Curse

The Great Al · Jul 05, 2005, 12:29 PM // 12:29

hello, i just bought a new laptop - 1 gig of ram, 1.86 ghz processor, (Which is equivalent to 3.72 on a desktop) and the brand new nvidia graphics card. when i play GW, it runs perfectly, but i noticed my laptop getting BURNING hot, and when i check now, i see that it uses up 100% of my cpu...when its not running, it stays at 0 or 1%...my other computer (desktop), also has 1 gig of ram, 3.0 ghz processor, and an older graphics card, and the cpu usage is not nearly as high for GW...what could be causing this? please help!

squits · Jul 05, 2005, 12:32 PM // 12:32

Your probably experiencing the joys of what they call Speed Stepping, your laptop will speed itself up when you do anything intensive, activating all the fans, making the CPU faster, etc.

When not running GW the fans turn off and the CPU goes down to probably 500mhz..

Nothing to worry about, except the fact that no laptop is truely a laptop anymore, they get too hot.

The Great Al · Jul 05, 2005, 12:36 PM // 12:36

wow, that's probably it - im running a dell 9300 which is a very powerful machine, i couldnt imagine how gw could turn the cup usage up to 100% - is there any way to turn that speed stepping off?

squits · Jul 05, 2005, 12:41 PM // 12:41

If you did turn off speed stepping your machine would burn a hole through the table, your legs, etc.

As long as GW runs ok, theres nothing to worry about, just about 99% of laptops would do the same.

Its all about power management, the battery would last probably 5 minutes if there was no speed stepping.

Dirkiess · Jul 05, 2005, 02:22 PM // 14:22

Whether you have speed stepping or not, Laptop or Desktop, the CPU will still show to be running at 100% when running any form of game.

It just shows that most of the resources are being pushed towards the most intensive app running at that time. However, if you run two intensive apps, then it will show a spread between those apps depending on how they cope with Multi Tasking and sharing the load.

Also, will depend on which one needs the higher load.

Turn off the intense app and the CPU usage drops to somewhere in the region of 1-10% depending on what you are running.

Kaldor Meshekal · Jul 05, 2005, 06:34 PM // 18:34

I would say my CPU shoots to 99% when running GW, but my CPU is already at around 90-99 on the System Idle Process...

...Is this meant to be like this? Or is my computer going wrong? (Well, i already know it's going wrong, check my post in 'It's Crashing alot!' topic, but i mean, is it going wrong more?)

toastgodsupreme · Jul 05, 2005, 06:36 PM // 18:36

all games run at 100% (flash don't count)

this is not a glitch, or a bug.

hell, go load up unreal tournament, 100% usage there.

Algren Cole · Jul 05, 2005, 06:40 PM // 18:40

you should be running GW at 98% CPU Usage...and System Idle Process should be taking 2%. this is normal...shut everything down and watch System Idle Process jump to 98%. It's not a glitch.

Loviatar · Jul 05, 2005, 06:42 PM // 18:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaldor Meshekal

I would say my CPU shoots to 99% when running GW, but my CPU is already at around 90-99 on the System Idle Process...

...Is this meant to be like this? Or is my computer going wrong? (Well, i already know it's going wrong, check my post in 'It's Crashing alot!' topic, but i mean, is it going wrong more?)

get rid of a whole bunch of those unneeded processes

also run a chefh for a ton of spyware and other junk

1-5 percent idle is where it should be

vipers site has a ton of good information

http://dhost.info/kyeu/mirror/blackviper/

Algren Cole · Jul 05, 2005, 06:48 PM // 18:48

your System Idle Process should not be 1-5 percent....that means something else on your computer is using resources and it's only got 5% to idle.

A computer can't be doing nothing...it HAS to always be doing something. The System Idle process is reserved for periods of time when the computer is doing nothing. It's essentially a 'no-op' process. It waits and uses the CPU while nothing else is...then assigns resources to whatever processes begin...the process SHOULD be 90-100% if the system is not currently running anything....if your System Idle Process is low that means there is something on your system using resources that aren't available to the Idle Process. (100% being ideal...though I've never seen a system run 100% System Idle Process)

Kaldor Meshekal · Jul 05, 2005, 06:49 PM // 18:49

Speaking of unneeded processes, how can i tell? I have a lot of processes, most of which seem to be system. I seem to running 5 instances of svchost.exe, one's a Local Service, two are Network Services, and the other two are System...

