long startup and close times for gamestudio 3d projects

Hi JCL and others,

I have this strange problem with Gamestudio3D on my fairly new asus laptop (specifications below); many times whenever I start and/or exit any (including tutorials) gamestudio 3d project (doesn't matter if it compiled or developer/SED version) it takes a long time to start the project and a long time to end it (fps etc. itself are good). Long time is e.g. ~10-15 sec more than it should and the computer etc. is freezed during that time. I only seem to have it for GS3d. Does GS3d/Acknex use lots of memory or something like that?
Anyway I can solve this?

Thanks for taking the time.

edit: error popups also take a long time to show

Specifications & info:
Windows 10 (64 bit)
DirectX 12
Virus scanner: windows defender
Page-file: automatic modus (recommended 1650mb, allocated 960mb)
CPU: i7-4510U
GPU: GeForce GT840M
Memory: 6gb/ 8gb DDR3L
SSHD (mix between normal harddisk and SSD): 1 TB, 24 GB
full specification list (it is a dutch site but should be readable): http://tweakers.net/pricewatch/398259/asus-transformer-book-flip-tp500ln-dn064h/specificaties/

I can also only speculate. Maybe some virus scanner uploads the acknex.dll in the background to the manufacturers website. Or some mouse, audio or video driver has a problem and loads very slow. It if it happens already at start, the engine startup messages might give a hint - especially when a certain message is delayed. Look also in the Windows event log.

Hi JCL, thanks for replying. When I run a script in SED I can see that drivers are loaded correctly, but after the console saying Compiling scriptname.c [ESC] to abort ........................ the freeze kicks in for about ~10 sec, than the application works correctly again until I exit it or sometimes when switching to an other proces.

I only use Windows Defender as virus scanner and have all windows privacy settings turned on (as in send as little data as possible and run as few apps as possible).
Windows logs also dont seem to give any relevant info / errors.

Also it doesn't seem to be video driver related since when I just started Windows 10 or e.g. when I restarted windows, there seems to be no problems at all.

Tldr: I only can think of memory being the problem. I will try changing the pagefile and see what that does. I have an SSHD (harddisk with a small SSD in it), maybe that is also part of the problem.

Not sure but I think I solved it by setting the page file manage to custom and setting it lower than default. cheers

Perhaps this helps others to, here are my full observations:

- it seems to be best to get a laptop/pc with 8 RAM or more for using game development software like gs3d, Unity and whatever. I have 6 and it is a bit on the low side.
- my quess would be getting a SSD for writing the page file instead of a HD or SSHD would help alot.
- dont disable your page file in the newer Window's (8/10), it seems that it can result in crashes/freezes on startup when initializing hardware stuff (in my case Asus).
- Instead set your pagefile to something low like 400 mb for both max and init. This doesn't entirely solve it though, you can still get long load times after a while but it is an improvement.

Anyway the cause of all this seems to be that the page file is used to often by Windows which results in that Windows needs to free it which takes along time cause it writes to the harddisk or something like that (which is slower than normal RAM). So using a SSD seems to be the best solution.

i have no need for such things on my laptop on win7, i run 1gb with no problems , neither with unity or a8 or anything else , except those apps which are hoggers like eclipse where it becomes obvious as a need for increased ram , i dont know windows 8-10 requirements , but i wont switch to them either .

My previous samsung laptop never had these issues on Windows 7 while it was slower with almost everything than my current laptop. It seems like a rare problem for windows 8/10. Also could be that I still have some useless windows apps on my pc that eat memory, still need to run CCleaner.

partly why i like using my laptop is it forces me to do better optimizing through its limitations , anyway as you know page files are a kind of virtual memmory which windows start using usualy when your system runs low on memmory resources , and like you said something may be taking up your ram ,i think you should be able to confirm such activity with the resource monitor .

anyway sounds very suspicious to me , perhaps you have some spyware activity or something less obnoxious but needless .

i usualy start checking for threads currently running , sometimes acknex threads dont close and sometimes i quickly pick up on problematic thread activity by looking at how much cpu time they occupy , also usually a good start to find malware threads , before i start googling.

Thanks for your replies:

I haven't seen anything suspicous in the task manager & resource monitor. Its mostly Firefox and Gs3d or Unity. I still have lots of free ram too. Also CCleaner didn't found much, just some temporary files etc.

Its also doesn't seem spyware related, since it happens quite predictable after sometime using programs like GD3d or Unity (never e.g. on startup / restart or the first few times using these programs). I have found topics though of people having problem with page files on Windows 10, e.g. like this: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/windows-10-how-fix-sluggish-performance-boost-overall-system-speed-1516413 . So far the topic's solution works (although it is a bit soon the tell), hopefully it will stay that way.

i have read clicking on the taskbar after opening an application , speeds up the application load time , sounds really odd if thats true

, your point is? There have been some problems with the pagefile in the past too. I am not saying it is 100% the pagefile, just say it seems like it is the pagefile or something memory related.
Anyway, just like my previous setting of having the pagefile to manually with 400mb-400mb it doesn't fix it, only improves it a bit it seems.

point is , if it is really true what some user has stated about clicking on the taskbar speeds up his appliclations load time , then that is a very odd thing for windows to be doing , meaning if that is the type of releases from microsoft then im glad i am not going with win10 , however i also read win7 handles paging much better , if its all true ? no idea

I hope they are teething problems. I remember Vista and win7 were annoying in the beginning too, while win7 is now so far my favourite. Hopefully the same will happen to 10.