When trying to play Two Worlds, I get some strange performance issues that I don't quite understand and I don't know what else to try in order to solve them.

When first starting the game, it runs perfectly smooth. However, after some minutes of playing (can be anything between 2 and 20, but most of the time its 2-5 minutes) everything starts lagging horribly and the game becomes unplayable. If I somehow get through that (mostly by not moving my character for another minute or two) it runs normaly again, but the whole process repeats. I could live with 20 minutes, but the short intervals kill almost all joy in playing.

I checked the task manager and it shows a constant 50-60% CPU usage during normal play as well as during lags and there's plenty of free RAM, too. Also, the game behaves exactly the same, no matter whether I'm playing in 1280x768 fullscreen with graphic details etc up, or in 640x480 windowed mode with the lowest settings possible and without sound, only difference is that it uses a little more RAM with higher settings.

My System is Windows 7 Professional 32 Bit, Intel Core2Duo 2.1 GHz, 3GB Ram and NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GS, so it should be well above minimum requirements.

When installing the game, I had to do the 'remove PhysiX, install game, install current version of PhysiX'-trick. I already tried killing about every process besides the system itself before running the game, using Two Worlds Control Panel to set priority/force to singel CPU, running as admin, running in compatibility mode, and as far as I can see, all drivers are up to date.

I know everything ran just fine on my previous (slightly slower) laptop, and I never had problems with any other games (well, expect those that simply require more performance than my system has) so I'm starting to get slightly desperate here. Anyone ran into similiar problems and kno how to solve them? Any ideas/suggestions what else to try?

That is really odd. I'd suggest uninstalling and reinstalling again. Make sure that you INSTALL as admin too. For the PhysX issue, use the solution in this post:

http://www.gog.com/forum/two_worlds_series/crash_at_start/post11

The legacy driver that PhysX now provides is the easiest way to get Two Worlds working, without having to juggle PhysX versions. So you can install the current version of PhysX, install the legacy driver, then install Two Worlds (I think).

Not sure if any of that is the problem though, anyone else have ideas?

Thanks, I guess I'll try reinstalling one more time with your hints...although after some more tests, I'm almost convinced this is a temperature issue. When I started the game after first booting the laptop this morning, I could play for almost 20 minutes with little problems before the lagging started. However, I still don't hve the problem with any other game, and while a laptop surely doesn't have the very best cooling system, CPU temperature rises to only 67°C (~150°F). I can't find a sensor for GPU temperature though, maybe that's the problem after all...

It could be temperature, but usually that affects any graphics-intensive game you try to run. Are you having problems with any other games?

One easy way to try and alleviate temperature problems is to simply clean out the dust in your case, especially near the fans. You could try that and see if it helps at all. It's harder to do for a laptop, of course, but if you have some compressed air or something you can try that. Does the laptop feel hot to the touch?

You can also look into getting a stand (or improvising your own) for the laptop that will give the fans more space to work, especially if the laptop has vents on the bottom that are right up against your desk or another surface.

My laptop has temperature problems quite often, but they never manifested like this. It is quite a-typical, since overheating should slowly decrease performance, which wouldn't lead to those periodical lags and should be prevented by lowering graphic settings.

I actually did clean the case not to long ago and I'm also using an external cooler (adjusted right beneath the laptop) since when it was really hot outside a few weeks ago, it would sometimes overheat and just shut down. But when that happend, it felt a LOT hotter than it does while playing TW now...

I have a similar problem as the man with windows 7. I have XP and the game is also LAGGING. Its playable but
choppy. I may have not been to clear on my earlier explanation. If I could get the gameplay to be more smooth and not
lagging that would be great!

thanks in advance for your advice.