[Unresolved] RMVXA - Excessive (~10 minutes) lag on startup or playtest.

[Kosyne]

Hi all. Regrettably, my first post here is about a problem I've been having.

When starting up RPGMaker VX Ace (steam version and non-steam), it takes 10-15 minutes to even display the splash screen. Lag of a similar amount of time occurs when running a playtest as well. (Even just a blank project.)

I have this problem on two of my systems:

Laptop: Compaq Presario CQ56 - Windows 8 64-bit

- When opening the editor or starting a playtest, the entire system becomes unresponsive for about 10 minutes.

Gaming Rig: GTX 770, AMD FX-8150 CPU, 8GB ram, etc

- Same as above: Takes 10 to 15 minutes to load, but the system becomes only PARTIALLY unresponsive. For instance, I can try opening a program such as notepad, and it may load, or it may not. If it doesn't load right away, it pops up when RPGMVXA finally shows it's splash screen. I guess this means it somehow locks down a cpu thread or something?

When testing it in virtualbox Win7, it loads fine.

It leads me to think it's not compatible with Win8, but I see that some people have it working fine. Can anyone shed any light on my situation?

 

[Zane]

What is your task manager saying about it? I too have a 64 bit windows 8 but with 4GB of ram and no compatibility on and it loads fine.

 

[Kosyne]

I cant open the task manager when it hangs on my laptop, but on my desktop, the application takes about 5mb of ram, and disk write is at 100%. It says its at 0% CPU usage. At this stage, I can't even end the process with task manager ("Access is denied"). So I have to wait untill it finally decides to load.

I don't remember having this issue before, but for it to be affecting both of my systems (and a few others, I've seen after some searching) is kinda wierd...

 

[Zane]

Is windows updating? I know this causes high disk write. Open up your task manager, then open the resource manager, then click disk it will tell you whats being processed with disk activity. Also is your hard drive full or close to full? I know these play some parts in it sometimes. (Plus windows 8 is kinda crappy as far as stability)

 

[Kosyne]

My PC is running pretty much idle before running the program, and I have plenty of space on both systems. This issue only arises with RPGM VX Ace and games made with it. For instance, when I start a game made with RPGMVXA, it opens up a black screen and hangs there for 10-15 mins THEN goes to the title screen.

I've already tried the obvious fixes (CCleaner, verify application cache for the steam version, etc etc). I was more hoping for some insight as to why it would be hanging. Is it trying to load/access something I may not have or may have disabled? It hangs roughly the same amount of time every time I start it, so it almost seems as if it's waiting for a timeout. I was thinking it could be a potential bug, as I've read where people have had similar problems that have gone unresolved.

 

[Shaz]

Antivirus?

 

[Zane]

Have you tried increasing the virtual memory?

 

[Kosyne]

Nope, as said I've already eleminated all the usual suspects. I've tried this from a fresh boot on both systems with only my driver programs running, and I get the same results.

Now, I've modified my install of windows qutie a bit (disabled UAC through the control panel as well as the registry, program files being located on D:/ instead of C:/, and a bunch of smaller things). Will things such as this be the cause of any issues? (Note: It ran fine on Win7 with many of these same tweaks.)

Edit: @:::Josh::: Wouldn't 8gb of ram be enough for the program? It runs perfectly fine once loaded (except for playtesting of course).

 

[Zane]

Maybe. I know windows 8 becomes "*****y if modified"  Another thing you could try is resetting the bios to the default if you changed it. Idk if you saw the post about virtual memory yet but it helps to match that equivalent to the amount of ram you have.

ok so I know I can't double post but here is what I mean

Windows8 automatically manages virtual memory and paging file size by default.
It doesn't sets virtual memory as per the internal recommendation. The virtual memory set by default is approximately 70% of the recommendation. E.g. For my laptop, it recommends 2003MB of virtual memory wherein each drive size is of 100GB & RAM is 3GB. By default it got set to 1403MB when Windows8 was installed.

You need to increase this virtual memory. Make it equivalent to your RAM size for the initial size and twice of the initial size in maximum size and make sure you have the same amount of free space in your hard drive in each drive.

 

[Kosyne]

Yeah, I had it matched on both systems, so I don't believe thats the issue. This has me pretty much stumped. Though I've seen a few people mention similar issues as me, it doesn't seem TOO widespread, so at least I don't have to worry about it affecting end users.

If I get the time, I'll install a fresh Win8 on another partition and try to get to the bottom of this. But for now, I guess I'll just suck it up and use a VM.

Thanks for the help, hopefully this gets figured out.

 

[Zane]

Hey I tried but maybe the fresh install will do the trick good luck hope everything works right!

 

[Andar]

If a program (any program) is stuck on starting for 10 minutes but then runs fine (and has no problems like that on other systems), then there is an access conflict at startup and windows waits until one of the competing processes has a timeout or is stopped for other reasons.


This is often either a background checking program deciding that the new program is unknown and might contain a problem, a compatibility when windows needs to find the correct settings (did you set RM to run in kompatibility mode for Win7 or older? that would be better than native Win8), or when some file access restrictions kick in (if the program tries to read or write from a folder where it has no or limited access).


Finding the two conflicting processes is basically trial and error and can take quite a while of testing if you don't have any suspicions (like if the problem appeared after a certain program was updated or so)

 

[Archeia]

By any chance you use MP3 files? That gave me loads of issues when starting up RM games before, until I converted them to OGG.

 

[Kosyne]

@Archeia: As stated in the OP, this happens with blank projects as well.

@Andar: Yeah, I was thinking something along these lines. However, this happens to me on two systems even with the bare minimum running. Today I tried disabling everything but the most basic things AND trying it in safe mode, but the issue persisted in both cases.

However, I do think this could potentially be the root of the cause. The program never crashes or anything, it just hangs my system for a set amount of time, then runs as if nothing went wrong.

 

[Archeia]

Hm, this might sound silly, but have you also tried it without being connected to the internet? (assuming you're on the internet as soon as pc boots up)

 

[Kosyne]

Yep. I didn't use safe mode with networking, so I was completely offline when I tested it there.

 

[Andar]

As stated in the OP, this happens with blank projects as well.

I don't know if you have tested something similiar yet, so try this:
1) create a new project in your users "my documents" folder


2) make some changes (like loading a sample map and placing the start point on it), then save and exit


3) start Ace again and check if it still needs that much time.


that should check for problems with access rights - in your "my documents" you have full access, and saving the new project redirects Ace to open the last project there - if that suddenly works without wait, then the problem is on the windows access rights. If not, something blocks program execution itself like described a few posts back.

 

[Kosyne]

Thanks for the suggestion, but that didn't fix the issue. I'm back home now and Imma try a VM Win8 and tweak and test from there.

 

[Ed19]

1) Turn off your fire-wall. The first time when I installed RPG Maker VX, it was laggy! so I turned my fire-wall off and it works fine until now.

2) Moghunter has anti-lag script. You should try it.

3) Turn off BGM, ME, SE could help. But, it will reduce your gaming experience.

 

[ShinGamix]

I would advise uploading a demo so someone else could test it out on thier pc to see if it has the same effect to on a different pc also.