Windows 7 upgrade

Squiffy101Squiffy101 Join Date: 2007-10-11 Member: 62608Members
in NS2 General Discussion
Hello all,

I've had a good search around the forum and getsatisfaction but found no definitive discussion.

2 days ago I was running NS2 quite well on Win XP 32bit on a core 2 duo 2.66 2GB Mem. My graphics card is a Nvidia Geforce 8800GTS. Although the rig is not fantastic, I managed to get good games from around Build 158 onwards.

I then decided to upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate. the install went fine with all drivers being found. I had a hell of a problem getting the Steam App to update but eventually got it and installed my fav games (CS Source, DoD Source, TF2 and obviously NS2)

Tonight I had some spare time so decided to get on and play Build 170 as NS2HD's videos had wet my appitite.

After quite a longtime joining an empty server, I found that the game has become very jerky (although it seems to look much nicer!)

Can anyone tell me if there is anything I need to do to help Windows 7 to run this better, and how to?

I'm new to this OS and still finding my way around.

(BTW, if it's a memory thing, I am about to buy 4GB)

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Cheers
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Comments

  • CoolCookieCooksCoolCookieCooks Pretty Girl Join Date: 2003-05-18 Member: 16446Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation
    AFAIK Win 7 uses more RAM than its pre-decessors. At a first guess yes upgrading to 4GB of RAM would help your problem. Other issues could be drivers and the usual riff raff.
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  • ScardyBobScardyBob ScardyBob Join Date: 2009-11-25 Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
    <!--quoteo(post=1839959:date=Apr 5 2011, 03:39 PM:name=CoolCookieCooks)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (CoolCookieCooks @ Apr 5 2011, 03:39 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1839959"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->AFAIK Win 7 uses more RAM than its pre-decessors. At a first guess yes upgrading to 4GB of RAM would help your problem. Other issues could be drivers and the usual riff raff.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
    4GB of ram would probably help that system, but not for NS2. B168-B170 seem to have some marginally more serious server-side performance issues that cause enough lag to make a match unplayable. The best you can hope to do is play on servers with really good hardware and low player counts. To get an idea of whether the server your playing on is good enough, type 'net_stats' into console and watch the 'server rate' number. You want to find a server that has a >10 server rate for most of a match, as that indicates that the server has good enough hardware to handle the current resource-intensive NS2 beta.
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  • ThaldarinThaldarin Alonzi&#33; Join Date: 2003-07-15 Member: 18173Members, Constellation
    OS wise, 2GB of RAM is crippling on Windows 7.
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  • playerplayer Join Date: 2010-09-12 Member: 73982Members
    You can run Windows 7 just fine with 1GB if you're using it for browsing\administration. NS2 however, is another case altogether. Joining a server running ns2_tram will make my NS2.exe immediately shoot up to almost 1.5GB of memory(allocation), that doesn't leave a lot for Windows 7 to work with. So yeah I'd say 2GB for playing NS2 on Win7 right now is not recommended at all. Of course ScardyBob's story about the server-tickrate holds up too, a poor server will completely ruin your NS2-experience.
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  • SgtBarlowSgtBarlow Level Designer Join Date: 2003-11-13 Member: 22749Members, NS2 Developer
    Yeh but is he using win7 32bit or 64bit, 4GB on 32Bit will make it worse at this moment in time over 3GB Ram
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  • ScardyBobScardyBob ScardyBob Join Date: 2009-11-25 Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
    <!--quoteo(post=1839980:date=Apr 5 2011, 05:47 PM:name=SgtBarlow)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SgtBarlow @ Apr 5 2011, 05:47 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1839980"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yeh but is he using win7 32bit or 64bit, 4GB on 32Bit will make it worse at this moment in time over 3GB Ram<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    I presume he's running 32Bit Win7 since he was using 32Bit WinXP.

    Also, I thought 32Bit Windows just didn't use any RAM over 3GB not that it made anything worse? That makes buying 4GB of RAM a bit wasteful, but RAM is so cheap I don't see why you shouldn't max out on any 32Bit OS.
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  • Squiffy101Squiffy101 Join Date: 2007-10-11 Member: 62608Members
    Hi, thanks for the replys. I've actually moved to Win 7 64bit. I thought the memory/unoptimised code would be the issue as running DoD and TF2 is perfect.

