Notes Lag

[Idiotversion]

For some reason, my computer has all of a sudden decided to lag when playing StepMania. I get an average of 300 FPS in the menus, with Vsync turned off of course, and the loading times are normal, but when the song actually starts and I start hitting notes, they start to lag making it near impossible to successfully complete a song without wanting to put my fist through my monitor. If I don't hit anything, the notes will move with no lag. It only happens when I start hitting the keys.

I've already changed the graphics setting to Direct3D and I already changed the sound setting to WaveOut. I also just updated my video and sound drivers and rebooted my computer. Nothing worked.

My computer specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.33Ghz
GeForce 8800GTS 320MB
4Gb of DDR667 RAM
Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit

I do not have the service pack because, for some reason, my computer will not allow me to install it. It won't even show up in the automatic updater. Maybe that could be the problem, but I was just playing StepMania last week on this computer with no problem.

Can anyone help me?

Edit - Just after writing this, I decided to give installing the service pack another try. Microsoft must have updated the update and it actually worked. But, my lag problem still remains.

Edit2 - After doing some more testing, I found that rapidly spamming the keys makes the arrows stop altogether while the song continues. The arrows do not resync with the song and continue from where they left off. I also tried turning on Vsync to see if that may have any effect, but it does not. I have also tried running it in windowed mode. I still get the note lag.

Edit3 - To check to see if maybe my keyboard was at fault, I went into the input test and spammed the keys. It recognized each one with no lag.

Edit4 - StepMania 3.9 and StepMania 4.0 both have the same problem even after the sound and graphics settings are modified.

Edit5 - Bah, I give up. If anyone has some magical fix, please share as I am all out of ideas.

[RichardCozODST]

Vista is the problem, I think. It's not friendly to SM unless the future builds can code it right for Vista.

[Idiotversion]

But how can that be? I was just playing StepMania last week and didn't notice any lag at all on this very same computer.

[belink]

Try a System Restore to last week. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/u...emrestore.mspx

[shakesoda]

see what happens when you disable aero (I'm curious)

[Idiotversion]

see what happens when you disable aero (I'm curious)

Disabling the Aero theme has no effect.

Try a System Restore to last week.

That option completely slipped my mind. I always hate doing a system restore, but hopefully it works.

Edit - Actually, I just installed Service Pack 1 last night and doing a system restore would most likely undo that. I really do not want to reinstall it because 1) It takes forever and 2) I already deleted the installer. There must be some other way.

[shakesoda]

Sounds like SP1 is the problem.

[Idiotversion]

But this problem happened before I installed the service pack. I only installed it in an attempt to fix the problem. Reverting back to when I didn't have it installed, which was only last night, would do nothing.

[shakesoda]

In that case I'm out of ideas.

[Idiotversion]

Me too. I guess I won't be playing StepMania for a while. Hopefully StepMania 4.0 will fix the problem when it's finished.