LAN Slowdowns since Direct X 8
I host LAN parties. Delta Force and DF LW have been regular favs for years. In a recent party with 6 machines, several machines were having extreme
slowdowns while playing Delta Force (1).
Thus began a 6 week quest to solve this problem. So far, I have isolated the problem to (I think) Direct X 8. Here are a few facts.
1) The slowdowns do not occur in single player mode.
2) The slowdowns seem to migrate or appear and disappear. While uninstalling and reinstalling network plumbing, the slowdowns (4 FPS or so) go away
and show up again later.
3) All machines are Pentium 3 800 or better. All have Nvidia Gforce 2 family cards.
4) I have tried changing vid drivers, changing IPX protocals (Novell), trying different hosts, etc. Nothing works.
5) The slowdowns occur on single machines while hosting, even when disconnected from the network.
6) This problem did not occur as recently as 6 months ago.
7) I have installed lots of new titles in the past 6 months: UT2003, Age of Mythology, Warcraft III, Civilization III Play the World (had a lot of
strange problems with that title too ). If I were going to guess of a software conflict, that might be it.
8) I have also un-installed and re-installed DF and tried different combinations of machines.
9) The problem also occurs in DF LW, another LAn Party Fav.
Any help would be welcomed
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