PSU-PC: PSU + Norton Antivirus = slowdown issues

[ChibiMyu]

Disclaimers:
1. I'm not a computer expert.
2. Disabling Norton and other forms of internet security may make your computer more vulnerable to intrusions, worms, viruses, haxing, and lots of other annoying problems you don't want your computer to have.



I got a new computer for the holidays, hoping it would run PSU better than my old notebook. After a little tweeking of the game settings the new computer ran PSU wonderfully. Then a few days later, I started noticing massive slowdowns. I went through the usual troubleshooting list: restarted, checked for viruses and spyware, etc, etc etc. None of that helped.

Then I tried running PSU with windows task manager open to see what processes took up the most system resources. When I ran PSU BEFORE the problems began, I observed that my CPU usage averaged around 15-25%, with occasional spikes no more than 50%. After I started getting slowdown, my CPU usage was nearly always above 70%, and sometimes up to 100. The process eating most of my CPU was ccProxy.exe. According to search results from google, this program is part of Norton Internet Security, specifically dealing with parental controls. Unfortunately, disabling parental controls did not prevent this process from running.

I know multiple people whose Norton seems to crash when they load PSU. I have not had this occur on my computer, but it's pretty obvious that PSU (Gameguard?) does not get along with Norton Antivirus.

I advise that other people who are experiencing unexplainable slowdowns and use Norton Antivirus to look into this issue.

And if anyone can recomend a good security program that DOES get along with PSU, it would be greatly appreciated.

[ChibiMyu]

A few more observations:

- When disabling Norton Internet Security, ccProxy.exe continued to run, but did not consume massive amounts of system resources while playing PSU.

- Norton Internet Security probably disables Windows Firewall. (Can be checked/changed by right-clicking on your internet connection icon and selecting 'change windows firewall settings'.) So far, I've had no issues running PSU with windows firewall active on any computer, but some people think it's not as secure as other firewalls.

- A copy of Norton Antivirus 2007 WITHOUT the Internet Security features didn't run ccProxy.exe on startup. I will test a copy of 2007 with Internet Security when I get a chance.

- At some point while playing PSU, Anti-Virus auto-protect turned itself off, but didn't give me any error message or warnings. It refused to turn on while PSU continued to run. When I exited PSU, I had no trouble turning it on again. So even if my copy doesn't "crash", I guess it can stop working at times without warning... I'll keep an eye on this. o.O

[Blitzkommando]

Gameguard is rather notorious for buggering up other programs, especially diagnostics and security programs. One that I noticed was that when running PSU Gameguard screws up my temperature monitor for measuring processor temperature. No other temperatures are affected, just the main processor. (Speedfan 4.28 if you are wondering) It apparently looks for certain signatures in the system memory then 'blocks' those processes from functioning properly, in your case that's Norton Internet Security. There's not a lot that can be done unless Gameguard people do something to fix the problems they cause.

[rena-ko]

switch to another virus scanner *shrugs*

[Scopes]

Norvekh specifically mentioned some of the tomfoolery of Gameguard. I HATE the damn program, especially since when I played ROSE online for a while, due to a bug GG picked up, a large portion of my harddrive was corrupted. (I LOVE things that force downloads). Anyway, I have a fairly low-spec laptop, and can run PSU, Norton and Symantec fairly well.

Now, I just have the running slowly type thing. Everything works fine, and I don't jump-lag, but it's most definatley running at around 2/3 speed. But, what I would do (even though I don't), is to just figure the idle processes in the background that you don't need. Turning off Norton while being online in probably a bad idea, but there are plenty of things that you don't need to let PSU run just fine.

(One of these days I'll figure out a way to make it so gayguard (whoops?) doesn't run, though sadly I'll have to keep it a secret because of the issue of hackers >.>)

[icewyrm]

Yay for installing software to prevent hackers that makes your machine more vulnerable to them by giving access to level 0 priveleges from level 3 rights ;_;

[soolayah]

does anyone know if it could be norton that's causing my frequent disconnections (error .057)? <.<

And if anyone can recomend a good security program that DOES get along with PSU, it would be greatly appreciated.

[AC9breaker]

This is fucking bullshit. gameguard updated itself today. I was hoping slowdown issues would be solved, WRONG they made the shit worse. I can't fucking play the game anymore. My computer crashes every fucking 3 minutes.

[AlphaMinotaux]

I can confirm for a fact that Norton Internet Security will infact Cause in game lag. I was experiencing 2 lag spikes every 2 minutes one after another. I uninstalled norton cause i was having an issue with it and i noticed i was playing PSU lag free now. I use Zone alarm now since i got it free from my friend's dad. Only reason i used norton is cause i got a free membership with my PC :/ Hell i still got 12 months left with my free norton subcription lol.

[KyokoHunter]

I've found my Norton Anti-Virus Auto-Protect is turned off or turns itself off when playing PSU. And I do get slowdowns, though only really on the planets and in missions when you've got more stuff happening - bit of a pain trying to keep up with people!

Has anybody tried PSU with the Avast! virus protection? I use it on my laptop and old PC, and it's a good bit of software, so I might purge Norton from my main PC and use Avast! instead.