Vista - Diablo II is slow to respond.

My fiance plays the game Diablo II, which, until two weeks ago, ran perfectly
fine on the family desktop. However, the game suddenly became unplayable.
When he signs on to it, the mouse is a bit sluggish, a problem that increases
ten-fold when he tries to sign onto Battlenet. It lags so horribly that it
takes the mouse thirty seconds or more just to catch up. It does this on
one-player to a certain degree, but it's at least tolerable, but he hates
playing one-player.

Now, we are not computer gurus, but we know enough to keep the system in
decent order. All the system tools are run on a regular basis, we clear the
temporary internet folder and the like quite frequently, the computer
defragments weekly, and we run virus programs all the time just to make sure
nothing got past the firewall. But there are no viruses that can be found on
the computer after using three different virus scan tools, and all our other
games are running smoothly. Granted, the other games include StarCraft and
some other old game, neither of which are benchmarks for gaming technology,
but there's no problem when he logs onto Battlenet on StarCraft.

We uninstalled and reinstalled Diablo II, but it is still having the same
problem. We even tried adjusting the mouse speed, which made no sense to
begin with, since there's no lag normally, and, as expected, there's no
difference when we run Diablo II. Also, there is nothing wrong with our
internet connection nor our network system, at least, that we can see.
Everything behaves normally until we play Diablo. Supposedly, my fiance also
checked the video card with some benchmark program to make sure there was
nothing wrong with it, but I don't see any evidence of any such program. He
may have uninstalled it, though, finding it unnecessary after he performed
the check, which he said came out fine.

My fiance contacted Diablo's support team for help, but all they told us was
that we needed to reinstall the game, which we already did. Then the blamed
the problem on the mouse speed, and then on our internet connection, all
things we ruled out before he contacted them. They weren't very helpful, to
be frank, and treated us like brand new computer owners who could barely work
a mouse.

However, I think that my fiance may have accidentally deleted some important
file or program that was necessary to run Diablo II when he ran this CCleaner
tool, which I wasn't fond of him using to begin with since he didn't look
over the list of files it wanted to delete. It seems to me that was around
the time we experienced problems with the game, but I could be wrong. It
very well may have nothing to do with the CCleaner, and I'm just searching
for a cause. It was just so sudden. One day he was playing the game fine,
and when he went to play it the following day it just didn't work correctly.
I just don't know what the problem could be when everything else checks out.

So, please, if any one has any ideas—or even the answer!—please let me know.
I would just love to get this game up and running for him. He's rather
bored in the evenings without it, and isn't too keen on switching to a new
game. He's a diehard Diablo fanatic.

In Device Manager, what is the name of your device under Display Adaptor?
What is the date and version number of the driver?

"Kim M." <Kim M.@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:412A3F5C-C126-4348-95C0-9F1DA14592CA@xxxxxx

NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nForce 430

"dean-dean" wrote:

I don't know if this is applicable or not, but I just noticed that my Windows
Experience Index for Graphics went down and now has a rating of 2.7. I don't
recall what my previous score was, but I know the lowest subcore was 3.0,
which has since been replaced by the 2.7. Is that any indication of a
problem? Or is it irrelevant?

"dean-dean" wrote:

>I don't know if this is applicable or not, but I just noticed that myYes, that would seem relevant. Try this. Download the driver for your
display device here (released today):

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x86_163.67.html

Read the Driver Installation Hints Document before you install this driver
(but don't download the driver from this page, or you may end up with the
wrong versision).
http://www.nvidia.com/object/vista_d...tructions.html

Once the new driver is installed, download and install this hotfix, from
Microsoft:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940105

Then go to Control Panel\Performance Information and Tools, and Click on
Update my Score (on the right-hand side of the window), if your Gaming
Graphics score still remains at 2.7.


"Kim M" <KimM@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:302AF4AD-A61F-45F8-837D-A21B4974635A@xxxxxx

Oh, thank you so much! It works perfectly, and the score went up to 3.1. My
fiance is thrilled. Once again, thank you for being such a help.

"dean-dean" wrote:

Your welcome! I'm glad to hear things are working.

"Kim M" <KimM@xxxxxx> wrote in message news:358948F0-32A8-4EC2-B595-3D07CCB5D727@xxxxxx

I gotta try that hotfix at home, what does it do exactly? Are there any
other hotfixes that are cool, but aren't in the Windows Update Queue?

-A.

"dean-dean" <dean-dean@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:3E0F2986-F4DB-4D21-8285-744C1DC1FB12@xxxxxx

>I gotta try that hotfix at home, what does it do exactly? Are there anyHi Andy. No, no others regarding gaming, per se, that I'm currently aware
of, with the exception of the hotfix that
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940105 references, which is
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936710/ . That latter hotfix is for
computers with more than one graphics processing units. The others that
Nvidia recommends are all available through Windows Update,
so most people will have those updates already installed. Here's Nvidea's
recommendations,
http://www.nvidia.com/object/windows..._hotfixes.html , but it should be
noted that the hotfixes from Microsoft aren't just for
computers with Nvidia cards. As to what it does exactly, well, it you read
the KB940105 article, it's pretty dry and will make your
eyes roll to the back of your head, but, according to Nvidia, at least,
"this hotfix resolves abnormal application behavior such as
crashes and extremely low frame rates when running some 3D applications at
very high graphics settings" More from Microsoft on KB940105 is here,
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device...y/WDDM_VA.mspx , which basically
states "some applications may exhaust virtual address space when running on
32-bit Windows Vista", and that the KB940105 is an interim solution.


"Andy [YaYa]" <android8675@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1BA7DDC7-C449-4BA6-83B8-A4315471C66B@xxxxxx

Thanks for the tip! Downloaded the beta driver for the Nvidia 6150SE and the
hotfix. It helped- a little. Vista is still giving us fits with
performance, crashes, freezes- you name it. I have been going nuts for two
weeks looking for fixes. Ready to buy another XP license and go the
dual-boot route.

"dean-dean" wrote: