Super slow loading problem

Katie Drake · August 6th, 2009, 02:18 PM

Hi everybody. First off, I just wanted to thank the creators of Army Builder for the brand spankin' new Army Builder 3.2! From what I've seen, it looks fantastic and even easier to use than before.

Unfortunately I haven't gotten a chance to try it myself, though. Here's my problem:

I had no troubles downloading or installing 3.2, nor did I have an issue liscensing it. However, whenever I choose to load the Warhammer 40,000 5th edition datafiles, the program immediately "locks up". I checked my Task Manager and found that the program is Not Responding. I tried reopening the program and starting again, but the same problem is present. I decided to let it sit for a bit and see if that solved the problem. The good news is that it does indeed load. The bad news is that it loads so slowly it's been about 15 minutes and I still can't even create a new roster, select a race, which rules to use or anything like that.

Has anyone encountered a similar problem? If so, how did you fix it? If not, what should I do from here?

Thanks for your time

Katie D

rob · August 6th, 2009, 02:27 PM

Very strange. With the latest 40K data files, AB's memory footprint is under 30MB. During compilation of the data files, memory usage peaks at just under 50MB.

All I can guess is that you are running AB on a very old system with very little memory available. What are the specs for your computer? What CPU do you have? How fast is it? How much RAM do you have?

Another factor could also be other programs you are running. Try rebooting your computer and then launching AB with nothing else running. Does this improve the performance? If so, then your system is very resource constrained, and you'll need to be careful with what other programs are running at the same time you try to use AB.

Katie Drake · August 6th, 2009, 02:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rob

All I can guess is that you are running AB on a very old system with very little memory available. What are the specs for your computer? What CPU do you have? How fast is it? How much RAM do you have?

Heh... not even close. I have a fine system. Off the top of my head, I have 4GBs of RAM, a 250GB harddrive, two 2.47ghz processors, etc, etc. I'm running Windows Vista OS and I like pie.

Quote:

Another factor could also be other programs you are running. Try rebooting your computer and then launching AB with nothing else running. Does this improve the performance? If so, then your system is very resource constrained, and you'll need to be careful with what other programs are running at the same time you try to use AB.

If this is the case then I'll be shocked, as I'm currently only running MSN Messenger and Bittorrent. I always make a point of shutting down non-essential processes every time that I boot up my computer to make sure that the system doesn't get overwhelmed. Nonetheless, I'll try rebooting like you say. If that doesn't work, I'll post back.

Thanks for your help so far!

Katie D

Katie Drake · August 6th, 2009, 02:41 PM

Okay, just adding that the problem is persisting.

rob · August 6th, 2009, 02:51 PM

Colen just suggested something to me. Try turning off Bittorrent. Completely. That means *not* just running silently in the system tray, but completely *shut down*.

It's not uncommon that Bittorrent programs expose badly written network drivers. Since the torrents open numerous connections, badly written drivers get all stuffed up and chew up *tons* of CPU resources. This would cause AB to run like molasses.

If this is the problem, check for updated networking drivers. That ought to fix the problem.

rob · August 6th, 2009, 02:54 PM

Another thing to check would be your system utilization. Open the Task Manager and view your CPU utilization. Do this *before* you launch AB. Is the utilization low? Or is it high? If the latter, the issue is with something on your system consuming the CPU so AB doesn't have access to it.

If it's low, launch AB. Once you launch AB, how does the system utilization change? Also, on the Processes tab, how much CPU is being used by AB?

Katie Drake · 03:37 PM

Alright, after shutting Bittorrent completely off, here's the numbers.

CPU usage was about 2% before turning off army builder, and Memory usage was 1.88GB's, so around 47%. I turned on Army Builder and all the sudden my CPU usage jumped through the roof, peaking out at around 52%. Strangely enough the physical memory stayed roughly the same, maybe going up by .1 GB's.

I went into my task manager and shut down every single process I could think of that I didn't absolutely need in order to run the computer. Unfortunately, the problem persists. The number under CPU for army builder bounces around somewhere between 40 and 52, which is a massive chunk... I just don't know why such a supposedly small program is doing eating up thank kind of processing power.

Thanks for your insights so far!

Katie D

EDIT: I tried starting it up and then switching the skin to the default. Now it works. I don't know why a simple skin change would cause such a hassle, but I'm not about to complain!

Thanks for your help!

Katie D

rob · August 6th, 2009, 03:54 PM

Yikes! This doesn't make any sense. The *skin* caused everything to go sideways?!?!

Colen and I have been using that skin a lot and there have been no problems for us. So something extremely odd is going on here.

Can anyone else reproduce this problem? Any clues we can get on this would be much appreciated so that we can figure it out and get it fixed.

gilvagor · August 7th, 2009, 03:24 AM

I tried it on my system and I didn't have the problem. Switched skins back and forth, loaded different game systems.

Katie do you have any different sidebar apps running? (if you have sidebar running that is).

Katie Drake · August 7th, 2009, 08:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gilvagor

I tried it on my system and I didn't have the problem. Switched skins back and forth, loaded different game systems.

Katie do you have any different sidebar apps running? (if you have sidebar running that is).

Nope. *shrug* Maybe I'm just unlucky?

Katie Drake Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Home. Posts: 16 August 6th, 2009, 02:41 PM	Okay, just adding that the problem is persisting.
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rob Senior Member Lone Wolf Staff Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 8,232 August 6th, 2009, 03:54 PM	Yikes! This doesn't make any sense. The skin caused everything to go sideways?!?! Colen and I have been using that skin a lot and there have been no problems for us. So something extremely odd is going on here. Can anyone else reproduce this problem? Any clues we can get on this would be much appreciated so that we can figure it out and get it fixed.
#8

gilvagor Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Thunder Bay, ON, Canada Posts: 158 August 7th, 2009, 03:24 AM	I tried it on my system and I didn't have the problem. Switched skins back and forth, loaded different game systems. Katie do you have any different sidebar apps running? (if you have sidebar running that is).
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