unity runs very slow,ran fine before

Unity Engine
1

hi this is my first post,I am a begineer in unity so I strugle with it a lot so my knowledge of it is very low

so I might find my problem dificult to explain

the problem is that unity runs very slow,practically unusable and I dont have ide why cuz it ran normal before

I upgraded my videocard and reformated my system,the videocard is much better than my previous wich could run it fine but now is all the oposite wich does not make sense

another thing to add is that the project was updated since I installed the latest unity today,maybe the “update” damaged something?

but when I press play the game runs normal,though at the beggining very low but quickly goes to normal speed but tend to “stutter” or slowdown sometimes,so I just dont have idea

I tested the angrybots scene that comes with the unity and runs better but still kinda slows,when pressing play it takes some time to start but runs kinda fine but when I shoot it gets slow again
and my projects is of a lower resolution and detail than the angry bots game so thats not the reason of it

my pc specs:

windows vista home premiun 32 bits

amd athlon 64 x2 dual core 4600+ 2.40 Ghz

3 gb ram

asus nvidia gt520 (previously had a nvidia 8300gs)

but this doesnt matter because it ran just fine before

so maybe when reformating something important was deleted? or maybe is something with the videocard?

one weird thing is that the main menus dont seem to “run” so slow as the rest of the editor,when I open a menu the menu gets “burned” in the editor image for some time and gets normal after a while,similiar stuff has been happening with other programs so maybe it was something related to the reformat
but anyway since I upgraded my videocard all my games runs very fine so I dont understand why unity runs so bad considering my project is full of low poly and simple textures,the terrain is the element with more polygons

so any help would be greatly apreciated cuz I have to deliver the project around december

EDIT: I have noticed that I had the “aero” stuff deactivated,but that still dont seem to have fixed the issue

2

Do you have any spec heavy games you could try to stress test your new setup? Or maybe do a benchmark of your system, and compare your result with what the average for people with similar setup have.
Also make sure you have the latest graphic card drivers installed, or maybe a more stable driver version.
Low power supply could also be an issue, but that usually gives blue screen of death. Something a stress test might reveal.
Worst case the card could be faulty.

Since this seems to not be Unity specific, try to ask on the nvidia forums, many tech save there to assist.

3

how I can make a “stress test”? metro2033 is one of the most spec heavy games I have and runs fine with everything on mediun settings,the project is very low poly so I dont think thats the issue

but sometimes my pc seem to go bonkers and games run at very low frames,restarting it seems to fix it,will try to see if maybe thats the cause

4

Futuremark Legacy Benchmarks - Benchmarks by UL Solutions is one such tool.
Also get a tool like MSI Afterburner to see what kind of temperature your card is getting, as the card is fan less.

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gt-520/performance

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1645131

When reading about GT520 I see that it is a low end card. I do not think there is anything wrong with your project. Hard to know when not having the system in-front of you.

5

my videocard has a program called smart doctor that shows temperature and let me overclock the card

temperature dont seem to show any excesive heat increase when using unity,and when increasing the speed clock thing no changes happens to unity

also other thing to note is that unreal3 games sometimes get a lag too,games like mirrors edge,or maybe more like a stutter,where the game runs fine but them for some reasons it starts to lag really bad

similiar to what happens whit unity in oposite,cuz whit unity is that sometimes when you move the fps seem to get at usable levels,but is just constant “freezing”,dont know how exactly to describe

downloaded that 3dmark thing,will see what stuff will it show

EDIT: btw according to task manger,when moving the camera it takes like 89% of cpu usage,is that normal?

6

used the 3dmark thing,ran very dam slow but the results say that the videocard wa snot recognize dor something,so i dont know if something went wrong

read on unity answer that maybe deactivating vsync may solve it,it didnt,but for some reason it rans a bit better when the setting tab is on,so still stuck

7

Try some of these things then report back if it helped you any.

  1. Okay first of all search and run disk defragmenter from your windows start bar.
  2. Google search ccleaner, download and run the registry fixer.
  3. What antivirus do you have, certain ones could slow down your computer greatly, if you have norton or some sort i greatly recommend to uninstall it then download and install microsoft security essentials.
  4. Upload your project file and post it here or like pm me the link or something, I am on a higher end netbook right now and If I can run it on this its definatly not your project.
  5. Your computer specs aren’t that bad so it should be working, if its not a fresh install of windows 7 would almost certainly speed it all up.

Oh by the way which version of 3dmark did you download, the newest version is very very graphic intense and meant to push computers, I would try 3dmark06, its free to run and test.

8

I have avast antivirus,uninstalled norton,dont know if I have another antivirus but I dont think so

defrag you mean that thing that is supposed to free space on the disk?

my first language is not english so I dont know if the stuff you mention are the right ones

I have ccleaner but isnt that use dto clean web history form browser?what does the registry thing does?

I dont know that much about pc stuff as you can notice,formating my pc was a hardous process where I was worried I may have damaged by pc everytime,so those tips looks kinda complicated to me,but will try the defrag thing

9

Good tips from Toastify.

You never ever want to have 2 anti virus on your computer.

Also try to see if new drivers can be found for your card at:

Sorry to say, I dont think your card will run very good with any 3d application (unity, blender, 3d max etc). If you dont have a good cooling of your computer cabinet, you will have heating problems.

@Toastify He is running Vista and the card is low end, without cooling.

10

Update your video card drivers.

11

how can those aplications runs slow whit this videocard? my previous card ran those fines
how is possible this one will make them run slower?

