Sudden Lag

I've had this game since only a little after it was released, and up until about a month ago, it has never lagged on Medium Detail settings, and has only showed a slight bit of lag in High settings. Now, though, I can't even escape lag on Low settings, with all of my background programs turned off. What it does, is it begins relatively free of lag, but about one to two minutes into the game, it starts lagging very badly and doesn't stop.

At first, I thought it must be a virus, so I did a few scans with McAfee and Avast! anti virus. No difference. The game still lagged. I also defragged the computer, did a disk cleanup, and now I'm kind of stumped as to what caused this sudden lapse of performance. I'm sort of thinking that maybe something broke in the actual machine...

Does anyone have any suggestions on what to try? It would be greatly appreciated, because I can't take it. I. Need. To. Play. This. Game.

Thanks.

i bet it's software related somehow. try formatting the entire pc.

Don't forget to backup your files on a CD or a zip drive. (Save games, documents, the sgsm folder...)

Start Live. Alt-tab back to the destop. Bring up the task manager with Ctrl-Alt-Del. Right click on nbalive06.exe and select priority->high and hit ok. You would have to do this everytime you run the game(if it fixes the choppyness).

If your game doesn't lag after that something on your computer is stealing cpu time. If it does lag, then its something else like hardware or drivers. You can also defrag your hard drives and see if that helps. You could also have a memory leak.

Thanks for the help guys. It's been almost 2 months since I've been able to play a full game of Live, and it's driving me nuts. I still can't seem to fix the problem.

Do any other games that you play choppy like live? Can you think of any software or drivers you installed on your computer between now and before it started? Have you tried reinstalling live? Any other problems with your computer that you can think of?

Since it runs fine for a few minutes and then gets real choppy, your video card or your processor may be getting too hot. You should open the case of your computer and run live, as soon as it gets choppy, hold your hand near your processor/videocard to feel how hot it is. You can touch the side of the videocard or the heatsink to get a better idea of how hot it is. Also check to make sure the fans are working.

Please post your cpu specs like this

AMD XP 2500+
1 gb ram
Sapphire X800 XT
SB Audigy 2zs
160 gb HDD
WinXP SP2

i'll reply to this. i have the same problem with moop moop. my other games also play choppy. i also had an observation. when i checked the task manager while the game was lagging, i noticed that system idle process is taking away the memory needs of the game i play. can somebody please help me with this? i'm desperate!

Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1 (Build 2600)
System Memory 512.5
Processor Speed 3200.3 MHz
DirectX 9.0c
Inno3D GeForce FX 5200
Display Memory: 128.0
Display Driver: 6.14.10.6693
Realtek AC97 Audio
Sound Driver 5.10.5750

for those who have this kind of problem, i have found a probable solution. the problem is caused by the dirt that is hanging on the heatsink of the processor. clean the heatsink carefully. remember to unplug all cords before cleaning. this was what i did to fix this problem. happy cleaning and happy playing!