Loading older games takes forever \ VOGONS

Loading older games takes forever

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First post, by filipetolhuizen

Posted on 2020-04-24, 00:49

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Hello,
IIRC a similar issue has been posted here in the past, but I couldn't find it, so... I'm on Win7 64-bits and whenever I launch most of older games, mostly DirectX5-7 games, they take about 1 minute to properly load. I can speed this up by launching them twice, however, when the first is fully loaded, the one I'm playing loses window focus. No HD activity happens for most of their loading time. Is there a known fix for this? The affected games are all working fine, but it's kinda annoying. My config:
ASUS Maximus VIII Hero with latest BIOS
I7 6770K
16GB RAM
GTX460 with latest supporting drivers
SB X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty with latest drivers
HP Deskjet InkAdvantage 2546 with latest drivers
Everything with their latest drivers (USB, MEI, Chipset, Storage, LAN, etc.)

Reply 1 of 6, by yochenhsieh

Posted on 2020-04-24, 00:59

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Location: Taipei, Taiwan

Are you not online when playing those games?
If so, it's the game explorer.
https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=9585.0
I managed to delete gameux.dll myself, and the problem is gone forever.

Reply 2 of 6, by DosFreak

Posted on 2020-04-24, 01:05

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Process Monitor and possibly dependency walker may also help track down the issue.

How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
Make your games work offline

Reply 3 of 6, by schmatzler

Posted on 2020-04-24, 02:13

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Oh I remember this problem. Have written about this a few years back and it sure seems to be the Game Explorer:

https://lichtmetzger.de/en/2016/04/28/windows … games-explorer/

The gist of it is basically deleting C:Windows/AppPatch/sysmain.sdb. This database contains compatibility settings for a lot of programs and it looks like all games contained in this database (like NOLF.exe, lithtech.exe) are always scanned by Games Explorer which results in a wait time on startup while it tries to make an online connection to some Microsoft servers - regardless of the settings you made otherwise.

This database was severely extended after installing KB2492386 and caused this abnormal behaviour. After uninstalling it, the new settings are not deleted from the system, which makes it even more annoying.

"Windows 98's natural state is locked up"

Reply 4 of 6, by filipetolhuizen

Posted on 2020-04-24, 02:54

filipetolhuizen Offline

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Thank you! Application Compatibility Toolkit allows me to disable those compatibility profiles manually without deleting anything and it sure did the trick.

Reply 5 of 6, by ZellSF

Posted on 2020-04-24, 09:57

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schmatzler wrote on 2020-04-24, 02:13:
Oh I remember this problem. Have written about this a few years back and it sure seems to be the Game Explorer: […]
Show full quote

Oh I remember this problem. Have written about this a few years back and it sure seems to be the Game Explorer:

https://lichtmetzger.de/en/2016/04/28/windows … games-explorer/

The gist of it is basically deleting C:Windows/AppPatch/sysmain.sdb. This database contains compatibility settings for a lot of programs and it looks like all games contained in this database (like NOLF.exe, lithtech.exe) are always scanned by Games Explorer which results in a wait time on startup while it tries to make an online connection to some Microsoft servers - regardless of the settings you made otherwise.

This database was severely extended after installing KB2492386 and caused this abnormal behaviour. After uninstalling it, the new settings are not deleted from the system, which makes it even more annoying.

Deleting the system compatibility database seems like potentially dangerous advice.

filipetolhuizen wrote on 2020-04-24, 02:54:

Thank you! Application Compatibility Toolkit allows me to disable those compatibility profiles manually without deleting anything and it sure did the trick.

This seems saner.

Reply 6 of 6, by UCyborg

Posted on 2020-04-24, 13:01

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I made a registry import file once that disables all GameUX entries.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1G45mk_NUtUK … REqGx9jhbUlN1RU

Arthur Schopenhauer wrote:
A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

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