EDIT:drivers are updated to the latest ones

12

I am sorry but your new card is hardly an upgrade. Your old card had its own fan to keep it cool. GT520 roughly ties the 6800GT in raw performance. that was a good mid to high range card, 7 years ago. (http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1645131)

EDIT:

Sorry I did not notice this post until now. I suspect heat is the issue, explains why it works well for some time, then starts to lag and jitter. The system protects itself from overheating. What is the heat on startup of computer? And what is the heat after 30 minutes or 1 hour after working in unity.

13

the smart doctor normally shows 30c or around that when starting,I think it reaches around 51 when unity is running,same when playing games

but what does the fan is so important? the whatever method the new videocard do is nto enough to cool the thing? isnt that like counterproductive?
many of my games ran very slower whit the 8300gs I had before,how does a card that runs those games so smoothly makes unity runs slower? those programs ran at like 100 fps or something like that,just like 3dsmax
and I dont think games performance is diferent cuz games run slower than those programs,and I play a lot

havent installed 3ds max yet but I hope it dont run slow either,I think I used it before formating the pc,the videocard was installed before formating the pc,so if it runs slow like unity,which is unusable,them it shouldnt be the videocard
maybe is something that I havent reinstalled after formatting,cuz I have seem a few litle errors in other stuff,it was a total formating where I used the recovery disk to reinstall vista to the factory setting

EDIT:right now I am defragging the disk so I cant try to see the temperature after using unity
I can still browse the internet while defragging?

14

50c is not that much at all.

Newer is not that much always better. A newer low end (cheap) card is not necessarily better than an old mid/high end card.

Perhaps someone with more knowledge of Unity have an input?

15

another reason I dont think is the card is cuz when I click play the game runs normal,freezing a bit at the start but gradually goes smoother,is in the editor where you edit stuff which freeze

cuz is more like a freezing instead of low fps

imagine the scene there static like how normally is,but when you move the mouse to move the camera it doesnt move and after some seconds it instantly moves,mouse still moves,is not about running slow cuz it doesnt run,its just this jumping around

EDIT: I searched in google if my videocard is compatible whit unity,most of the results are of ubuntu forums and they are of various problems but none similiar to me from what I have seem,but my videocard does run unity from what I have seem on those forums too

maybe my drivers arent installed correctly?

EDIT: dont kow if those ubuntu forums means the unity3d we use or another aplication called unity

btw the card is a asus gt520,does that matter? cuz is the same as a nvidia card isn it?

16

Re install of driver could be worth testing. Also try different versions of drivers, as some time driver releases are buggy, skim the release notes.

Yes I encountered the same posts, and got the hopes up. But then I remembered Unity3d is not even supported on Linux. They might have been about unity.ubuntu.com dont know, some post did say “unity 3d”.

As Im sure you know Vista S**CK (btw have you re-installed all windows update after the reinstalling). But it ran fine before, and if the card is the only thing that has changed…

Maybe try to take the card out and insert it in another slot

17

in the nvidia homepage there is previous drivers to download?

is there like a precise way to reinstall drivers?

what you mean another slot?

EDIT: I checked windows update to see if there was something I missed,there was some nvidia related updates that werent installed for not be “essentials” updates,after installing them when I click the right button on the mouse in the scene it moves the camera faster than before,but same trouble,I click and move and after some seconds the camera reacts and if keep pressed I can move aruond the camera at reasonable framerates
only that improvement I have noted

ironically when I click play the game runs much smoother than before,much smooth

so why when pressing the play button runs so smooth while in editor runs so bad? this is making me crazy but atleast this gave me some hope

18

Yes you can find old drivers here Official Advanced Driver Search | NVIDIA
Installing drivers, at least for my card (Gigabyte GTX 460 not very expensive but very satisfied with it), is extract and run a setup file.

By slot I mean the ,socket, place, where you insert your graphic card.

You mean it runs bad when moving around in the editor panel window while the game is running?
What if you load an real small demo scene… It could be something in your current scene causing some of it

That the windows updates improved it, sure gives hope.

19

no,its not when the game is running,I dont know how to explain properly,especially in english

just visualize

I open unity,open project and scene,scene is opened,I right click to rotate camera,nothing happens eveything is static,them after like 5 seconds the program reacts and the camera rotates,if I kept the button pressed I can still move around the camera kinda smoothly,if I released the button is static again
when I click a object the object appears selected after like 4 seconds,when moving it is like when clicking right click,static at first but goes more smooth after some seconds,but its much more slower when moving a object
similiar to other funcitons like pressing f to zoom a object or just zooning in general
is that “delay” or whatever is named,and I dont think this problem is due to my videocard being not enough to run the program because it should run smooth but a low fps if thats the case isnt it?just like with games right?

when I press the play button the game runs more smooth,very smoothly after the update install

the angrybots scene runs more smoother,but the main diference beetwen my scene and that one is that my scene terrain is larger but the trees and other props are very low poly,also there is only one “enemy” where ai is just walk beetwen 2 waypoints and chase the player and retreat if the enemy is too far,the scene is mostly tests,scenario not finished,trees dont cast shadows cuz is the free unity version

20

for some reason the windows update thing found some updates it seemed to miss,related to something called net.framework or something like that

a friend that barely knows about unity asked me if that was update

does that its related to it?

anyway after installing those updates there was a slight improvement of performance when I keep the right clickbutton presses but nothing else besides that,there is some other updates pending

havent tried a more proper reinstall of the drivers,will try that too