Loviatar · Jul 05, 2005, 06:53 PM // 18:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaldor Meshekal

Speaking of unneeded processes, how can i tell? I have a lot of processes, most of which seem to be system. I seem to running 5 instances of svchost.exe, one's a Local Service, two are Network Services, and the other two are System...

up 2 posts for link to BLACK VIPERS site which will not only tell you what process does what but which ones are safe to get rid of and which ones are secutity holes you should get rid of

Kaldor Meshekal · Jul 05, 2005, 06:56 PM // 18:56

*slaps head and trundles off to said website*

The Great Al · Jul 05, 2005, 07:23 PM // 19:23

on my desktop, neither GW nor UT 2004 run at 100%, but maybe thats just because its a year old or so and not the newest graphics card....but thanks to all of you for answering my questions, i was going to ask about the multitasking too but that was answered already

thanks!

Algren Cole · Jul 05, 2005, 07:28 PM // 19:28

what does it run at on your desktop?

The Great Al · Jul 06, 2005, 03:10 AM // 03:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Algren Cole

what does it run at on your desktop?

about 50%

Seron · Jul 06, 2005, 05:23 AM // 05:23

i found gw runs at 50-55% with p4 HT, and 100% with amd athlon 64 HT

theclam · Jul 06, 2005, 06:49 AM // 06:49

That's because P4 HT is Hyperthreading, whereas A64 HT is HyperTransport. P4 HT imitates a two processor chip, while A64 HT is some advanced feature that I don't know much about.

Any game will use up 100% of your processing power. Why? Well, every game tries to run at the maximum FPS that it can. If you aren't using part of the processor, then it will try to use that part of the processor to squeeze out more FPS (unless of course, your game caps itself at a maximum FPS, in which case I guess it wouldn't go to 100% if you're at the cap).

Most games are singlethreaded, not multithreaded. This means that a game can't use both processors in a dual processor system (so I guess Hyperthreading is almost useless for a gamer).

Dirkiess · Jul 06, 2005, 09:41 AM // 09:41

Just thought I would add the following, if anyone experiences something similar.

If your CPU is running at 100% while playing GW or any other game and you start getting what appears to be lockups or mega slowdowns, as in you can't do anything such as closing the game down, move, change the game into window mode or even try a Ctrl - Alt - Delete to call up the Processes, it could well mean you have a program or file that is hogging all the resouces, in a major loop and will continue to do so, until you reboot.

However, even a Warm reboot can sometimes not work. Example of this, my Firewall Security software, for some reason on closing down GW, would run at 100% holding everything up and I couldn't do a thing. I had to power off/Cold Reboot to get around this. It seemed to hold something in the memory after the Warm reboot that automatically kicked the file of again at 100%.

Eventually, to get around this, I had to completely uninstall Firewall, reinstall and it did it again when shutting down GW.

One thing I noticed, Microsofts .Net Software was causing errors. I completely uninstalled this and rebooted. Solved the problem.

So, could the .Net Software be causing problems with Guild Wars, or Guild Wars be causing porblems with .Net and in turn causing other errors in general for the whole game??

This only started to occur after the last few Guild Wars Updates. Could be coincidence, I don't know. Anyway, I'm fully running again without this problem but as yet I haven't installed the .Net software, which causes an error for the ATI Catalyst Centre. This is normal, as it uses .Net for it's Control Panel in the Catalyst Control Center version, not the older Control Panel version of the ATI drivers.

Anyway, just a few things to look at if anyone has similar issues.

The Great Al · Jul 06, 2005, 07:24 PM // 19:24

isnt the purpose of speed stepping to save battery life? i keep my laptop plugged in, id rather turn that feature off and be able to use the thing on my lap without it getting super hot