusting System Services?

 

I understand full well the primary reason people like to fiddle with services is the hope of picking up some substantial performance gains. I said this way back when I wrote the XP services article and I'll say it again some ten years later; it just isn't going to happen. You may pick up a tiny performance gain by fiddling with the settings, but it won't be anything substantial, if even noticeable.

 

The link if you want to read more.

 

 

You could also run the Winapp2.ini in conjunction with the Trim.bat to tailor the Winapp2.ini for your system.
Just look for the Game section within CCleaner and remove some of your old logs and so on as well.
NOTE: read the warning that the entries provide BEFORE just cleaning away.

Every line of code written by man can be undone by man

.

"A loser in the real world is still a loser in the net!" - .hack//SIGN

.
Getting old is inevitable,  growing up is optional !!

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Thanks to all three of you! I knew I could get some great answers once I figured out how to ask the questions. :D  I will delete MSE and let AVG run and do as y'all recommended as regards CCleaner and its functions. Also, I know once I get a new video card, I'll see some improvements as well.

 

Once again, my sincere thanks to all of you!

 

Bill

My Dementia Blog is at www.wheretobud.blogspot.com

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PS: To HavOc. I love the ElderGeek site and have bookmarked it. Thanks for the link!

 

And as to the quote you referenced, it seems that this is a belief held by many. That is: Deleting files never speeds up gaming. I hope I have that right. It's meant to coincide with the quote.

 

Bill

My Dementia Blog is at www.wheretobud.blogspot.com

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PS: To HavOc. I love the ElderGeek site and have bookmarked it. Thanks for the link!

 

And as to the quote you referenced, it seems that this is a belief held by many. That is: Deleting files never speeds up gaming. I hope I have that right. It's meant to coincide with the quote.

 

Bill

 

Glad you find the link usefull.

 

It may not speed up the gaming, it just might clear the pipelines of old junk files.

In one case I had a gaming cache file got corrupted and cleaning it fixed the problem for me.

 

Some people will recommend to switch FAXX off if yours is enabled.

Nvidia Control Panel --> 3D Settings--> Manage 3D settings

Global settings Tab --> Antialiasin-FXAA --> Off

Every line of code written by man can be undone by man

.

"A loser in the real world is still a loser in the net!" - .hack//SIGN

.
Getting old is inevitable,  growing up is optional !!

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It may not effect you Bill, but I installed a new nvidia card about 6 months ago & noticed a few stalls when starting the pc.

I traced the fault to the 3D driver of the card, since I don't use 3D (or games), once it was removed the problem went & the PC ran that bit better.

 

So check Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, and remove any nvidia 3D drivers if you don't need it. (Obviously don't remove the main nvidia driver )

Backup now & backup often.
It's your digital life - protect it with a backup.
Three things are certain; Birth, Death and loss of data. You control the last.

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Andavari, do you have a recommendation as to which areas on my NVidia Control panel I should adjust?

 

Actually I don't, I don't even go into mine to configure it however I don't play any PC games. If Nvidia has a forum I'd recommend joining it and asking them.

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also consider playing with the game options.

lowering all settings like shadows, lighting, frames/sec, etc

I haven't gone into those areas for about 3 years, now my son can do all that himself.

but whenever he got a new game we would play around with the games settings to get it to run as smoothly as possible until I could upgrade his hardware.

Backup now & backup often.
It's your digital life - protect it with a backup.
Three things are certain; Birth, Death and loss of data. You control the last.

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Hey Again, Guys

 

I did go into the NVidia Control Panel/Files, but the only driver file I saw contained "3D", so I didn't mess with it. mta (Get "Poor Charlie" off it, ASAP, :D ), I also checked my game settings under advanced and made sure the items which are supposed to be unchecked actually are, and that the settings you mentioned are low.

There's a quest called "Water, Water Everywhere", and if I mess with one of those settings it causes the target circles to fade to the point where I can't see them, so back I go to trial and error until I get it all back. Sometimes I disable all add-ons to help with performance, but mostly, I back out of the game, go to CCleaner and run a scan. CCleaner also does an internet check for me on a regular basis and tells me it's cleaned "X" amount of MB space, after which the game runs fine again for a while.

