gta san andreas problem
 

hello

Im having a problem with my San andreas. Once in a while the game lags alot for about 20 seconds.It mostely happens when im driving. I tried putting all the video setings as low as they go but it doesnt work.I was also wondering if there is a way too lower sound settings. I update video and sound drivers and harddrives are defraged etc. I also turn off virus scan. Does anybody no how to stop the game from lagging. thanx

Here is some steps you can try.

Run scandisk on your drives.
Defrag your hard drives.

goto startmenu > Run

Type in dxdiag then press enter

Click on the Sound tab, down below where it says DirectX Features

Move the slider to the left until it says Basic Acceleration

Then click Exit.

Try the game and see if it helps at all.

What does moving the slider down do. Do you get less sound quality

a bit yes, but not enough to notice, it reduces the ammount of CPU that is used to process and accellarate sound.

you should not notice any major difference in sound.

If you cant notice and it makes the game run smoother, wouldnt you want to have those settings even if you arnt having any problems?

No, because some people use high end cards that wont use their own audio processor to process sounds.

Such as the newest Audigy Cards, Audigy based cards do not depend on the CPU as they use their own built in processsor, but switching the sound down in DXDiag would cause a high end card to use your systems CPU.

Soundblaster Live 5.1 cards on the other hand can process sound on their own processor when its just Direct Sound or Hardware Sound is selected, but when you enable EAX, it cannot fully process EAX on it's own so it then will use your systems CPU. When you turn it down and disable eAX ingame, your telling the card to just process sound, but using it's own processor and not using accelerated EAX.

The same goes for system with lower end CPU's and trying to process sounds in games that use alot of higher end technology such as EAX 2 and up. When the sound is trying to be processed by a lower end sound card, the effect of "stuttering* *skipping* *distorted* ect.. sounds are the result of the system not being fast enough to push everything that is going on in the system at the same time, reducing sound releives the system of stress by not trying to accelerate the sound and instead, just processing sound nornmally without advanced features.

But some systems the result of stuttering, skipping ect.. can be the result of drivers that have an issue or have a bug. Unfortunately, I do not think you will see any more drivers for such cards as the 5.1 SB Live, Creative is way ahead on cards so 5.1 is pretty much a done deal, the latest driver they have atm has been the latest driver for around a year or so..

Users who are using pretty high end systems with Audigy ect.. did not spend that money to have to turn down sounds acceleration, thats like buying a Ferarri and driving 20 MPH. They want to hear their full sounds in EAX, 5.1-7.1 sound, just like they also want to play their games at maxed graphic settings at the same time, so they get the latest and greatest hardware to do so.

Anyways, can we get back on topic? Did any of the above work for you? Game still running with probs? If you have not even tried the suggestion, then we are done here, as I can only give you advice and tip & tricks for getting smoother gameplay, not much else I can do, and I could write a novel sized book about the workings of a PC, but really is not needed. If you want to learn about these things, search google.

Ok sorry I tried putting the sound down but there is still problems but only when im driving car for more then 5 minutes or so. Should i put setting back then?

I would leave it down as it would help on performance for the most part,

Can you post some of your system specs for me, such as ammount of Ram, Video Card Type, Sound Card Type, Processor Type/Speed.

And please also tell me what version drivers you are using, and do you have chipset drivers installed?

i have
P4800 intel 2.8 ghz
Ram:768mb ddr
video card : Radeon 9600 xt 256mb driver 8.172.0.0
sound :sound blaster live 8400? how do you check it says that in audio HQ
never installed any chip set drivers

mother board was asus P4S800