System question

[David Watts]

Yesterday in the interface thread I asked about the Spinning Cursor once again. Markus told me that it's an OS issue and I should maybe look into adding more ram or a faster HD.

My desktop is an older model, AMD Athlon II 645 processor 3.10 GHz----Installed Ram 6.0 (5.75 Usable)
64 Bit operating system x64 based processor

My laptop is a year old....Intel Core i7 5500 u CPU 2.40 GHz. 16.0 GB
64 Bit operating x 64 based processor

I get the spinning cursor using both computers. What would I need to improve to eliminate the spin?

[eriqjaffe]

Probably the single simplest thing you could do would be to replace the hard drive in either system with a Solid State Drive. They're relatively inexpensive now (you a decent 500GB drive for around $120 now) and make a huge difference.

There is inexpensive software you can buy to help you migrate data over to the new drive, or you can just do a fresh install of Windows onto the SSD (which I recommend). You can even buy a $10 enclosure that will let you use your old spinning drive as an external hard drive.

If you don't want to get involved in a physical upgrade, check to see what else your system is doing while you're playing OOTP. Anti-virus, background updates, search indexing, etc. It all adds up. You can use the Task Manager and Performance Monitor to help figure out what process (or processes) are the culprit - check for disk utilization, in particular.

[MrBojangles]

Get a Mac!

[Orcin]

If you are playing out your games, there will always be a spinning cursor after each pbp is finished scrolling. I don't think it is possible to eliminate this spinning cursor but, on my system, it lasts less than one second. My game settings are: 3d view, short pbp detail, normal pbp speed. How long does it stay up on your system?

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Orcin

If you are playing out your games, there will always be a spinning cursor after each pbp is finished scrolling. I don't think it is possible to eliminate this spinning cursor but, on my system, it lasts less than one second. My game settings are: 3d view, short pbp detail, normal pbp speed. How long does it stay up on your system?

Not long at all and if I remember to move the cursor to the top corner I can actually avoid seeing the distracting blue spin. It's just annoying because I'm so conditioned to it not being part of OOTP from years of playing every version before this one. I play broadcast view, short pbp/instant. I also find the on screen display to be extremely choppy compared to 16. Info boxes seem to jerk into place like they are moving through syrup. I've returned back to playing 16 for now.

Oh and thanks for telling me you have the spinning cursor as well. I've been attempting to talk my nephew into buying 17 just to see if it spins on his computer as well. But, when I was told it was a OS issue, I figured that was a wash as well. He's a college professor, so I doubt he is using a super computer.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by David Watts

Not long at all and if I remember to move the cursor to the top corner I can actually avoid seeing the distracting blue spin. It's just annoying because I'm so conditioned to it not being part of OOTP from years of playing every version before this one. I play broadcast view, short pbp/instant. I also find the on screen display to be extremely choppy compared to 16. Info boxes seem to jerk into place like they are moving through syrup. I've returned back to playing 16 for now.

Oh and thanks for telling me you have the spinning cursor as well. I've been attempting to talk my nephew into buying 17 just to see if it spins on his computer as well. But, when I was told it was a OS issue, I figured that was a wash as well. He's a college professor, so I doubt he is using a super computer.

Are you on Win 10?

Even if not check how many programs are loaded when you play. There are finite resources.If you have 8 tabs open in a browser an email client and excel and word and a AV/malware system you will see an effect. Win 10 is notorious for clogging up systems unless you physically prevent it.

[drhay53]

I have a high-end gaming PC and I get a spinning cursor. Does yours last a really long time or something?

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by drhay53

I have a high-end gaming PC and I get a spinning cursor. Does yours last a really long time or something?

I think you and Orcin have at least made me see that it isn't a problem with my computer. Thank you.

No, it's not really long, but it's enough to annoy me. Enough to make me return to 16. I know this is mostly a me thing, so thanks everyone for not doing what a lot of folks would probably do ...call me an idiot. If I could make myself use the graphics, I wouldn't even notice the spin, but short pbp/instant on the broadcast screen makes it hard to ignore. I'm Pavlov dogged into playing fast.

Just glad to know that even those with high end machines are seeing it.

[TGH-Adfabre]

Check you task manager for the number of processes being run. On my computer there are 15+ programs I manually shut down when I reboot. Often it is not just the RAM the program uses but there can be minor conflicts among programs. I slim mine down as much as I know how to before running anything. It has freed up RAM and minimized conflicts.

[drhay53]

Originally Posted by David Watts

I think you and Orcin have at least made me see that it isn't a problem with my computer. Thank you.

No, it's not really long, but it's enough to annoy me. Enough to make me return to 16. I know this is mostly a me thing, so thanks everyone for not doing what a lot of folks would probably do ...call me an idiot. If I could make myself use the graphics, I wouldn't even notice the spin, but short pbp/instant on the broadcast screen makes it hard to ignore. I'm Pavlov dogged into playing fast.

Just glad to know that even those with high end machines are seeing it.

