Am I crazy? - yes this is hardware related

[Mister T]

I have a modded athlon running at around 700 with 256 mb RAM. I was playing Diablo II last night and was noticing that task manager was reporting cpu usage at 100% because I was multitasking pretty heavily. It was slowing down Diablo II alot. I got so annoyed that I just ordered a modded 1ghz athlon. Should I dish out more money for RAM or what?

Boy, was I pissed last night.

BTW, I decided not to go with T-bird because I would have to change my mobo and overclockability is still not known for sure.

 

[da loser]

why don't you get one of the slotA tbirds? why else are you running? and what's the point of multitasking when you're playing a game?

 

[Wizkid]

To see if you need more RAM just look for the RAM info in the task manager...

 

[randomlinh]

you're crazy. You shouda sent me the money you used to upgrade

 

[veryape]

No way! You have plenty if not more than enough ram.

 

[Mister T]

da loser

Slot A T-birds are incompatible with my MSI 6167, even though it uses
the AMD 750 chipset. GRRRRR

I was multitaking in between forums, and telnet windows because I was
trying to coordinate a multiplayer game. At the same time, my computer was hosting the game.

I was thinking RAM because W2K and Diablo II are both Memory Hogs.
However, I did glance at the task Mananger for mem usage and I don't think I broke 200 mb at any given point. I think I was using 160-175 mb average.

 

[Scifione]

I think what your problem is!

If your PC used all of that 256MB up last night, you PC might have started caching hard drive space as "virtual memory." Virtual memory sucks! If you do multitasking, you could download a free program to reclaim memory. Many programs don't do a good job of cleaning memory that they are finished using. Windows does not always clean out all the memory when an application is closed. This FREE program will help if you use up all you memory. What using virtual memory, CPU usage goes up dramatically.

Rambooster
http://download.cnet.com/downloads/0-10102-100-1400043.html?tag=st.dl.10000_103_1.lst.td

This is the program I use. You can search http://downloads.com if you would like a memory cleaning program.

 

[Scifione]

Win modem? I heard that the older Win modems ate CPU usage for lunch.

*edit*
People do crazy thing. I have to say that hosting with 56K is one of them. I am begining to think you are CRAZY!

 

[BiB]

You're crazy T!!

 

[Mister T]

I don't think I was using much virtual memory.
My hard drive was not going crazy or anything.

I have a PCI ethernet card and I am on a T1 line so no winmodem here...

 

[zippy]

I don't think he was using a winmodem to host a Diablo2 game.

 

[randomlinh]

now THAT would be crazy. Maybe dual processing in win2k can help

 

[Prodigy^]

T: sorry, but you've just totally wasted your money. I can't believe anyone would buy a 1 GHz CPU when you can get one that's 1/20th slower, for hald the money. your computer will STILL be slowing down, the extra 300 MHz won't help jack......

 

[Fenix793]

Cancel your order if possible and setup a dual proc system. They are designed to multitask and can handle ANYTHING.

 

[Mister T]

Prodigy:

my man, I did not really spend big bucks on the cpu @ 1ghz.
It cost me about the same or less than a GTS with 64mb ram costs.

I thought about dual cpu's, but I am gonna wait on that till I can
grab some DUAL T-birds with DDR on the 760.

 

[PowerJoe]

I doubt that Diablo II requires a 1GHz processor to run adequately... Surely, your system is more than enough for it. Therefore, I suspect a software problem. Are you running any background process that takes up all the processor time (RC5, SETI, software CPU coolers...)?

And yes, for the lack of a better word, crazy

-PJ

 

[JJ650]

For a 2D game, D2 is VERY CPU dependent. Run RC5 and d2 at the same time, you'll see. Mine isn't choppy or anything but the multitasking doesn't help. When I do multitask, the HDD swaps a bit but then it's good. Close out whatever you can before you start playing.

Also, turn off Perspective in the game, that won't eat up as much cpu usage.

*edit*
sh!tty typing

 

[Dexion]

Powerjoe: I seriously think its Diablo 2. My system which is currently running at 910mhz is 100% loaded with Diablo 2 running, if you notice the RC5 stats(when turned on) is miserably low. Diablo 2 seems to require alot of processor power even for a 2D game. Even with Unreal Tournament running with RC5, the time it takes to crunch 1 block compared to Diablo 2 is far better.

Mister T: try installing the FULL 1.5 Gig installation, it smooths the game alot, and even use DirectDraw. There is seriously a engine design flaw, and doesn't utilize the Processor properly.