 

But here's another thing I'm thinking regarding my video card: Game Population. If I'm in a major city, say, in the middle of the night in real time, and there's hardly a player there, I have a smooth running game. Is that a valid point?

 

But as I said, I believe I have tweaked my machine so much it's going to start screaming pretty soon, so I'll bite the bullet for a few more months with this card.

 

And one thing I forgot to mention: Sometimes, when I come into a situation where there's a lot of action going on and start fighting, I will hear a loud buzz from the computer. I'm pretty ignorant, but I don't think that's a good sign, is it?

 

Thanks once again to all of you for your input!

 

Bill

My Dementia Blog is at www.wheretobud.blogspot.com

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But here's another thing I'm thinking regarding my video card: Game Population. If I'm in a major city, say, in the middle of the night in real time, and there's hardly a player there, I have a smooth running game. Is that a valid point?

 

The same thing can happen with console systems. For instance GTA V Online on PS3 can be jerky/jittery seeming like it may freeze or crash when there's allot of online players - just a frame-rate issue I suppose caused by network lag/over-usage.

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This is something you can try if you want to uninstall the 3D drivers and some other drivers from Nvidia to be on the save side you do not uninstall something that is needed.

Run the latest Nvidia driver installation,
Select Custom (Advanced)

Deselect
3D Vision Controller Driver
3D Vision Driver
HD Audio Driver (if you like, I did mine)

Check Perform a clean installation
Click next

Every line of code written by man can be undone by man

.

"A loser in the real world is still a loser in the net!" - .hack//SIGN

.
Getting old is inevitable,  growing up is optional !!

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And one thing I forgot to mention: Sometimes, when I come into a situation where there's a lot of action going on and start fighting, I will hear a loud buzz from the computer. I'm pretty ignorant, but I don't think that's a good sign, is it?

 

Hazelnut explained to me that sometimes Nvidia display cards can be noisy back when I got mine, I had thought something was wrong with mine too but that's going on at least 2 years ago. All the loud noise (plastic grinding/rubbing noise in my case) they can/may/will make doesn't necessarily mean anything is wrong with it, other than being audibly annoying.

 

The noise is caused by the cooling fan on the display card, it's as if they should've made the plastic fan blades a few millimeters shorter or moved the fan a few millimeters further away from the card material. It makes so much ruckus I won't buy another Nvidia display card.

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Dear Guys,

 

First off, my sincere thanks for taking me "under the wing" as it were, and staying with the thread as long as you have. I know you are busy with other things so I also know to appreciate what you did for me.

 

I just finished the "clean install"  that you, Havoc, recommended I let the system do. I let the NVidia system find my driver automatically, but before it began looking I had to install Java's search and read only GPU program as it would not have functioned otherwise.

 

I deleted the two programs you suggested and hit "clean install" and this is where I am at present.

 

Havoc, et al, I have read so much about Java/Oracle's problems/non-problems that I bet I have installed the program at least 15 times in order to get various programs to run, so now it's once again loaded on my machine. What do you think I should do? Uninstall it again, but keep the thought "handy" that I may need it again? Admittedly, I have no idea why the service got the bad rep it suddenly did, but felt I needed to tell you because it may be the cause of all my problems. Or maybe not.

 

I was a little reluctant to do the above, because when I tried before to update my driver, my machine booted itself into SAFE mode and I almost NEVER got it too reboot normally.

 

Anyway, I am about to begin playing WoW and cannot wait to see if the FPS has improved.

 

My thanks to Hazelnut as well!

 

Bill

My Dementia Blog is at www.wheretobud.blogspot.com

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Mister Bill,
Did you download the Java's search or did your driver download it ? Hopefully it wasn't your driver.
I have not used nor install any Java application in so many years I will be the wrong person to ask.

 

Hopefully your gaming experience will be pleasant and that you get hours of joy !!

Every line of code written by man can be undone by man

.

"A loser in the real world is still a loser in the net!" - .hack//SIGN

.
Getting old is inevitable,  growing up is optional !!

