Intense, sporadic lag

[JaxDakhal]

Hello all, just so it's out there, I'm completely new to forums (In every sense of the word, reading and posting),

so if I make a newbie mistake, I'll have to ask you to forgive me.

 

Anyway, I have a serious lag problem. It's not necessarily low framerate, the game plays quite smoothly at

medium-high settings, but events/damage/things don't register until after 40-50 seconds, rendering the game

unplayable. Well, not entirely unplayable, but it took me (almost) five hours to get to Redcliffe from the start,

doing no sidequests and ignoring all distractions.

 

Skills, spells, talents or even plain attacking simply doesn't do anything, and only after 40ish seconds do I

see damage-counters, and health-bars going down. The same with, for instance, an encounter. I run into a

group of bandits, and they just stand there. And so does my team. Until, again, after about 40-50 seconds,

when they decide to draw weapons and stab eachother till they stop moving.

 

The weird thing is, the game úsed to run perfectly smooth. I started playing when the game was first released,

and picked it up again a few weeks ago (When I discovered the wonderful world of mods), and since then, this

has been happening. Coincidentally, it's not just Dragon Age, Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas have the same

issue. Fallout 3 used to run smoothly, as well.

 

I took advice from friends who actually know what to do with computers- Downloaded and bought registry cleaners,

virus scanners, game boosters, followed guides to tweak Windows 7, the full monty, but still no luck. I'm starting

to get pretty desperate (Can't afford a new(er) laptop, réally enjoy playing DA:O and Fallout.), and I nearly wrecked

my laptop with 'dangerous' tweaks.

 

I recently formatted my laptop and re-installed Windows 7, and all that's on it is Dragon Age and some personal

files, so it's not that my laptop has too little memory, I'd think.

If it helps, here are some details on my laptop (I don't know what's handy to know or not):

 

OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate

CPU: AMD Turion X2 Dual-Core Mobile RM-75

RAM: 3198 MB

Video Card: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4500/5100 Series

 

Err.. Looking back, sorry for the long post, I tend to get carried away.

In any case, please, if anyone knows what might or might not be wrong, I'm really and utterly clueless at this point.

 

Thanks kindly in advance.

[RustyBlade]

The one thing you haven't said you did was upgrade to patch 1.04 Please do so, or inform us that you have and we can help you further (although we will need a mod list.) As for the long post: At least you make paragraphs instead of a wall of text, thank you for that :thumbsup: (not so long really.)

[JaxDakhal]

Oh, blast, wasn't aware that was important. Well, I have indeed patched to 1.04, and I've installed the following mods:

 

Advanced Tactics

Armour of the Devout

Auto Loot

Better Sex Cutscenes WIP

Bidelle's Makeup Studio

Camp Storage Chest (Two different kinds, I believe..)

Character Respecialization (Both the meat-from-Bodahn kind and the ravens)

Circles Be Gone

Chantry Monk, Deathknight, Paladin, Wildkin Adept classes/specializations

The specialization pack

Combat Tweaks

DA Redesigned (v7.3)

Dexterity fix for Light Armour

Faster Bow Talents

Longer Poison Times

Metagame Items

More Hairstyles

Natural Bodies All in One

No Helmet Hack

Pineapple Tree's Vibrant Colours

Pocket Plane

Skip the Fade patch

Slinks S3 RAVAge Encounters

The Phoenix Armoury

The Winter Forge

Universal Dye Kit

Vibrant Colours & More Hairstyles Fix

 

Huh, those are actually more mods than I thought I had. And I apologize about any incorrect names, or lack of noted owners,

I put them all in pre-named folders so I can keep an eye on what mods I have when I should need to know (Like now, apparently).

[RustyBlade]

That's not a bad list; other than the fact you are running on a laptop with built in video (which is a bad thing, sorry but it is) the only things that can be causing your issue is the multiple specialization mods or Slinks wonderful spawning of critters to kill. Advanced Tactics probably isn't doing you any favors although framerate isn't one of its usual complaints.

 

Try backing your video settings to the minimums and then start removing things that add visually to the game. Laptops are not the preferred platform of choice for gaming; they just can't cut it unless you are willing to spend over $2K US (which you did not.)

 

Edit: at least I hope you did not as I would hate to inform you that you got slickered.

Edited December 5, 2010 by RustyBlade

[JaxDakhal]

I most certainly did not. And my next platform shall be an actual computer, and not a notebook. The problem is, I don't play

games enough to go out of my way and buy a computer tuned for it, but Dragon Age and Fallout I simply can't get enough

of. But, back to the point.

 

I did run it at absolute lowest quality. Lowest.. Size? Whatchamacallit. The resolution? 800x600, anyway, closed all other

programs I could, ran all those fancy programs that are supposed to make it run better, and although it does increase my

framerate (Slightly), that isn't really my problem. I get those delays in events/damage/etc without losing framerate, or

suffering lag. It just.. Delays things, I guess.

 

I just tried to run it without Advanced Tactics and Slinks' encounter thingamy, and deleted some specializations/classes,

yet still I get those delays in damage and everything. Though I'm in no means saying that my laptop's fit for gaming (Which

it certainly isn't, let's face it), but I don't think that that's necessarily the problem (Especially because it used to run

flawlessly, though I'm not saying all those mods are helping).

 

Either way, thanks for the suggestions/quick responses, it's certainly appreciated.

Edited December 5, 2010 by JaxDakhal