Lag and sound after a while

[-Peper-]

So yeah, my computer begin to lag and sound so loudly after 1+ gameplay or instantly when playing big games.
It is an old comp, 256mb RAM Pentium 4. I believe it is not heating, because I put on a fan then the sound disappeared but still lagged.
No internal problem, the fan's okay, and no clue.
Any suggestion?

 

[Magtheridon96]

You can't go anywhere with 256 MB of RAM
Warcraft III, for example, takes 132 MB of RAM when it executes.

I'd suggest installing a few extra RAM modules (if possible)

And I can see that you're involved in the Model-buisness.. How can your computer handle that with only 256 MB of RAM? :O

 

[Dr Super Good]

And I can see that you're involved in the Model-buisness.. How can your computer handle that with only 256 MB of RAM? :O

How should it not be able to? It just needs to cache stuff to disc and read from disc a lot more than a system that has more RAM. Yes it might take hours for something that takes a dozen minutes on new systems but it will still render and manipulate models perfectly fine.

I am guessing that memory is a problem though. Games like WC3 regually exceed 256 MB virtual memory size when in use for long periods of times (especially in leaky maps).

You will need to describe this "lag" better...
Is it that your computer runs at full frame rate but instead orders get delayed by long periods of time (like many seconds)?
Is it that the game stutters ever few seconds?
Is it that the frame rate drops to a stupidly low value (like less than 15 frames per second)?

With older systems there is a variety of problems. General memory usage inflation that has occoured over the last decade could mean your system is running out of memory when playing WC3 causing its performance to degrade due to excessive page faults. An old Hard Disk might have a poor I/O performance (I/O speed can degrade with time) meaning that it takes longer to load assets the game needs (and makes page faults worse). General computer bloat that has accumilated on your system over the years might be slowing it down (reinstalling OS will fix this). It could even be something stupid like excessive fragmentation (of both data needed by the game and of the very important page files that are used when you run out of memory making page faults take longer).

 

[-Peper-]

Is it that your computer
runs at full frame rate
but instead orders get
delayed by long periods
of time (like many
seconds)?
-
That
If I left my computer for 30 minutes or so, when I tried to right-click the desktop it takes 10 seconds to process.

 

[Magtheridon96]

If I left my computer for 30 minutes or so, when I tried to right-click the desktop it takes 10 seconds to process.

Possible problem: Faulty Hardware.
If you get an expert to look at it, he could tell you the problem.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Possible problem: Faulty Hardware.

Yes. However this is a design fault in the actual hardware and not that the specific hardware items he have are malfunctioning.

This is a well known problem of hardware of a certain age. Around 2003 it was impossible to not buy a machine that would not suffer from this problem. The exact cause was not well documented but the only common element is that it occurs in all AGP cards of a certain age. As far as I am aware, there is no fix it button next to buying a new computer.

The problem with AGP interface system was due to how it handled its additional buffer memory from RAM. Setting the buffer too large (like 300 MB) on a system with more than enough RAM causes flashplayer to be unplayable (drops frames at full screen). Likewise, certain older cards from between the geforce 5000 and 6000 series suffered this lag problem you described. This infact ruined many games I tried to play back then.

All I know is this is history with the introduction of PCI-E cards and DX10.