Hammerfight Problems

[Razaele]

Hey guys! I've begun playing this new game called Hammerfight. It's a pretty cool game, and it's got really low system requirements:

OS:Windows 98SE / ME / XP / Vista* Processor: Athlon / Pentium III 2 GHz* Memory: 256 Mb* Graphics: DirectX 8.0 compatible with 64 Mb VRAM* DirectX®: 8.0* Hard Drive: 150 Mb* Sound: DirectX 8.0 compatible

Now, I've met and surpassed these system requirements, but I'm having MONSTROUS slowdowns when I play the game. I have a 9800 GT video card, 2GB of ram, and an Intel Dual Core processor. Also, I am currently using Windows XP as my OS. My friend who's PC has lower specs than mine is able to run this game flawlessly with almost no lag. Does anyone know what the problem is?

[JeminiZero]

I dunno. Maybe your friend is running it on lower specs for lag-free experience? Maybe your friend happens to have one thing faster than you (e.g. the processor), that is the bottleneck factor? Otherwise, maybe a virus/worm might have crawled into your PC and is slowing everything down.

[Razaele]

Well, according to him he has all the settings at max. Also, I've already tried lowering the graphics settings but I'm still lagging. I'm not sure about his processor though, I'll have to ask him when I get home. I hope it isn't a worm/virus, although I already have the sinking feeling that it is. Ugh.

[Brother Oni]

Have you optimised your system resources by turning off all unnecessary services and background applications?

Have you updated your video drivers recently? If you have and you're still getting slowdown issues, have you tried reverting back a few versions?

There's an odd quirk where the latest video drivers aren't actually the best to use, especially if you have an older system.

[Razaele]

Yes, I've tried turning off all background applications before playing. It helped a little, but the lag is still massive. As for my video drivers, I'm running on the latest version of Direct X 9.0c, and I'm on Windows XP. Hmm. I guess I'll try downgrading my video drivers. Thanks for the suggestion!

[DranWork]

if its over the net make sure you have every port that it needs opened and you dont have a firewall blocking the actual game. Apart from that it sounds like a graphics card problem.

[warty goblin]

Given those specs, I assume its an older game? Because with older titles, its not uncommon for there to be severe lag under newer hardware, due to the two things speaking more or less different languages.

[Razaele]

No, it's an offline game. And no, it's a pretty new game. It got released on steam sometime during November. If it is a graphics card problem, what can I do about it?

[warty goblin]

No, it's an offline game. And no, it's a pretty new game. It got released on steam sometime during November. If it is a graphics card problem, what can I do about it?

Update your drivers? You might also try setting the game's process to only have affinity with a single core of your computer, as it could be a threading issue.

[Razaele]

Hmm. Well, I've already tried checking if my drivers were updated, and they were so I'm guessing the problem isn't there. As for setting the game's process to only have affinity with a single core of my computer, could you please elaborate on how to do this?

[Brother Oni]

I've tried the game and while the gameplay is adequate, the lack of any sort of documentation explaining the game mechanics or any of the backstory made me uninstall it at the caravan part.

That said, it seemed to run fine on my system which is about on par with yours. Are you running the game in windowed or full screen mode?

Edit:

A quick google check shows the following:

Start the program, then open up the Task Manager
Right click on the Application then Set Affinity
Make sure only CPU 0 is selected