MG Casinos overworking my HD

chayton

aka LooHoo
webmeister
PABnonaccred
CAG
Joined
Jun 5, 2006
Location
Edmonton Canada
Every time I play at a Microgaming casino, my hard drive really works overtime. I'm thinking that it's caused by all the updates and new games being slapped here and there. Seems like the ones I've played at longest are the ones that work my computer the hardest.

Do you think it would help to uninstall all of my MG casinos and whatever MG folders there are, do a defrag and reinstall them? Anyone have input? thanks!
 
I had a problem before once at a poker site and shot them a email and wow
do they know the P C's inside and out [there business ] any way they were very helpful and responsive they sent me instructions to do a reg edit

and it was explained so a third grader could do it so why not shoot them a email at support and good luck:)
 
Every time I play at a Microgaming casino, my hard drive really works overtime. I'm thinking that it's caused by all the updates and new games being slapped here and there. Seems like the ones I've played at longest are the ones that work my computer the hardest.

Do you think it would help to uninstall all of my MG casinos and whatever MG folders there are, do a defrag and reinstall them? Anyone have input? thanks!

That would be of no use, as the casino data would fragmentate again during re-installation.
Best is to put the casino data on a separate drive, not on C.
If you don't have a second drive, just try a defrag on C.
Hope it helps.
 
I've noticed this a couple of times lately but it seems to happening more with Rival. The longer I play the slower the reels spin.
 
Ket me guess, certain games etc make your fans run faster and it sounds like your PC is about to take off?

Different games require diffretn amount so ram, graphics and CPU to run, depending on how many others applications you have opened will cause things to run funny.

you can do a defrag on the system but depending on how much is already on that HD it may be no use anyway.

Go buy a external HD and install casino's on there OR partition your drives which will take a while and save them to one of them.

Or you can just buy another internal HD and set it up that way.
 
As with @same_old, I'm assuming that you are actually talking about the overall computer activity and more specifically the noisiest components (fans.)

Here are your likely problems.

RAM: Running out of capacity of your memory sticks will cause the HD to run much harder because your HD has to act as your RAM to handle overflow. This will also cause your computer to run slower because the hard drive is slower at acting as RAM.

Solution: Get more RAM. Also, don't run a ton of unnecessary programs in the background while gaming.

Graphics card processor and memory: Cheap computers handle the graphics requirements on the motherboard and the computers main processor and may not have dedicated RAM for graphics. That means the main processor and RAM have to do a lot of extra work. Higher performance computers have a card with a graphics processor and RAM dedicated to graphics.

Solution: Get a graphics card for your computer.

Money: You don't have the extra cash to buy the above mentioned components and / or another computer.

Solution: Win more money from gambling, or quit losing so much.
 
As with @same_old, I'm assuming that you are actually talking about the overall computer activity and more specifically the noisiest components (fans.)

Here are your likely problems.

RAM: Running out of capacity of your memory sticks will cause the HD to run much harder because your HD has to act as your RAM to handle overflow. This will also cause your computer to run slower because the hard drive is slower at acting as RAM.

Solution: Get more RAM. Also, don't run a ton of unnecessary programs in the background while gaming.

Graphics card processor and memory: Cheap computers handle the graphics requirements on the motherboard and the computers main processor and may not have dedicated RAM for graphics. That means the main processor and RAM have to do a lot of extra work. Higher performance computers have a card with a graphics processor and RAM dedicated to graphics.

Solution: Get a graphics card for your computer.

Money: You don't have the extra cash to buy the above mentioned components and / or another computer.

Solution: Win more money from gambling, or quit losing so much.

Good points, may want to add if all of her drivers are upto date.

Make sure your graphics driver are up to date.

Manofsteel knows what he is saying though
 
Money: You don't have the extra cash to buy the above mentioned components and / or another computer.

Solution: Win more money from gambling, or quit losing so much.

:notworthy lol....that's the solution for a LOT of my problems!

ok cool thanks people. FYI I've got a Radeon x300 SE with 128.MB and only 1GB of RAM. 1TB internal and 1TB external HD but chances are it's the card or the RAM, right?

I'll check the driver on my graphics card tomorrow too.
 
I'll also add...I'm amazed at how many people are still trying to run stuff on out dated equipment. PC's that are way overdue for retirement.

I run a couple of free casino game sites. Peeps contact me with playing issues. The number of them still running Win98 on PII & III is scary.


Cheers

Dave
 
Also my computer's only a few years old (which is almost antique in the computer world I know :rolleyes:) But it's got a Dual-core Pentium D 830 processor @ 3.0GHz - the internal HD is new and I've got over 700GB of free space on it. But I did a disk image from my old drive so nothing got reinstalled from scratch.
 
I've got a Radeon x300 SE with 128.MB and only 1GB of RAM. 1TB internal and 1TB external HD but chances are it's the card or the RAM, right?

What OS are you running?

Can't advise you on your GPU, I'm a nvidia man :D

Ram is cheap, throw another 1gig stick in.

Also remember that access times will be slower if your running stuff from your ext HDD. I'd install an internal slave drive (2'nd HDD) if it was me.

