Techical Glitch, Help Needed PLEASE!

[legacy-WiLiWiLsON]

Hi Again everybodyz:
When i start a game i get a serious glitch; it takes something like 5 - 10 seconds after the announcer says 'play' to even move around slightly. Is this normal, or is it hardware or software? I have an Athlon 1600+, 256MB Ram, and a nVidia GForce4 MX440.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

[legacy-UberBone]

Does it do this on or offline?

Does the level of your gfx detail settings make any difference (i.e turning from high to low)?

[legacy-WiLiWiLsON]

yes it makes a big difference

[legacy-UberBone]

Sounds to me like your sys is struggling with it - usual remedies .... more RAM!!! (pretty cheap these days, another 256 will do, but 512 would be better)

Also, make sure you have nothing else running (MSN, File Sharing etc..) that may be eating up your precious cycles ...

Run something like "adaware" - see if you're running spyware.

Check Task Manager (CTR + ALT + DEL) whilst running UT ... have a look for anything eating up your CPU (even when you have nothing but UT running)... also - right click on UT (in the task manager) and set it's priority as high as possible.

If you have 3d sound enabled - turn it off!!

Let me know if these things help - or if I need to clarify any of my amateurish advice

[legacy-Early_bath]

Uber's right there, if you're running XP then 256Mb is the absolute minimum. I was getting that problem only a few weeks ago, until I upped to 512Mb, now the game starts instantaneously, and map loads are quicker too.

[legacy-WiLiWiLsON]

when UT2003 is in the menu it takes up about 95% of the CPU, spyware didnt find anything, but since ive turned the settings down, its made a great difference thanx a lot!