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If you want to try clearing all sorts of driver issues, DDU is a great place to start. http://www.wagnardmobile.com/DDU/ It will fully uninstall your graphics drivers, allowing you to cleanly reinstall a new one.

 

If you want to trim the fat a bit (and take a bit of pressure off of your graphics card) I recommend disabling Windows Aero (switching to Windows Basic on Windows 7), it takes about 100MB of VRAM to run which is a decent chunk of the 512MB VRAM that the 9600 sports.

 

You can also reduce the load on your CPU (should this be an issue) by disabling your unneeded start-up items, tasks, and services, such that the computer is doing less multitasking while you game, though you should take care when fiddling with services as some of them are rather important (most non-microsoft services can be set to manual start-up with few reprecussions)

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Catching up.......

 

Hav0c: I downloaded Java on my own after a prompt from NVidia. Apparently Java was needed when I chose them to do an automatic search for my driver.

 

Winapp2.ini: After my machine rebooted itself to SAFE mode while trying to run a clean install a week ago, I have been really leery (Timothy's brother - old Carlin joke) of doing anything similar, but after reading all the advice I got here, I did run one not long after y'all began answering me with no problems.

 

I'll have a look at disabling Windows Aero, though I had never heard of it until you just mentioned it in your post. Is this part of the NVidia card setup and is this where I need to disable it? Also would it affect the FPS and cause lag?

 

Sorry to be so late in answering, both of you, but I sure do appreciate your time and efforts in helping me!

 

Thanks

 

Bil

My Dementia Blog is at www.wheretobud.blogspot.com

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I missed the "edit" window, sorry.

 

For Winapp2.ini: I meant to add that.....

 

1. Gaming on this computer is pretty much all I do with it, except writing my blog and checking e-mail. Don't do spreads, not a lot of pictures or music, etc. and I have 311GB free of 465. I have WoW and SWTOR as the only 2 games I play on it.

 

2. Being a tad mentally challenged, I tend to forget what things I am doing/have done unless I write them down (don't use a printer, and all "important" stuff is done on my wife's machine). However, should the problem or a similar one arise in the future, it's possible I may forget, by that time, that I did write it down. Failing that, I may remember that I did, but forget where it is. All part of the fun that is Alzheimer's Dementia. :lol:

 

3. I read your post about this app, but haven't done anything with it yet. I don't know if it will improve my gaming, since you mentioned there is some lag in the app, so hopefully you'll have time to respond at some time and tell me what you think.

 

4. No lag, no jumpy action on my toon and just a smooth running game are what I am after, so I'm thinking that after tweaking and following the advice given me here, I probably will still need a new card, which is on the agenda to be bought.

 

Finally, I know I say "thank you" a lot, but it means a lot to me that you and all the others in the thread are taking an interest.

 

All the best!
 

Bill

My Dementia Blog is at www.wheretobud.blogspot.com

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Hello mister Bill

 


Hav0c: I downloaded Java on my own after a prompt from NVidia. Apparently Java was needed when I chose them to do an automatic search for my driver.

 

This is the first time that I am reading this that Nvidia needs Java to function or at least perform some sort of function.
Andavari, mta, Winapp2 did this ever happened to one of you where you needed to install Java for Nvidia ?

Every line of code written by man can be undone by man

.

"A loser in the real world is still a loser in the net!" - .hack//SIGN

.
Getting old is inevitable,  growing up is optional !!

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Hello mister Bill

 

 

This is the first time that I am reading this that Nvidia needs Java to function or at least perform some sort of function.

Andavari, mta, Winapp2 did this ever happened to one of you where you needed to install Java for Nvidia ?

 

I can confirm that you do not need Java to do anything with Nvidia, be it installing drivers or any other function.

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Hello mister Bill

 

 

This is the first time that I am reading this that Nvidia needs Java to function or at least perform some sort of function.

Andavari, mta, Winapp2 did this ever happened to one of you where you needed to install Java for Nvidia ?

Nope, have only ever had NVidia cards and haven't had Java for the last 2 years without any issues that I've experienced.

Backup now & backup often.
It's your digital life - protect it with a backup.
Three things are certain; Birth, Death and loss of data. You control the last.

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