    It'll all come together in the end :-)
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  • DeadzoneDeadzone Join Date: 2003-07-03 Member: 17911Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    <!--quoteo(post=1840143:date=Apr 7 2011, 04:14 AM:name=Squiffy101)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Squiffy101 @ Apr 7 2011, 04:14 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1840143"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Hi, thanks for the replys. I've actually moved to Win 7 64bit. I thought the memory/unoptimised code would be the issue as running DoD and TF2 is perfect.

    It'll all come together in the end :-)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    Just be ready for the occasional compatibility issue with 64-bit stuff. My scanner and some of my older graphics software disagree with my 64-bit machine :(
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  • SN.WolfSN.Wolf Join Date: 2010-03-29 Member: 71115Members
    <!--quoteo(post=1840258:date=Apr 7 2011, 11:55 PM:name=Deadzone)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Deadzone @ Apr 7 2011, 11:55 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1840258"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Just be ready for the occasional compatibility issue with 64-bit stuff. My scanner and some of my older graphics software disagree with my 64-bit machine :(<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    Most software Dev's are releasing 64 bit versions so i wouldn't worry to much. I emailed 3 of my software vender's that didn't publicly offer 64 bit versions and so far 2 of them have come through with a 64 bit beta software for me.

    I made the transition to the 64 bit win 7 platform about 2 months ago and am really happy with it. First thing to do....unhide hidden folders....aaakkkk.
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  • TalesinTalesin Our own little well of hate Join Date: 2002-11-08 Member: 7710NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators
    edited April 2011
    As I recall, there's a slight bit of misinformation there; 32bit XP had a workaround patch, and it's in Vista/7 as well as far as I'm aware.
    The (just under) 3GB addressing limit is *per process*. So a 32-bit W7 machine with 4GB RAM could allocate ~3GB to NS2, and still have the remaining ~1GB that the OS could use, or for other running programs.

    That said, running W7-64 Ultimate myself, and haven't noticed (m)any problems, after disabling the idiot-mode defaults designed to hide information about the system from the majority of grandparents and other types of people who think you have to have a separate wifi dongle to connect to another wireless network.. not concurrently, but at all.
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  • SgtBarlowSgtBarlow Level Designer Join Date: 2003-11-13 Member: 22749Members, NS2 Developer
    The Memory patch in XP was to address the issue that you could not install/boot the os with more than 2GB ram, you had to leave it out, install, patch then insert your remaining 1 or 2Gig, Having 4 gig installed on a 32bit machine is different issue from that one but only an issue for gamers with large video memory because the systems where not designed to support such large amounts of memory simply because we can't see into the future or if they knew they just expected 32bit to be obsolete around about now/people upgrade to something else, Whatever arrived next.
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  • SkieSkie Skulk Progenitor Join Date: 2003-10-18 Member: 21766Members, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Shadow
    I'd just like to throw it out here, despite being a bit off topic, that I myself moved from XP 64-bit to Windows Server 2008 R2 (because it was free for students unlike Windows 7), which is basically Windows 7 but with much less bloat and fancy graphics niceties (although I did install Aero on it).

    With 8GB DDR3, i5 2500K at 4,2 GHz and GTX 570 with some OCing, NS2 runs like a charm. 1920x1200, high settings, avg 58 fps on a run through tram. No AA though.
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  • Squiffy101Squiffy101 Join Date: 2007-10-11 Member: 62608Members
    Just a quick update. recently purchased some Corsair memory (4GB), so the system is now running 6GB and everything is running beautifully, even with graphic quality set to high...so up the memory whilst it's cheap peeps and enjoy the show :-). thanks for the replys here.
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  • TwiggehTwiggeh Join Date: 2010-09-24 Member: 74165Members
    edited May 2011
    <!--quoteo(post=1845943:date=May 13 2011, 12:35 PM:name=Squiffy101)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Squiffy101 @ May 13 2011, 12:35 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1845943"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Just a quick update. recently purchased some Corsair memory (4GB), so the system is now running 6GB and everything is running beautifully, even with graphic quality set to high...so up the memory whilst it's cheap peeps and enjoy the show :-). thanks for the replys here.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    Did you buy new stick with the same performance as your old ones? If its set to work under a different mhz and timings the system will cap everything to the ram with the slowest performance.

    Generally its a good advice to never mix ram, just stick with one model and you're safe.
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  • DJPenguinDJPenguin Useless Join Date: 2003-07-29 Member: 18538Members
    stick to 2 or 4 sticks with the same amount too. depending on your mobo, you might run into problems having 3 sticks or 4 sticks with different amounts of ram.
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