IMO ext drives are good for storing photos, videos ect...but not for running games from.


Cheers

Dave
 
What OS are you running?

Can't advise you on your GPU, I'm a nvidia man :D

Ram is cheap, throw another 1gig stick in.

Also remember that access times will be slower if your running stuff from your ext HDD. I'd install an internal slave drive (2'nd HDD) if it was me.

IMO ext drives are good for storing photos, videos ect...but not for running games from.


Cheers

Dave

I've got XP Media Center Edition, but I chucked out a lot of the stuff I didn't need - TV watching stuff and other Media Center junk. This is supposed to be expandable to 4GB of RAM but I think I only have 2 slots which are each using 500MB chips, so I'll have to lose them - and why bother upgrading to 2GB when I really want 4! I was actually planning on doing it last month but my HD was going so I bought an external drive to back up and then an internal to replace my failing drive, so that kinda shot my tech budget. Like MOS said, I need to win more or lose less....But yeah, more RAM is next on my list. :thumbsup:
 
The more recent MG casinos are FORCED to install to c:\microgaming\casinos\whatevercasino and the general game files are stored in a communal cache somewhere in "documents and settings".

The communal cache seems to be filled with THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS of tiny files and folders. This is bound to create fragmentation because of the constant casino updates, often more than once a month.

There is some merit in having a general MGS clearout, and starting again. I have noticed that MGS casinos can become permanently corrupted after an update, sometimes a single game, sometimes nearly all of them, or even the entire casino. Individual removal and reinstallation often clears the immediate problem, but I find there have been junk files left behind.

If you are going for the full clearout, and fresh start, it must be done properly. ALL the casinos, and the MGS cache, need to be deleted. Then maybe do the defrag. Install ONE MGS casino COMPLETELY, give it plenty of time, and make it one with all the games, not a cut down version.
This will populate the MGS cache. The rest of the casinos should now reinstall a lot faster, because most of the 2Gig+ size of the average MGS casino is down to common files stored in the cache, with only a few tens of Mbytes being held as "branding variants" in the casino folders.

If you are REALLY after a big clean, delete the registry keys holding "microgaming" (now obsolete it seems), and "MGS" found under the "software" heading. These keys persist even when everything MGS has been cleared from your hard drive, and they hold a memory of your account number, so reinstallation gets greeted with "you already have an account at......". Remove these keys, and you will have to manually reenter your account numbers after reinstallation, so make a note of them. Removal of these keys will also cause favourites to be completely reset, along with other bespoke settings you may have chosen under options (language etc.)

Remove the wrong keys, and you could b****r something else up:p


It won't last, MGS casinos will keep on updating, leaving junk behind, fragmenting your drive, and you may have to do it again.

It is worth trying to get some sense of before and after, to decide whether it was worth the time and effort.

Adding RAM is often seen as the best first option for increasing performance, with 4Gig being the max for Windows XP. Getting the fastest memory supported by the motherboard is best, although this might mean replacing what you already have, rather than just adding more. Having all 4, or 2, sticks of identical specification is supposed to work best.

The C: drive could be replaced with a high performance model, with data on a larger D: drive. Sadly, MGS no longer lends itself to users directing installation to other than the root directory of the C: drive, and this may NOT necessarily be the best place for highly fragmented and ever changing cache data, nor program installations.

Other odd tweaks I have heard of include explicitly specifying a fixed contiguous paging file (rather than the MS "recommended" option of letting Windows handle it), creating the paging file in it's own segment, or even alone on a high performance drive (or even solid state drive). Having enough RAM to do away altogether with a paging file (would be a problem though for some applications). OS on solid state (or other high performance) C: drive - and nothing else. RAID array (stripe) configuration - downside is if one drive fails, you lose the lot, not just what's on that failed drive.

Much of this is down to trial and error. Those who like to tinker, tinker, and then post their results. What may work on one PC may not on another, it may even make things worse.

I have done a bit of "tinkering" myself;)

My PC was bought specifically with the MGS casino problems in mind, as well as my desire to have a way to access online TV catch-up content.

My next obvious step is RAM, complete new set, slightly faster, and full 4Gigs. Old 2Gigs will hopefully work in other PC at my Mum's place, where only 1Gigs currently reside (cheap PC:D) Current 1Gigs at Mum's place, well, in a cardboard box, like the old 64Mb from my old Windows 98 PC, and it's old 9Gigs hard drive. Windows 98 PC? Still alive (but can no longer handle MGS).

After RAM, maybe a look at upgrading the graphics card. I have a full HD monitor, and I suspect the card is struggling to handle it. I may be limited by the motherboard to what graphics card options will work best, but the aim would be to have ALL graphics handled by the card, with no load overflow into the general RAM or processor.

After that, it's more complicated, a matter of tuning the OS, getting rid of "crapware" that has sneaked it's way in, and making sure that only what I need runs in the background whilst playing.

