[Virtualacorn-list] VRPC Suddenly Become Very Slow

[Mik Towse]

In article <0E305647DE1440A5A9F7D26945E61B27 at philipsdesktop> T.O.M.S. wrote:
> On Sat Jul 19 15:14:42 BST 2014, Mik Towse mik.towse at xemik.com 
> sayeth:
> > After a power cut earlier today ... VPRC is running very slowly. Mouse
> > pointer jerks around screen & text import lags.
> 
> > So I assume Windows 8.1 is crippling VRPC, but why? And how do I fix it?
> Sorry I haven't got an answer Mike, but here's a few things you might 
> like to check, in some sort of order (and in the hope it isn't telling 
> you how to suck eggs):
No problem... I have tried a few things before coming here. Scanned C: & E:
(USB drive where VRPC HDDs live), no errors. Resized pagefile to try & clear
& potential corruption there.

I tried to reply yesterday, but VRPC was unusable. Impossible to type
anything because of the lag...

> -  Is Windows running at normal speeds?
Hard to say. It does stutter, but that might be the W8 bug which freezes the
mouse & keyboard.

> -  Is the hard disc activity much more than usual?
HDD is flashing regularly but I don;t know if it's more than usual.

> -  If you press the dreaded <Ctrl-Alt-Delete>, click on the  <Processes>
> tab, then click on the <CPU> tab (repeat if necessary)  until the top line
> reads System Idle Process, is the reading in the  high-nineties?
> (97-99%-ish.)
CPU 4%-6% usage. 30% of 6Gb RAM in use.

> -  If not, what other process(es) are eating into the ooomph? 
> (Technical phrase.)
Nothing hogging the PC. AVG is accessing the HDD regularly, 4%-ish.

> -  With VirtualRPC in a window, click on Tools-Options and select the 
> <General> tab. Does the processor speed readout match your computer 
> processor? If not, select <Manual> and enter the speed manually. Any 
> better?
That is close as makes no difference at 3692.

> -  Do you normally run VirtualRPC in a window? If yes, select 
> full-screen mode. Any better?
Full-screen pretty much killed VRPC stone dead. I reckon I could have
chiselled out an email in granite quicker than typing it. ;)

> -  Do you have a back-up *default* installation of VirtualRPC on the 
> hard disc? If so, close down the normal VirtualRPC, start up the 
> back-up copy and see if it's any better.
This got interesting. I have a VRPC installation on the USB drive, but the
main one lives on C:. After I recovered my activation email from Aaron &
remembered to remove the Atapi driver 8), the SA version was still slow., but
the normal adjust version ran at normal speed.

> -  If not, you might like to install a fresh, default copy of 
> VirtualRPC *somewhere else on the hard disc*. To do that, start the 
> normal installation process from the master disc. When you get to the 
> page saying "VirtualRPC-xxx's files will be installed in the following 
> directory:", change the default installation address (C:\Program 
> Files\VirtualAcorn\VirtualRPC-xxx) to something else, of your 
> choosing, e.g "C:\Program Files\VirtualAcorn\Back-up", and continue.
> 
> -  Once done, close down your normal copy of VirtualRPC, then 
> double-click on the *new* VirtualRPC icon on the Windows iconbar to 
> start it. Check that it does indeed give you a paint-fresh, default 
> copy.
Haven't tried this one yet. Today, VRPC is running at normal speed for 80% of
the time. Then it drops, before recovering. What I've noticed is that the
Mips doesn't seem to matter. VRPC runs at normal speed even when Mips drops
to 4 provided the Fps doesn't drop below 50. Currently it's showing 4Mips,
59Fps & 24.2 Sys.

On startup Mips is usually around 500, then it drops to 150-250 before
plumetting to 4! Fps usually hovers between 55-61 & Sys 22-25. VRPC appears
to only become sluggish when Fps falls drastically.

PS:
This is my second attempt at writing this email today. My first was lost when
VRPC crashed as I accessed 'Processes' with an error message 'Unable to
create partition surface' or something along those lines. Hm...

-- 
Mik Towse * mik.towse at xemik.com * http://www.xemik.co.uk/
My writers' site can be found at: http://www.lexis.org.uk

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