TMI2&3 choppy, dropping frame(s) every second?

[prefect47]

Just installed TMI part 3 (yes, I'm late, so shh! no spoilers!) and noticed that I seem to drop one or more frames about every second. Especially noticable in pans like the one at the very beginning with the Voodoo Lady, the screen "jumps" and it's really annoying. I only ran the game up to the first scene wher I can control Guybrush and it's the same there. Even the mouse pointer on the menu screens jumps if I just drag it slowly and evenly left/right.

Now I know that Windows (or maybe the PC platform) isn't the best there is when it comes to keeping the GFX smooth but this is too regular to be accidental.

So far I've tried:
* Rebooting (a few times)
* Updating the GFX drivers to the latest ones (191.07).
* Updating DirectX to the latest version (2009-09-16).
* Lowering the resolution to 640x480.
* Lowering the GFX quality to 1.

I'm running on a Dell XPS M1330 with a T9300 2.5GHZ Core2 Duo, 4GB RAM, and the NVidia 8400M GS. According to SysInternals ProcessExplorer my CPU is doing pretty much nothing else besides running TMI.

The funny thing is I don't remember this happening when I was playing parts 1 and 2, but now it happens in part 2 as well. Don't have part 1 installed anymore so I can't try that right now.

Ideas? I don't want to start playing part 3 until I've at least tried to sort this out.

[Will]

Hmm, looks like you shouldn't have any problems running the game smoothly. It *could* be that you have installed something else on your computer since ep2 that is causing problems. I trust ProcessExplorer a lot, but sometimes it doesn't tell the full story. So just to be safe, let's try doing a clean boot of your computer to make sure nothing else is running.

To Boot Clean in Windows XP

1. Click Start --> Run --> Type MSCONFIG --> Click OK
2. On the General tab, choose Selective Startup
3. Uncheck Process SYSTEM.INI file
4. Uncheck Process WIN.INI file
5. Uncheck Load Startup Items
6. Click on the Services tab
7. At the bottom, check Hide All Microsoft Services
8. Uncheck all boxes in the window or click the button labeled Disable All
6. Click OK
7. Click Restart
8. After reboot, run game to see if it works.

After performing the necessary steps, restore your system by doing the following:

1. Click Start --> Run --> Type MSCONFIG--> Click OK
2. On the General tab, choose Normal Startup
3. Click OK
4. Click YES, when asked to restart your computer

[prefect47]

Whoops... all that info from me and I forgot to mention I'm running Vista (Home Premium)... sorry :)

msconfig is still there but I guess they've moved things around a bit. The services tab is still there but "process system.ini" and "process win.ini" are of course gone, and autostart has its own tab. Could I trouble you for a guide for Vista as well? My guess is to leave the general tab alone, do the same as xp for the services tab, but do I uncheck everything in the autostart tab?

Also, I remember chasing some CPU spikes caused by DPC when I had just bought this laptop (came with Vista preinstalled). But they usually appear after the computer hasn't been restarted in quite a while.

[Will]

To Boot Clean in Windows Vista

1. Click Start --> Run --> Type MSCONFIG --> Click OK
2. On the General tab, choose Selective Startup
3. Uncheck Load Startup Items
4. Select the Services tab
5. Check Hide all Microsoft services
6. Click Disable all
7. Click on OK
8. Click Restart.
9. After reboot, run game to see if it works.

After performing the necessary steps, restore your system by doing the following:

1. Click Start --> Run --> Type MSCONFIG--> Click OK
2. On the General tab, choose Normal Startup
3. Click Ok
4. Click Yes, when asked to restart your computer

[prefect47]

Sorry for the late answer but I haven't had the time to test this until now.

Anyway, it seems to work, the game runs much better than before. Now comes the fun process of turning on autostarts and services one-by-one... :rolleyes:

By the way, the settings you describe for vista made it switch to "diagnostic startup" in the general tab of msconfig.

[prefect47]

For those who might run into this; the culprit turned out to be f.lux (http://www.stereopsis.com/flux/). It polls the screen brightness (or maybe gamma) around every second.