Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with lag

Computer slowing for no reason!

moiraine — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 09:54:53 -0800

Why did my laptop (Vista) started slowing down dramatically for no reason? This is after I rebooted (many times), and turned off half the startup programs, ran anti-virus programs and AdAware. Today, I was using my laptop (Vista), had a couple of programs running, but nothing insanely memory-hungry -- Excel, Word, Publisher, SigmaPlot, EndNote, Chrome --, when all of a sudden, my computer started slowing VERY noticeably. When I am working within a single program, my computer works fine. When I switch programs, it takes a while before the other program opens. This is very frustrating, because I am a heavy Alt-Tab user, and while five seconds doesn't seem like a long time, it does in Alt-Tab world.

Anyway, I tried all the usual suspects -- rebooted, turning off start-up programs, checking the computer for malware. No luck.

Please help me!

Wireless Network Lag

bobertdude — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 11:18:37 -0800

What are some ways I can improve latency over a wireless network? When i do the ping test on google i get an average of 90ms, which is not good enough for online games. Are there any ways you can improve latency over a network? I have a Wireless G adapter with 3 computers connected to it. Switching from wireless is not an option for me. Please ask me as many questions as you have to about my network and I'll be happy to answer.

PS - I switched over to OpenDNS. Is that bad news for my network latency?

Minimum PC specs for playing HD video files?

wastelands — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 08:08:07 -0800

What are the minimum specs for a PC to play HD video files smoothly? I need to replace my ancient P4 2.8 GHz (w/onboard video) for several reasons, including that it chokes on some 720p videos during high action/movement scenes. Would your basic ~$480 Dell handle smooth playback of high def video files (.mkv, .avi) on VLC media player? Could I run other apps in the background (browser, IM, etc.) without input or video stutters and lag?

For example something like this:

Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 (3MB L2, 2.8GHz, 1066FSB)
Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium Edition SP1
2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz- 2DIMMs
500GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache
Integrated Intel® GMA X4500HD Graphics

Or do I need more power?

Is Civilization worth the angst?

spinturtle — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:05:20 -0800

I've finally convinced myself that it's time to get Civilization IV, but after reading some reviews I'm worried about the lag/crashing problem (although even the reviewers that complain about the lag still seem to love the game). I've read this question and this question, but was wondering if anyone has more recent info - new patches, newer Macbook eliminates the issue? I'm using a Macbook purchased in January of this year (OSX 10.5.5), but I'm honestly not technical enough to know what other info you might want to know (if you tell me *exactly*where to look, though, I'm sure I could figure it out). So my question boils down to this - will I be ripping my hair out as the game crashes every 4 minutes, or will I enjoy myself for hours on end and only experience infrequent moments of lag?

Why the DTV lag?

middleclasstool — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 08:04:43 -0800

Why does a tv station's digital signal lag behind its analog signal? We're one of those annoying families that refuses to pay for TV. We forked over the cash for an HDTV with a digital tuner, and absolutely love the results -- more channels, better quality, total freeness.

But we've noticed a weird thing. Our other two TVs are still on rabbit ears. One of them, in the kitchen, is well within earshot of the HDTV in the living room. Yet if we have the same show on both TV sets, there is a distinct lag, not more than maybe two or three seconds, between the two shows.

This happens on all networks, so I know it's not a channel-specific thing. I haven't timed it, but I'm positive the lag is precisely the same length regardless of the channel, too.

Is there a technical reason for this lag to occur? I know the DTV signal is actually being transmitted on a totally separate frequency (channel 2's digital channels, 2.1-2.4, are actually broadcasting on channel 5's frequency, for instance), so what could be the reason for the delay?

Torrents are slowing down my Firefox!

zardoz — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 05:54:58 -0800

Whenever I run Transmission on OSX, my Firefox browsing slows to a trickle, or simply stops altogether. I have an iMac running OSX 10.5.3, and I use Transmission to download torrents, and less frequently Limewire. About a month ago I moved to a new house and a new ISP, an DSL line with a 4500 kb/s download, and about 800 up (in Tokyo). My download and surfing speeds aren't as fast as my previous place, but it's still quite fast.

