Inexplicable severe drop in framerates

[PlutonianEmpire]

Ok, what would cause an inexplicable drop in framerates down to 5 fps when returning to the exact same area I posted in the Celestia pics thread 14 hours ago, even though I have not made ANY changes to ANYTHING at all?

It's quite irritating considering I had a good 30-40 fps when I took that screenshot.

[John Van Vliet]

--- edit ---

[selden]

Check to make sure nothing has moved into the field of view that wasn't there before. Remember, how Celestia works does depend on the phase of the moon! What it draws varies depending on the simulation date.

[PlutonianEmpire]

what would cause an inexplicable drop in framerates

this is windows 7 ? right


windows update ? maybe

I had to talk my dad through resetting the default windows settings today . AFTER MS stealth changed them and stealth auto installed updates and rebooted
WHILE he was using excel
yes he hit enter to move to a new line in excel and the autoupdate rebooted the machine without saving the file

so maybe MS updated something and reset IE9 back to the default browser and changed your default media player settings back to windows media player

I have not made ANY changes to ANYTHING at all

NOR did my dad
autoupdate WAS and is NOW reset to "notify ONLY "and NOT to auto install
that gets done manually

Didn't happen to me; Windows 7 did notify me of new updates, and I let it install, and when the "reboot now" dialog showed up at the lower right corner, I set it to notify me again in 4 hours, and booting up for the first time today, no changes to the update settings. So, it might have been a result of waiting to reboot, perhaps?

Check to make sure nothing has moved into the field of view that wasn't there before. Remember, how Celestia works does depend on the phase of the moon! What it draws varies depending on the simulation date.

Yep, that's exactly what I did, no new objects, and I returned to the same timescale as the screenshot, which had no background objects either, it remained slow.

I then realized I forgot to plug my cooling pad back in, plugged it in, waited a while so the laptop could cool down, but the drop in framerates was still there. Booting up for the first time today, again, still slow, but the fps just now was about 10 - 15, rather than the 5 - 10 I saw yesterday.

[John Van Vliet]

--- edit ---

[PlutonianEmpire]

laptop then


did adobe reader auto set it's self to auto start on boot and stay in RAM
that is normal faster startup in IE9 for using up RAM all day

and so is Oracle's java
the new behavior is to launch the auto-updater AT BOOT and to install all kinds of "crapware" to IE9 and Firefox( firefox will block the install ON FF by asking you IF you want the plugin installed )


when was the last time you ran "Spybot Search and Destroy " to look for a infection
and used it's "immunize" function and the "tea-timer" resident to STOP any malware from installing


also check just what the last windows updates were and WHAT they did
one of them might be very buggy and have reports about it

I don't use Spybot anymore. I use MS security essentials. Also, I removed the programs you mentioned from the start up list.

[John Van Vliet]

--- edit ---

[PlutonianEmpire]

this is the reason i had to talk my dad through it

MS put a update as a "critical security" update and thus BYPASSED the user set settings
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/secu ... n/ms12-045

it "fixes" a hole
fixes a critical vulnerability in Microsoft Data Access Components and how things are accessed in ram

Yep.

Checking the new updates history, I did indeed get it yesterday.

[John Van Vliet]

--- edit ---

[PlutonianEmpire]

I am just guessing so...

things to look at are
1) what changed ?
updates changed
You can remove them and see ,then reinstall them

2) hardware - you did and the lappy was HOT

by chance did you drop it ? some ram might have come loose
and so on through " the 20 questions" problem of tech support

It was dropped a few years ago, but was inside a laptop case at the time, and the only thing that broke was the fingerprint scanner and a tiny crack in the case on the corner of the laptop right next to the fingerprint scanner. No issues with ram.

And, uninstalling the update you mentioned didn't fix it, so I'm guessing it might be heat, although it is odd, since I'm visiting my folks and mom likes to keep the AC at 60° F.

[John Van Vliet]

--- edit ---

[PlutonianEmpire]

Yep. Rebooting didn't help much, but the framerates increased to about 20 fps.

I uninstalled a few other updates that I believed contributed to the drop in framerates, rebooted, but framerates remained at 20 fps.

For the record, I've been using Jester's 64k Earth VT, but with just the early levels (0-4), 1k tiles, and levels 8-12 with 4k tiles of areas I like.

Looking at that screenshot I posted, it turns out I had an fps of 50 to 60, even with the 4k level 12 VT, before the weird extreme drop in framerates.

[PlutonianEmpire]

UPDATE: I figured that my current project (the one involving my short story), may have been causing the drop in framerates, so I moved the entire project's folder to a temporary location outside of the Celestia directory, but I retained the VT's I was using for areas around me I know in my personal life (including where I took that screenshot), and I got about 20 fps, but a while later, having changed absolutely nothing, the 5 fps came back. Even uninstalling EVERY window's update that I applied the night before this whole thing started, didn't work.

And I'm noticing that it may be completely random, where I boot up celestia, it's slow, boot it up again, still slow, boot it up again, better frame rates, boot it up again, back to being slow, boot it up yet again, better frame rates again, etc, ad infinitum.

[John Van Vliet]

--- edit ---

[PlutonianEmpire]

And I'm noticing that it may be completely random, where I boot up celestia, it's slow, boot it up again

windows can seam that way from time to time
things like adobe update , the AV updates, and the windows indexing can look like they are just randomly taking there time at boot

have you disabled unneeded win7 services
like Zombies they have a NASTY habit of coming back from the dead
( you turn them off and disable some , only to have Microsoft turn them BACK ON, against YOUR wishes. )
http://www.blackviper.com/service-confi ... gurations/

Actually, I'm not using SP1. I am using Win 7 Pro, no service packs.

[PlutonianEmpire]

I apologize for reviving, but,

this is the reason i had to talk my dad through it

MS put a update as a "critical security" update and thus BYPASSED the user set settings
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/secu ... n/ms12-045

it "fixes" a hole
fixes a critical vulnerability in Microsoft Data Access Components and how things are accessed in ram

Yep.

Checking the new updates history, I did indeed get it yesterday.

I am just guessing so...

things to look at are
1) what changed ?
updates changed
You can remove them and see ,then reinstall them

2) hardware - you did and the lappy was HOT

by chance did you drop it ? some ram might have come loose
and so on through " the 20 questions" problem of tech support

Question: When uninstalling the offending update, was I supposed to have done it in safe mode?

[John Van Vliet]

--- edit ---

[Reiko]

UPDATE: I figured that my current project (the one involving my short story), may have been causing the drop in framerates, so I moved the entire project's folder to a temporary location outside of the Celestia directory, but I retained the VT's I was using for areas around me I know in my personal life (including where I took that screenshot), and I got about 20 fps, but a while later, having changed absolutely nothing, the 5 fps came back. Even uninstalling EVERY window's update that I applied the night before this whole thing started, didn't work.

And I'm noticing that it may be completely random, where I boot up celestia, it's slow, boot it up again, still slow, boot it up again, better frame rates, boot it up again, back to being slow, boot it up yet again, better frame rates again, etc, ad infinitum.

I have encountered this exact same problem and have yet to figure out the cause of it.

[John Van Vliet]

--- edit ---