Hi, i have a strange problem with Worms4 and framerate. Firs of all my system specifications:
Pentium4 2,80 ghz
Ram 256mb
Video Card Ati Mobility Radeon 9000 64 mb Ram
10,9 GB free space on HDD
Windows XP Professional x32 2002
I ran worms4 for months in 1024x768 in a very good framerate with very nice graphics and very nice gameplay (55-60 fps)
But, since a few days Worms4 is running with 15-20 fps, i can't play!!!! It's horribilating. I tried lowering resolution but even in 640x480 the fps doesn't change. Well i noticed something, in every resolution the game runs well for about 5 minutes (60 fps) then ****. It goes down to 20 fps. Why? Please i'm searching help. I executes ScanDisk on the HDD, i made a defragmantation, Disk Cleans and nothing changed. What should I do?

Is there anything running in the background (like MSN, Antivirus, etc) that is taking up a lot of your processor time?

First of all thanks for your reply. There's nothing, i repeat absolutely nothing that takes processor time i have 20 processes + worms. The Ram and Virtual Memory are the same taken before it to happen. I tried all, memory optimizers, Ram defragmentation, i think i tried all the Programs that are in this planet and nothing happens. 5 minutes of super playing and then just ****

Have you run a Virus/Malware scan recently? You may be infected with something.

No, i didn't do an HDD scan, but i did a "running processes" scan and no running malware was found. I thought to update my video card drivers, wich are the one of the date when the pc was released to sell (on November 2001 i think). But this won't make any effect because first game was running well. Oh, and i don't think it's a game problem, because with aproximately all of my videogames i get this ****** framerate. I'll try an update and a virus scan.
By the way, thanks for the help.

Have you tried opening the window? I mean in the room where your computer is. :p

This could be a heat related issue where your graphics card or CPU turns itself off because it goes above a certain temperature. Alternatively, if it's hot outside, try turning your computer off, maybe removing the left side panel of the case and trying to play the game in the morning or late evening when it has cooled down completely. If you get a significantly longer time before the frame rate drops, this is probably it.

The solution, provided that none of your hardware has actually overheated and needs replacing, would be cleaning the insides of the computer and its air filters with compressed air (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_duster) and/or a gentle vacuuming.

If you have one, you use a desk fan to provide additional cooling when the case is opened.

Thank you very much, that's it, but i noticed something: well, i used speedfan to check the temperature. It reveals 2 ACPI sensors. The first, when the framerate is down, signs 54°C, the second 75°C :eek:°o° When i don't use the pc to play the first signs 50°C and the second 54°C
And, first of that problem, 5 days ago, was hot here in Italy too, maybe hottest than now, and the pc wasn't so heat, but the fan was rotating very fast. But now, the rotation is the same, even if the temperature is 80°C. It rotates veeery slow. I tried to look in the BIOS for fan speeds, restorating default config and nothing. Now i'm playing with a ventilator on the pc -.- And i notice another thing, the limit before the framerate drops down is 65°. And yes, i play with the window opened :D
And, sorry for my english if you don't understand something :D
Oh, is there a program to set a "hyper-fast rotating speed" of the fans? Because speedfan is a piece of ****, can't change the rotation -.-
Thanks for the help :)
P.S: mine is a laptop

Try Rivatuner (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Rivatuner), it is free.

75°C [...] 80°C
Uh oh!
Those temperatures are alarmingly high. :eek:
Where did you measure them? Because they are near or above the maximum temperatures for most CPUs.
But also the northern bridge gets very hot and if it fries, you'd need a new motherboard.
"hyper-fast rotating speed"
Not a good idea.
For one, you'll have an extremely noisy machine then, more so if you keep the case opened.
But those high speeds will also gradually destroy the ball bearings of the fans, and you could end up with broken fan altogether.

Perhaps that slow fan you have already is broken or in the process of dying.

Perhaps that slow fan you have already is broken or in the process of dying.

This was the first thing that crossed my mind, yeah.

It certainly sounds like your PC is going downhill. It's probably for the best to order some replacement parts, just in case.

Sh**. Well, i bought the pc in December 2001, never got a problem, and is no more in warranty. I'm gonna buy some thermic paste from a store and gonna open it to clean with compressed air the dust, and unmount the heatsinks. Maybe there's some dust, there are years that i don't clean it. Should be that the problem? Too much dust on the fans? Because i saw surfing the net that is a common problem, especially in the spring season, for the old computers and for some new, wich doesn't have cooling liquide (the one my dad's have has a cooling liquide in it and the temperature is about 45° on playing). I'm about to open it to see if that's it. If not, i'm gonna send it to a a pc specialist, (already asked how much i must spend, 125 €, with sostituion of fans, new heatsinks , 2 gb ram and other things).
Hope to have the pc like it was first and, why not, better than before :D.F or now i'm playing on the window, lots of people asked me why thinking i'm crazy, but at least, i can play.
That's all, hope to have good luck.