Glad to be of help!

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by TGH-Adfabre

Check you task manager for the number of processes being run. On my computer there are 15+ programs I manually shut down when I reboot. Often it is not just the RAM the program uses but there can be minor conflicts among programs. I slim mine down as much as I know how to before running anything. It has freed up RAM and minimized conflicts.

I'm not really sure what I'm seeing when I look at this task manager

CPU goes up and down from 3% to 12%
Memory says 53%
Disk 3 to 12%

[TGH-Adfabre]

There is a processes tab at the top. How many processes do you have running? You can sort by name and the amount of memory they use.
Look through the list and see what you have running in the background that you do not know about.
Programs seem to think that because I install them I want them to run every time I start my computer... like Steam and Skype and our Cannon Printer Software and everything by Apple and my laptop camera and other crap that I use just not every time I boot my laptop.
See what you have, some of it will make no sense some you should recognize.
You can end the process and it will restart when you reboot or you can restart it manually.
There is a way to stop the PC from starting these programs when you boot but I do not know it.

[TGH-Adfabre]

Bottom left of the task manager is an option to "Show processes from all users", select that.

[mitchkenn]

Originally Posted by TGH-Adfabre

There is a way to stop the PC from starting these programs when you boot but I do not know it.

in win 8.1 that is also in task manager under the STARTUP tab.

in win 7 i believe you had to type msconfig into the search files & programs on the start menu icon in the lower left hand corner. once into that - it is also under STARTUP to disable programs from being started auto with computer startup.

loads of fun, ain't it?

[TGH-Adfabre]

Originally Posted by mitchkenn

in win 8.1 that is also in task manager under the STARTUP tab.

in win 7 i believe you had to type msconfig into the search files & programs on the start menu icon in the lower left hand corner. once into that - it is also under STARTUP to disable programs from being started auto with computer startup.

loads of fun, ain't it?

You are awesome! Thank you!

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by David Watts

Yesterday in the interface thread I asked about the Spinning Cursor once again. Markus told me that it's an OS issue and I should maybe look into adding more ram or a faster HD.

My desktop is an older model, AMD Athlon II 645 processor 3.10 GHz----Installed Ram 6.0 (5.75 Usable)
64 Bit operating system x64 based processor

My laptop is a year old....Intel Core i7 5500 u CPU 2.40 GHz. 16.0 GB
64 Bit operating x 64 based processor

I get the spinning cursor using both computers. What would I need to improve to eliminate the spin?

more RAM than what the app uses will not help in any way... figure 2gigs free for this game and you are as golden as if there were 128gigs free. (assuming it works on ~1gig or so, if i recall...a little free RAM above and beyond what is being used is a good idea, btw, but a bunch is useless.)

assuming spinning cursure = ootp app working hard in backround and/or maybe can't do anything or at least runs slower than expected.

Is this happenign at specific times of the year? maybe september or so, or late in the season during the last couple months on a day here or there?

It was a bug fixed in an old pathc, but i've seen it occur intermittently recently on those days i used to see it happen before that patch. A year long sim went from 5-6mins to ~2mins after that patch... those few days were horrendously slow even with a "faster" system.

I changed my news history to None down from All, and it helped alot... i don't read it anyway, no idea why i was keeping it... now some of my player history pages are all jacked up, lol. it keeps none, but it sure looks like some of it is still there... pfft. i think i bumped my tansaction log down from All to 10 years... i stil get a little hiccup on those late days as i did pre-patch after 20years or so of a league.... Relative to your wishes, think about changing these setitngs and see if that improves the speed.

anyway, your laptop is overkill for ootp, no worries there. so, i'd use that as a baseline for your pc. is it equally bad on both PCs? etc etc... if for most of the "Sim" year, it sims at roughly the same speed - given their age differences - then i'd say it's perfectly fine. alot of this will be a personal opinion on what "too slow for me" is. the complexity of your game world will make a big difference too. (if it bogs down more at important dates, like nearing the trade deadline, it would be normal to move a bit slower than your pc, since that machine is much faster)

If you want history to be comprehensive, don't sacrifice anythign until you single it out and know it is a cause... change one thing at a time with a freshly restored backup of your league... trial and error will figure out the problem. if it's especially slow at certain points of the year, then just keep re-trying during that time peiod until you see an impovement, then you'll know it was that setting. (Global Settings - Right side of page the likely problem if similar to what i described about the last couple months of the season -- think it had to do with expanded rosters and minors being out of seaosn or some odd AI function doing too much wihtout good reason)

i don't know amd chips well, so i can't speak much on them other than i think they cater strongly to benchmarking software as opposed to real-world implementation of their chips, but thats another conversation. this game is not complex from a number crunching standpoint, relative to hardware made in the last 5-7 years at least -- unless you bought that $150-250 paper-weight 7 years ago.

i don't use the 3d, but from what i understand, that's nothing to worry about either. if they get into high-res models and real modelled physics then you'll have to worry about your gpu, too.