Help - machine slows to a crawl

[Thamrys]

When there is a lot of external action, e.g., winds blowing and presumably slowing progress, lots of light effects as for fire spells, or heavy fighting, my machine slows to a crawl. Action becomes very choppy, one arm movement per second or so, and there is little response to the keyboard, even for non-game events such as calling up the menu (esc key) or the map (right click).

 

The easy answer is that my graphics card is inadequate - but I use a laptop, it's not easy to change it.

 

Does anyone have any ideas?

 

Thanks!

[Switch]

I'm not sure tweaks are going to be enough to fix slowdown that severe.

 

As you say more than likely your laptop is probably just incapable of running the game decently. What are its specs?

[Thamrys]

Dell X200 with: processor speed 929 Mhz; 760 Mb RAM; Intel Graphics COntroller 8283M with 64Mb ram; main disk drive has 30% free storage - external CD/ROM (but the game only uses it to check the original disk, right?)

 

I wonder if there is a way of eliminating the wind and firespell visual effects from the game? That might do it.

[VaanicOne]

You could download the Morrowind FPS Optimizer.

 

Just a thought.

[Switch]

929Mhz and a 64MB graphics card? Those two would be the problem I think. :P

 

FPS Optimiser is only good for reducing things like view distance and object rendering distance etc to improve FPS. It sounds like, as you say, you need to somehow disable the effects of those spells and anything else that lags you. Unfortunately I don't think there's a tool that can do that...

 

All the advice I can give you is get a better laptop or PC. Or, if that's too expensive, you could always buy an XBox and play Morrowind on there. But that does limit flexibility when it comes to solving bugs with the game, and means you couldn't mod or download mods for it.

[Thamrys]

Thanks, guys, I think my case is hopeless - I should not have lent out my desktop, at least I can get new graphics cards and such for it! But Dell is not in the business of upgrading its old machines, .... I'll try the optimizer, nothing ventured nothing gained, and let you know how it goes.

[sirchunker]

I am running on a HP PIII 533, 256meg RAM, 64meg PCI Nvidia Gforce 4 graphics card, with tons of HD space, and I do get problems simmiliar to you. It seems like with all the plugins I use mainly clothing, armor, house mods filled with tons of display cases and mannequins. I start to notice a slowdown, choppyness, espicially during stormy weather and after I left one of my homes.

 

One solution I use is when I notice slowdowns, I save the game then Quit Morrowind. Either reboot or just start up the game again and reload. With everything freshly loaded in memory I get a good framerate.

 

Here is what I did to make the game more playable using tweaks and mods.

 

I followed a tweak Guide found here:

http://www.tweaktown.com/guides/316/the_el...nd_tweak_guide/

 

I also downloaded some mod's to decrease my agravation levels here is a small list. Most of my mods downloaded from the following sites:

http://www.mwmythicmods.com/telesphoros.htm

http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/

http://www.mwsource.com/files/

 

 

Travel assist Mod's

All Boat Ports by Reznod

All Silt Strider Ports by Reznod

Mournhold Travelling by Ship

VTA Travel Agency by Emma

 

Weather and Effects Mod's

Propylon Lighting 1.0 ( I use this mod)

Replaces the Propylon Chamber Platforms with Starcon's mesh without the FPS killing particle effects. Good for those with lower-end machines.

 

Propylon Redux by stormless (I have not tried this one yet)

The original intent was to remove the large sparkly effects from all propylon structures to help players with less powerful computers to avoid a framerate hit. After I'd removed them it became apparent the propylon chambers were otherwise incredibly dull. The result was the continuous addition of content to the chambers, carefully tweaking and testing to make sure it was all interesting and bug free. There are about 10 new NPCs, several new weapons/clothes, a few quests [no journal sorting support I'm afraid] and other things to check out.

All chambers and their contents or quests are related to the stronghold they are built into. Use of the official Bethesda plugin, Master Propylon Index is suggested for easy access to the new content, but not necessary. Note that some of the propylons have been moved from their original locations but all are still in their respective chambers. Just look around a bit. Update 1.1: Rotheran door bug has been fixed (previously you could enter but not exit the Rotheran Propylon Chamber).

 

 

Nice Weather by Airor (I tested, but do not use)

Reduces the chance of rain from 20% to 3%, or from 15% to 2%. This mod tweaks the Weather to allow days to pass without it raining.

 

 

LessWeather_v1-0b (This may help you alot, I use this mod)

LessWeather is designed for lower-end systems that struggle to maintain a

playable framerate particularly during adverse weather. All towns and cities

where systems are already challenged to create the abundant statics found

therein have their adverse weather replaced with mild weather.

 

 

Passive Healthy Wildlife (I use this too)

Tired of getting attacked by anything that breathes This mod changes the attack setting of MOST non-diseased animals into a much more PASSIVE state in which they DO NOT attack unless attacked first or bothered.

 

 

 

Good Luck with your questing

Sir Chunker

[Thamrys]

Thank you, Sir Chunker! I will try to follow your advice when I get back home, which should be in one month. I purposely did not bring the disks, and deleted (after saving files) the game, because I'm supposed to be working... the game is too adictive for me to trust to my own discipline!

[sirchunker]

Thank you, Sir Chunker! I will try to follow your advice when I get back home, which should be in one month. I purposely did not bring the disks, and deleted (after saving files) the game, because I'm supposed to be working... the game is too adictive for me to trust to my own discipline!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

I know what you mean about being adictive. I have the same problem.

 

Well anyway here is another website that has morrowind.ini editing info, that may be of use also.

 

http://yacoby.silgrad.com/Mods/Initut.htm

 

Another thing you may wish to consider while playing morrowind is to disable any other non essiencal progeams while playing. ie. internet connections, firewalls, virus software, spyware monitors, etc...

 

(NOTE: Make sure you have virus software on if you are installing /Extracting Mods, who knows there may be a virus in some of the zip files)

 

But you can disable the virus software while playing Morrowind.

 

Any other program running, can also eat up memory and CPU usage, which slows down your system.

 

I still use a modem so I am disconnected from the net, I disable my Norton (Symantic) antivirus real time protection, and close any other application that may be running in my system tray. You can also perss CTRL ALT and DEL to accessthe Task Manager in Windows to see if anything else may be running that you dont need. Check the PROCESSES TAB to see if there is anything you can close down (End Process). Be careful what you close, alot of the processes may be needed by windows. I am a Computer Systems Specialist (PC Tech) and mostly know what I Can/Canot close on my machine.

 

 

BTW I just spent 2 days reloading my Morrowind, extracting and installing 130 of my most used mods. Just to speed things up. What a difference in game play now. It is about 25% faster, though I still get slowdowns in adverse weather conditions. Whic I get rid of my saving and rebooting like I mentioned in my prior post.