Sh**. Well, i bought the pc in December 2001, never got a problem, and is no more in warranty. I'm gonna buy some thermic paste from a store and gonna open it to clean with compressed air the dust, and unmount the heatsinks. Maybe there's some dust, there are years that i don't clean it. Should be that the problem? Too much dust on the fans? Because i saw surfing the net that is a common problem, especially in the spring season, for the old computers and for some new, wich doesn't have cooling liquide (the one my dad's have has a cooling liquide in it and the temperature is about 45° on playing). I'm about to open it to see if that's it. If not, i'm gonna send it to a a pc specialist, (already asked how much i must spend, 125 €, with sostituion of fans, new heatsinks , 2 gb ram and other things).
Hope to have the pc like it was first and, why not, better than before :D.F or now i'm playing on the window, lots of people asked me why thinking i'm crazy, but at least, i can play.
That's all, hope to have good luck.
125€ for new fans? :eek:
That guy surely is a specialist. A specialist in ripping you off of all your money!

I suggest you assemble a completely new computer since your machine is already from 2001.
New replacement hardware that old will cost you more than new (and much better) one, because such old stuff isn't produced for mass market anymore.

You can build a medium specs machine for 300€ or less that will have PCI-express, SATA, DDR2 RAM and even a multi-core CPU.
You really shouldn't invest 125€ in new fans! For that money you can get a new motherboard and new RAM. Add another of that amount and you have a SATA HDD and a PCI-e graphics card. A new case and power supply won't be much more then.

Really, don't invest any more money in that machine and instead trash it. Just keep your monitor, peripherals and maybe the case.

And if you really don't want to get new stuff, at least buy old stuff second-handed.

Of course, so long as there are enough IDE ports on the new motherboard, you can recycle things like HDDs, DVD drives, etc.

Ok, luckly I didn't send it to this money-ripper :D
I just cleaned up the fans by opening it, i blew up all the dust. Now is working very well, and the temperature 1 is 48 and 2 is 58 when i'm playing, that's great. Thank you for all the help. And i'm gonna do all that it was suggested, but the only things i can do are changing HDD, adding RAM and no more, because it is a notebook. I play very well with it, for me adding ram will be enough. Thanks another time for all the help :)

it is a notebook
Ah, well.
I was assuming you had a regular desktop PC.
New RAM is always good.

no need to get 4 gigabytes or more of RAM unless you are using a 64bit Operating System. Er, your system probably handles a single 1gig stick or something anyways >.>"

Well, 32-bit operating systems can only map up to 3.25 GB of RAM.
And AFAIR, 2x 2GB modules could be cheaper than 3x 1GB modules.

also, I haven't seen many notebooks (especially older ones) with >2 RAM sockets...

Mine has 2 slots, i think i'll blow up the 256 mb one and put 2x 1 gb.
But, the pc has started another time to overheat! :( This time it will take a lot of more time (like 40-45 minutes) but it still overheats! Before i said that it was ok, because i played for an half-hour, and now it goes on 70° after 40 minutes. Yesterday i formatted all and did a clean installation of XP and nothing. I think i'm gonna buy one of those desktop fans to provide cooling. If it doesn't work i'm gonna definitely TRASH it.
But why the hell is it overheating even with cleaned fans?

try replacing the fans with new ones? the old ones probably wore out and no longer have the same top speed that they once used to? or your using the laptop on a surface that restricts airflow >.>

The fans (hearing them :P ) are rotating at the same speed as before. I am thining that i must change the cpu paste between the cpu and his heatsink, i already have it but i'm afraid of removing an entire peace of hardware and putting an unknown **** on it, i don't know how much, how, where. And i don't want to **** it up because i really love that pc :D and i don't want to pay millions to just replace a liquid -.-
P.S I think that because i saw a video on youtube wich shows that, after removed an heatsink during the playing of game, the P4 processors have a "throttle-down" security mechanism, they just go with lower speed, saw on some forums that a P4 3 ghz at 80° will down to 1,5 (half of his power to don't go in smoke). When i'll get the links i'll post them so you can see.

Remove the old thermal paste with paper tissue.
Then use a piece of paper to apply the new one.

Only apply a thin film of paste onto the CPU.
You should still be able to easily read the letters and words on the CPU.

or use Isopropyl alcohol >.> to clean the old thermal paste off... just don't put a ton on and depending on the environment, have a fan blow on it.

I solved all, it was the thermal paste and another thing, when i say that it was the virtual memory (pagefile) you can't believe it, how i didn't believe by myself. Well, after changing the thermal paste i noticed the temperatures were down (45° when playing) and it was still bad. After 40 minutes fps down, even with changed paste. When i decided to trash it, i got an idea, just before putting it on the home's recylce bin. I thought, "i'll just try changing the virual memory it is too much and the hdd was lightning every 30 seconds for about 3 minutes °o°. I thought it had to be something like that the problem. I've changed the virtual memory from 1 gb minimum and 3 gb maximum, to 384 (256*1.5 suggested) in both Minimal and Maximum, because i read that with same values in both minimal and maximum the system won't change it every xxx seconds. lol i played i think 3 hours and no problem. Then i changed another time to 1 gb and 3 and after 30 minutes fps drop. WOW, this is certainly incredible, who would think that was the virtual memory?? First thing i said was: Oh My God! After 3 hours no problem WOW. That's incredible. Thanks everyone for your really precious help!

your hard drive might be faulty.

Nah, i don't think hdd health indicates a perfect hdd state with 100% of health.