Upgrading to Windows 7 may bring an improvement, but it's expensive. PCs have moved on, and it may even be worth while getting a new PC, relegating this one to streaming media, and the old Windows 98 one to being a paperweight:D
 
Thanks Vinyl, I think I'm going to give it a try and see if it makes a difference. It seems as though the ones I've been playing at longer are the ones that make my HD whine more, so maybe it will help. Plus I can pare down some of the casinos I don't play very much at the same time and only reinstall the ones I want to keep. Thanks for the tips. :thumbsup:
 
Great advice as always by VWM.

I remember a few years back there were numerous complaints on here regarding the MG issue taking over peoples computers. Now I hardly see any largely due to many people upgrading to todays higher spec computers which are so cheap these days.

I can remember downloading an MG casino back in 2002 on XP via dial up, the process was painfully slow. The reels would freeze all the time and to get into playcheck usually crashed the whole thing as well.

Fast forward to 2009 on Vista with 4gb of ram, and 12mb wireless connection and everything is so instant.

Perhaps this can be a new promotion offer for casinos, offer free laptops to their loyal customers :)

Mike
 
Great advice as always by VWM.

I remember a few years back there were numerous complaints on here regarding the MG issue taking over peoples computers. Now I hardly see any largely due to many people upgrading to todays higher spec computers which are so cheap these days.

I can remember downloading an MG casino back in 2002 on XP via dial up, the process was painfully slow. The reels would freeze all the time and to get into playcheck usually crashed the whole thing as well.

Fast forward to 2009 on Vista with 4gb of ram, and 12mb wireless connection and everything is so instant.

Perhaps this can be a new promotion offer for casinos, offer free laptops to their loyal customers :)

Mike


Well, if MGS keep adding new games at the current rate, my next upgrade will need to be to an Alienware Area-51:D

(Wonder how fast the Slotsmeister will run for me on that eh sjn:p)
 
This is supposed to be expandable to 4GB of RAM but I think I only have 2 slots which are each using 500MB chips, so I'll have to lose them - and why bother upgrading to 2GB when I really want 4!

Actually there's not much of a difference between the jump from 2G to 4G of ram, unless you're doing video editing, etc..

Also keep in mind that if you go with 4G of ram, you're wasting 1G, because XP (32 bit) will only recognize 3. 64bit XP and/or Vista (32&64) will make full use of 4G & more..
 
Well I realized that I had 27 MG casinos installed - it took about 2 hours to uninstall them all and to delete the Microgaming and MGS directories. :eek2:

So far I've only installed one back, it seems to be running faster, but still not as good as I'd like. So I guess more RAM is next on my agenda.
 
Well I realized that I had 27 MG casinos installed - it took about 2 hours to uninstall them all and to delete the Microgaming and MGS directories. :eek2:

So far I've only installed one back, it seems to be running faster, but still not as good as I'd like. So I guess more RAM is next on my agenda.

Dunno if extra RAM will help, I had only 512MB installed, and just added another 512, but there is no noticable difference.:(
If I check in my taskmanager when having the casino running on autoplay, I see that there is only 380MB in use, but my CPU is working overtime at 100% all the time.
I have a single core P4, 2.4GHZ. running at 2.93GHZ. (Windows XP)
Its a little outdated, but it was enough until that last bloody update.
I think MG made some major changes to their Viper software, and because of that we now need a fast dual or quadcoresystem to run the casino's properly.
 
I confess to having a rather outdated PC and I have trouble with MG now. An AMD 1.6 gig processor with 1gig of RAM and it really struggles with the MG download software so I play almost entirely in the Flash casinos now. Trouble is, the thought of building a new PC with all the software I use scares the sh!t out of me :D

I bought a Samsung Netbook recently which is much better, but the resoultion on Netbooks is 1000x600 or something odd so some casinos like Playtech don't fit on the screen properly.

Actually, Thunderstruck in the Flash version is way crisper and more playable than in the dl version anyway so I'd still play the Flash version given the choice anyway :)
 
Dunno if extra RAM will help, I had only 512MB installed, and just added another 512, but there is no noticable difference.:(
If I check in my taskmanager when having the casino running on autoplay, I see that there is only 380MB in use, but my CPU is working overtime at 100% all the time.I have a single core P4, 2.4GHZ. running at 2.93GHZ. (Windows XP)
Its a little outdated, but it was enough until that last bloody update.
I think MG made some major changes to their Viper software, and because of that we now need a fast dual or quadcoresystem to run the casino's properly.

That's a tougher problem. You need to find out what is using the processor. If it is mainly the MG casino, then little can be done other than get a new PC.

A single core 2.4GHZ should be able to cope, and the multi-core processors are only of benefit if the software and OS are able to recognise them, and distribute the workload.

Windows 7 is supposed to offer full multi-core support, and the 64Bit version (with loads of RAM) is reputed (by PC Pitstop) to be the better choice.

The problem is cost, Microsoft are asking a small fortune for Windows 7 (other than the basic version), so for many home users it would be worth getting a new PC which comes with it as standard.

Microgaming have to ensure their software works "average" on as wide a range of systems as possible, so this might also be why some players have so much trouble.

If players can afford to buy top-of-the-range new PCs every year or two to cope with the casino software, and still afford to play, they need to start worrying;)
 

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