Lag on old PC games until a gamepad is connected
Some older Windows XP games are running very slow on my Windows 10 PC. However, if a gamepad is connected before the game boots, it runs at full speed. It doesn't matter whether the game even uses gamepad input, mostly with GameMaker games.
In the above video's first clip, I run the game with no gamepad connected first, and it lags. Then, upon connecting a gamepad (Shown on the bottom-right as Steam detects the controller) and restarting the game, it runs at full speed.
In the second clip, I run the game with a gamepad already connected, and it is running full speed. I disconnect the gamepad and restart the game, and get lag. Upon re-connecting the controller and restarting the game, it runs at full speed again.
I've tried all sorts of compatibility settings (Running in compatibility for XP on both service packs, compatibility for 7/8/8.1, compatibility for admin privileges, run in low-res monitor mode, tried different color bit settings) to no avail.
It can't possibly be my PC either:
- Windows 10 Pro (64-bit) running on an SSD
- Intel i7-6700K (4.0 Ghz quad core)
- 32GB DDR4 RAM
- AMD RX580
Any suggestions on how I can get this working?
Best Answer
Maybe there's a service that is running on the background awaiting the connection of the game-pad doing attempts to connect every second or so...
What I would do is to search in Windows services and look for a service related with the name or brand of the game-pad, and then stop it.
Option B: Ctrl + Alt + Supr and go to the startup programs, then disable the unwanted services.
That should kill this background process and allows you to start the game fluent if you are not using the game-pad at this time.
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