Recently, though, whenever I fire up Transmission and/or Limewire, my browsing just stops. Sometimes not completely, but only if whatever I'm downloading is itself just a trickle. (This isn't OS specific: I use BootCamp and have the same problem when booted into Win XP, using uTorrent and FF). The strange thing is this problem just cropped up about a week ago, and surfing while downloading worked fine when I first got the connection going.

I've read some other posts about this problem, but still can't figure it out. I've installed Carrafix, for example, but at least at the time of this writing (and perhaps never), I don't understand it. I'm only moderately computer literate and the whole "bandwidth throttling", "bottlenecking" stuff is new to me.

I don't really know what to do. Others have suggested cfosSpeed, but it's Windows only and I mostly use OSX--is there a Mac equivalent to this program? Any other tricks or suggestions?

I need my Guitar Hero

Navelgazer — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 10:13:58 -0800

HDTV's that don't cause video game lag? I'm in the market for a new TV in the near future, but I'm worried about HDTV's causing crippling video game lag from PS2's and other previous-generation systems. Does anyone know which new HDTV's don't have this problem?

Iron Maiden never had this problem.

Schlimmbesserung — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 11:03:56 -0800

Help this tech-impaired rock star record face-melting multi-layered music on his computer! I've got the basic equipment: my precious Pod X3 with guitar and vocal mic plugged in, a reasonably-mighty laptop (dual 2.0gHz and two gigs of RAM) running Audacity, and the came-with-the-Pod USB cable connecting it all. There's just one problem: massive, tears-inducing lag. Click track or not, everything I do gets recorded about a quarter- or half-second late, which makes any kind of tight layering downright impossible.

I'm brand new at this style of recording, and a hopeless computer user in general, so I bet I'm missing something painfully obvious here. Please be gentle, o hive mind, but help me unleash the rock!

How to get my mouse to wake up faster?

Magnakai — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 19:49:51 -0800

Macfilter: Why does my wired USB mouse take a second to start responding on my Macbook? I'm familiar with the lag one receives when you start using a wireless mouse. My question is, why am I receiving the same thing with wired mice on my Core 2 Duo Macbook?

I'm running OSX 10.4.11, and have both a Logitech Wheel Mouse and my trusty old Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer. When I haven't touched my mouse in a short time, there's a noticeable delay of maybe a second or two before it start responding. After that, it's absolutely fine until you leave it alone for a short period of time. This never, ever, ever happens with the inbuilt trackpad, yet it doesn't matter which of my two (admittedly fairly old but eminently serviceable) mice are plugged in.

It's a real pain for me because I'll be typing for a short period of time, then need to click on something that I either don't know the keyboard shortcut for or for which there isn't one, and then go back to typing. This happens very frequently and it's currently driving me insane, and worse, to use the trackpad. The trackpad inherently annoys me, but that's another story. Help me, hive mind!

Email lag in Entourage

gingembre — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 13:42:35 -0800

Why are some of my outgoing email messages lagging in Entourage? My Entourage seems to be working fine, but as of a few weeks ago while I was on a friends wireless network, all of my outgoing emails were taking 2-3 hours to be delivered to their respective inboxes. Entourage showed them as sent, and they were in my sent folder, they just didn't arrive until later -- and they all arrived at once. Then the problem just stopped, and everything was fine again. Now back on my own network, it is happening again, but in unpredictable intervals. I am using Entourage through a POP server (yahoo), and if I send using Yahoo, there is no lag. I am on Mac OSX. I am not a techie, so I am having a time trying to figure this out.

Must prepare for QuakeZero

Satapher — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 15:49:55 -0800

Despite my sub-20 ping, when playing Quake 3 multiplayer. every 60 seconds I get a huge lag spike, every minute or so like clockwork I know it has something to do with my wireless connection but I'm not sure what it is or how to change it. The lag spike is not sporadic but rhythmic, every minute or so, like the router and the adapter are saying hello.

