Explain the issue you are having:

Pretty self-explanatory, I think. Gameplay lags to an unplayable level after the new skin. I know, it's my computer's fault in the end, but... Well, I used to be able to play fine, and Peppy himself actually replied to one of my Tweets saying that performance shouldn't drop (I can't find the tweets and link them back if anyone cares to see them). I'm not saying, "OMG HE LIED TO MEZ!!!" or anything like that, but... I'm just thinking that hopefully the lag is caused by some kind of bug that only happens on older computers or something? Doubtful, but... I've included more info below.


I'm currently saving up for a new computer, but it's going to be a few months before I have enough, and meanwhile, I can't play the game anymore. I used to play a LOT, I mean, you don't get to the top 50,000 of players just by playing casually every other couple of days (I guess, maybe I'm just anti-talented for osu!, but I dunno, haha. Check my osu!stats I guess, I have a few Top 40 scores at least. :p). There were times where the game would lag before (mainly when it tried to render a large slider or on story-board-heavy maps), but now it's lagging just when too many hit circles appear on-screen.

I think everyone gets the picture, so I'll go straight to the important stuff and let everyone offer their suggestions from there; I just don't want my skills to get rusty while I wait to get a computer that I can play on again, you know? ^_^;

Computer specs:
OS: Windows XP Service Pack 3
2.5 GHz Intel Celeron CPU. Single core. Nothing special.
760 MB of RAM
GPU: Intel Extreme Graphics. 64MB VRAM. This is an old school chip, it doesn't even have any Pixel Shader support, so I can't try switching to DirectX rendering or anything.
I have the latest version of .NET framework and all of that jazz; I'm somewhat computer savvy, I like to think. After all, the game ran just fine before, so everything was good.

Videos:
I had to ghetto-cam it off of my screen using my iPhone 4, but I managed to post some YouTube videos of it in action:

How I play with the lag:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omdG_wtvc-0


A play that I've done in the past, mainly to prove that I don't just suck a lot, and also to show off just how bad the lag gets...:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2zlf4aVrGQ


I also close all of the background programs I can to save RAM and CPU usage. I don't leave anything but my anti-virus running, really. No Skype, no uTorrent, nothing like that. The only other thing that could possibly be closed other than my anti-virus is f.lux, but closing that one doesn't make a difference.

By the way, I've currently tried playing with only the two updates before the most recent one. I'm going to try it right after I post this to see if my magical miracle it works fine again. XD I'll check back after that.

On a final note here, I'm not expecting much. I'm pretty sure I'm just going to have to wait it out for a while and hope a huge wad of cash flies my way somehow. Or maybe settle for a less expensive computer. But... NAAAAHH. However, if anyone thinks there's some setting I can try changing that could fix the problem, please let me know, even if it's a long shot! With computers, you really never know...

Have you tried using a simpler skin?

I wonder if .png file optimization would help in this case.

When someone posted in the skin forums a folder with all the .png sprites the game used (or at least most of them), I ran it though File Optimizer (a process that took several hours), and the size changed from this
to this (A reasonable amount considering it is lossless compression).

I can't believe I didn't think to switch to a different skin. I use the default skin most of the time, mainly so that I don't have to deal with sound samples being different when I'm mapping, not that I map much anyways. I used to use Ouendan2, though... I'll give it a try, thanks for the suggestion. If all else fails, I'll try File Optimizer for sure, too. One details I forgot to mention about my computer is that it hates HD with a hellish fire. It plays SD videos fine in VLC, but as soon as HD is mentioned... I get insane lag, sometimes even no picture. xD And since better HD support was part of the new update, that may have something to do with it.

EDIT: Welp. Changing my skin fixed it. Well, almost. It doesn't lag anymore, but most of the skins don't look right. However, I'm aware that Peppy is trying to fix this issue, so all I have to do now is find a skin that I like and hope that everything looks good! Thank you for suggesting it, Full Tablet. I'm sure I would never have thought to do something so simple had you not suggested it... Heheh. ^_^;

On a side note, changing skins brings back the usual Spinner approach circle. I highly disapprove of the new thing Peppy did, with the redness of the circle indicating when it ends. I have absolutely no way to read that properly... besides, I personally know a person who is colorblind to the color red. He wouldn't be able to tell any difference at all! Plus, now it makes the osu! tutorial beatmap that comes with every install of the game obsolete since the storyboard uses the old spinner... I wonder if Peppy will ever see this little rant? Haha. I normally welcome change in the game, but this one just seems like a bad idea to me. I thought the skin change had caused my computer to freak out and just stop rendering the approach circles on spinners for a while there. xD I seriously can't understand it...

But. That's okay since I can't use the default skin ANYWAY now. But I wish I at least knew why the change was made...

BusterBlazeFox wrote:

I can't believe I didn't think to switch to a different skin. I use the default skin most of the time, mainly so that I don't have to deal with sound samples being different when I'm mapping, not that I map much anyways. I used to use Ouendan2, though... I'll give it a try, thanks for the suggestion. If all else fails, I'll try File Optimizer for sure, too. One details I forgot to mention about my computer is that it hates HD with a hellish fire. It plays SD videos fine in VLC, but as soon as HD is mentioned... I get insane lag, sometimes even no picture. xD And since better HD support was part of the new update, that may have something to do with it.

EDIT: Welp. Changing my skin fixed it. Well, almost. It doesn't lag anymore, but most of the skins don't look right. However, I'm aware that Peppy is trying to fix this issue, so all I have to do now is find a skin that I like and hope that everything looks good! Thank you for suggesting it, Full Tablet. I'm sure I would never have thought to do something so simple had you not suggested it... Heheh. ^_^;

On a side note, changing skins brings back the usual Spinner approach circle. I highly disapprove of the new thing Peppy did, with the redness of the circle indicating when it ends. I have absolutely no way to read that properly... besides, I personally know a person who is colorblind to the color red. He wouldn't be able to tell any difference at all! Plus, now it makes the osu! tutorial beatmap that comes with every install of the game obsolete since the storyboard uses the old spinner... I wonder if Peppy will ever see this little rant? Haha. I normally welcome change in the game, but this one just seems like a bad idea to me. I thought the skin change had caused my computer to freak out and just stop rendering the approach circles on spinners for a while there. xD I seriously can't understand it...

But. That's okay since I can't use the default skin ANYWAY now. But I wish I at least knew why the change was made...

agree ;'(