Game runs EXTREMELY slow.

[DigitalMikey]

I am running OOTPX and it loads every aspect of the game very slowly. From clicking on the game to launch it takes about 3 - 4 minutes to get to the menu screen.

From that once I load one of my leagues it takes about 6 - 10 minutes for the league to load. Then on top of that if I want to update the online league via FTP it takes about a minute to download, and then another 5 - 8 minutes to load the league with updated files.

Here are my PC specs:

Windows XP Pro
Intel Celeron CPU 3.06 GHz
2 GB DDR2 RAM
155GB of Free Space on drive C:
I run AVG Anti-Virus. (I have tried the game both with it on and off, no difference.)

Besides all of that my computer is pretty clean and doesn't have too much going on. I know my computer isn't extremely new but it isn't horrible, average I would say and should load the game fairly quickly.

It's the only program I have that takes a long time to load. Sims 3, WoW, AoE, Photoshop, and more all load 10x faster than this game. I was wondering if any techs/devs have any suggestions on making this game move a lot faster than it does. I would be grateful.

Thanks.

[DigitalMikey]

I hate to bump this but it has been a few weeks and not one person has responded. I would like to know why this game is running so slow on my computer and how I could speed it up when loading.

It takes forever!

[kq76]

Your processor and RAM are both about double mine and mine has no problem at all so that's likely not your problem. There are a couple issues that you might have however:

1) You might have a bunch of programs running that you don't know are running that you could really do without. Here's a thread by fidel where he goes into detail about such things and others, but the one I'd look into first is the startup programs via msconfig.

2) You might have features enabled in OOTP that are slowing it down that you could easily do without. Yes, that thread is more about simming multiple seasons, but it still very well might be of some use for you.

Also, I know you said you've tried with disabling AVG and you've had no noticeable difference, but you might want to still go ahead and set exceptions for the OOTP folders. AVG probably only scans everything infrequently, but when it does it could really bog down your computer. I explain how to set exceptions for avast here in point #3, but the process for AVG should be similar (and if it isn't, googling should bring up a tutorial for you).

[battists]

I'd also like to know more about your specific game file. Is it a large game, like with many different leagues? Or does it behave like this as well when you do a very basic saved game with a single league?

Thanks,

Steve

[Tony M]

Have you got Indexing turned on? This can cause a slow-down especially with big leagues that get updated a lot as there are a lot of files inside the directory.

[DigitalMikey]

Where would this "Indexing" be so I can turn it on or off?

[old timer]

Indexing is not likely the cause since it usually only kicks in when the system is idle. I doubt it's the league causing the problem either since you said just loading up the menu to launch the game takes a while.

If it were only the initial screen taking a while, I'd suggest changing the skin OOTP is using, but I wouldn't think that could affect the other things you mentioned.

Even though I doubt the skin could cause the subsequent screens to load slowly, it wouldn't hurt to try another skin to see if it will speed up the loading of the first screen (you could have more than one problem going on). This option is available on the first screen at the bottom and is called "Game Preferences". After clicking this, choose another skin from the dropdown at the top of the screen where it says "Current Skin".

The best way to diagnose this would be to allow someone to access your computer remotely. I could do this (I'm a computer tech, but I don't work for OOTP Developments) so if you are interested you can send me a private message and I'll explain how that works.

[old timer]

Just in case you want to turn off indexing (it can help general system performance, even it doesn't help with your OOTP problem), you can do the following:

1) On the start menu choose "run".
2) Type in services.msc and click OK.
3) Scroll down and double click "Indexing Service".
4) Look down where it says "Service status:". If it says "started", then click the stop button, otherwise skip this step.
5) Once the service is stopped, find where it says "Startup type:" and then click the drop down list and choose disabled. Click OK to save the changes and close the services window.

[RchW]

Check the total league size using right click/properties. If it approaches 1GB you will get slow. Also check in Game set up and see what setting you have for box scores logs and replays.

On Jan 1 of every game year I delete or cut/paste messages box scores, game logs, replays and almanac files to an archive. Also delete message.dat and restart the game. In this current year I forgot to do replays and my game bogged down. After deleting the 10000 replays the game ran much faster.

My opening day league size is around 350MB. Depending on your set up it could be more or less.

[battists]

Since we haven't heard back from this gentleman, I'm going to go ahead and close out this thread. If you're still having issues, please send in a support ticket to our new site at support.ootpdevelopments.com