I have a WRT54G like everybody else, I've installed DD-WRT onto it in hopes of killing the lag spike, but the lag spike still lives... I even checked to see if it was some lame WGA "feature"... but to no avail

Any ideas? Rhythmic lag spikes, every 60 seconds, even if I could someone change "it" to every 5 mins I'd be happy.

How many baby pics can you look at without vomiting?

pomegranate — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 14:53:48 -0800

New baby coming, lots of photo ops. Which digital camera to get for less than $500? I've looked at lots of digital camera review sites, and to be honest, at 38 weeks I'm just too dumb/ADD to sift through them all to find what I want. So fellow parents/doting aunts and uncles/people who just know something about photography, what's your favorite camera for capturing the joys of baby and toddlerhood?

Here are the basic requirements:
*Fast startup time and low shutter lag in case I catch them doing something adorable (or doing something I can blackmail them with later)
*Good light controls so I can capture that golden afternoon light on her napping little face
*Portable in a purse or diaper bag
*Not too expensive - losing it or getting half a rotten bottle of milk spilled on it is just a matter of time.

My computer is getting old and cranky.

Sonic_Molson — Sat, 13 May 2006 17:11:06 -0800

My computer has been laggy since I got my dual-dvi card...anything left to do that I haven't tried? General specs of my computer:
AMD XP2000
1gb ram. ddr333

So my computer was smooth as can be for 3 years, I'm talking original winXP install, uptimes that went over 100 days and were usually ended by power outages. I loved my system, and I decided to make it better...I got two 19" LCD's to replace my single 19" CRT...and that's when my problem started.

For the first few days, as a temporary solution I had 2 video cards (my original nvidia 5600xt and then some other PCI card). With this setup my problems begin... I then managed to get my hand on a matrox g450 which eliminated having 2 cards, but was still analog, and my problem did not go away. Finally my Quadro4 NVS280 arrived..and my problem has not gone away since...

Now, you're wondering what my problem is...if I am watching video the video will often be choppy/laggy. For example if a car is riding past the camera it will go normal speed, then slow down..and then go warp speed for a 10th of a second while everything catches up. When I listen to music, even if I am not doing anything, it will occasionaly make minor skips/pops/beeps. If I try loading an application, it skip/pop/beep until the other application is done loading (completly impossible to listen to). This was not the case with my previous single monitor setup.

It is probably important to note that I don't have many processes running and that these skips often occur at below 50% cpu usage.

The things I tried:
1) There was no IRQ "conflicts" (according to windows) although at first my video card shared resources with other devices, as did my sound card. This was fixed. There are no conflicts anymore.
2) Video drivers installed, sound card drivers reinstalled.
3) Removing all cards except my video card/sound card.

Why would the video and/or sound skip if the cpu isn't even being used much? AFAIK, normally that would be an IRQ conflict, but my video card and sound card are both on their own interrupts.

Is my only hope to upgrade my computer because it can't handle the duty of supplying video for 2 monitors?

Mud Lag

DieHipsterDie — Sat, 13 May 2006 12:28:24 -0800

There's Lag in my Mud! The last two days I've experienced intermittant annoying lag in the Aardwolf Mud I play.

Their server is fine and nothing has changed on my end.

Running a trace route shows a big delay at one point before it times out. What can be done to fix this?

Can someone also run a trace to aardwolf.org. thanks.

Best Fast and Ultra-Compact Digital Camera as of May, 2005

rafibodill — Tue, 03 May 2005 10:07:53 -0800

Looking for an extremely fast and ulta compact digital camera for my traveling. I want to take as much photos as I can, I do not intend on printing them. I want a camera that could be slipped inside my pocket and be turned on quickly, to shoot a picture fast when I see something I want to remember. The price range can be anywhere up to $500, small, and minimal lag for on-the-road shooting. I went to "Wolf Camera" to see some cameras hands-on. I tested the Sony DSC-T3 and the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX7, they were pretty fast and compact, I really like the image stabilizer on the DMC-FX7, but I didn't like the lens movement on power on/off, therefore the Sony DSC-T3 power on/off speed seem better, although for action photos the DMC-FX7 will probably do a better job.
Are there any other cameras I should consider? Please help me make the best choice.