I was running the game pre patch in all stages at like 40-50 fps. After the patch im lucky to get 10 fps( so far tested cell, creature, and tribal and its not just fps as much as it is stuttering, even the initial splash movie with the creatures spiraling in is choppy. I run a very clean gaming rig , i use a laptop for other apps this rig is gaming only, nothing in startup(except the dual core optimizer from AMD and the NVIDIA CP) and minimal services running. tons of other games run perfectly.

Things i have tried
1) reinstalling game, i wipe out all my data folder
2) reinstalling game, not installing EADM and installing patch manually from a direct download.
3) tried turning the sound acceleration in dxdiag down.
4) Switching to a single card

Notes
1) I am running the 177.92 Nvidia beta driver which I loaded when i got the game so SLI would work specifically for spore.
2) I did a custom install to put spore on my d: drive, a sperate disk where all my games are installed.
3) Playing with resolutions and graphics settings can give me somewhat better performance but even minimizing everything lowest resolution all low settings does not fix the choppiness, framerate becomes smoother but it still chops, even the galaxy map and pulling up planets.

Help!! The game in it's current state with the patch is essentially unplayable its so choopy, even the editors while somewhat less choppy are still hard to use. Prior to the patch I was running everything at high settings at 1600x1200 and played all stages incredibly smooth, like impressive smooth for my slightly dated rig, like WoW smooth, as in the graphics engine was incredible. 1 patch and it all goes to crud. Also before i uninstalled the initially patched game i was noticing some weird graphics issues in browsing items in the sporepedia in game as well.

------------------
System Information
------------------
Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3 (2600.xpsp.080413-2111)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: NVIDIA
System Model: AWRDACPI
BIOS: )Phoenix - Award WorkstationBIOS v6.00PG
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4400+, MMX, 3DNow (2 CPUs), ~2.2GHz
Memory: 2046MB RAM
Page File: 220MB used, 2696MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DxDiag Version: 5.03.2600.5512 32bit Unicode

***This is an SLI setup
---------------
Display Devices
---------------
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce 7800 GTX
Display Memory: 256.0 MB
Current Mode: 1600 x 1200 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor: Dell 2001FP (Digital)
Monitor Max Res: 1600,1200
Driver Name: nv4_disp.dll
Driver Version: 6.14.0011.7792 (English)
DDI Version: 9 (or higher)
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 8/15/2008 23:22:00, 6049536 bytes
WHQL Logo'd: No

-------------
Sound Devices
-------------
Description: SB X-Fi Audio [CC00]
Default Sound Playback: Yes
Default Voice Playback: Yes
Manufacturer ID: 1
Product ID: 100
Type: WDM
Driver Name: ctaud2k.sys
Driver Version: 6.00.0001.1283 (English)
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
WHQL Logo'd: Yes
Driver Provider: Creative
HW Accel Level: Full
EAX(tm) 2.0 Listen/Src: Yes, Yes

although my computer isnt nearly impressive as jam's is...im having this same problem in Space phase where the game is running incredibly slow while in the Galaxy map

Exact same issue, particularly on the galaxy map, the game becomes a slideshow since the patch. Annoying as this was previously the smoothest running EA title I'd ever bought, and the onyl one which for me was completely bug-free at launch.

Looks like we all get to start over. re-install and for the love of GOD not installing the patch is the lesser of two evils.

I may never patch another EA/Maxis game again.

Through quite an enormous amount of frustration and tinkering I have found that I can reduce the choppiness/framerate/lag by turning "visual effects" to low and everything else to no higher than medium. I can set visual effects to medium and everything else to low and i still get a slideshow. The game is "playable" but I would say I took a huge performance hit from 1.0 to 1.1 considering in 1.0 I ran everything at high and got 40 fps and these settings are getting me ~20, but still with lag/choppiness.

Can we please at least get some acknowledgement from EA so we know your aware of the multitude of issues this patch caused?

In space stage i lag a heck of alot on my bros computer (dang game crashes on mine)

Im fine when im not on a world, but when i hit the world, the game stops for 5 seconds, starts for 2 and freezes for another 5, and continues for about 10 minutes.

Must say, decent computer, so its no problems there, did you try reinstalling and just not patching it? I actually had no problems pre-patch, and only 1 post-patch, so im not the king of glitches (It takes alot to bring my computer down, but spore gets me up to 72% ram used, (thats 40 % ram from spore alone))

Maxis is aware of this problem. In the meanwhile try the following:

Lagging may be from the graphics/audio settings being too high.

You can set everything to low first to see if this is the issue, including the audio settings.

If that is not the issue, try setting the graphics cache size smaller, then delete the GraphicsCache.package file as described here:

http://forum.spore.com/jforum/posts/list/4721.page

It has been suggested that the problem with the decrease in performance might be caused by a modification to DRM the patch introduced. Some people have reported that after uninstalling the DRM completely from their systems the game started running smoothly again, at least when it comes to framerate etc.

sporemasterkaliena wrote:Maxis is aware of this problem. In the meanwhile try the following:

Lagging may be from the graphics/audio settings being too high.

You can set everything to low first to see if this is the issue, including the audio settings.

If that is not the issue, try setting the graphics cache size smaller, then delete the GraphicsCache.package file as described here:

http://forum.spore.com/jforum/posts/list/4721.page

You should inform maxis that a few people have used means to remove the securom from their PC and had the post patch performance drop vanish.

<--- Is one of those people.

azrupl wrote:It has been suggested that the problem with the decrease in performance might be caused by a modification to DRM the patch introduced. Some people have reported that after uninstalling the DRM completely from their systems the game started running smoothly again, at least when it comes to framerate etc.

Yeah what azrupl said .

So, can you confirm that it still runs with securom removed?

I'm guessing that doing this means that next time Spore runs it installs a pre-patch version of Securom, which does not have the issues? Otherwise having Securom there AT ALL would be a bit pointless if EA's servers don't recognise when you don't have it...

solution = Remove that ****n patch!!!!11111oneoneone

Lucky wrote:
Good news - we think that we may have figured this out. A temporary workaround is:

If you are experiencing the lag issue, please try adding -jobPriority:0 to the command line (Make a shortcut on your desktop, right-click and select Properties, and add the -jobPriority:0 to the Target line).



We have had reports of this improving the problem.

We are planning to address this with a more permanent solution.

Thanks -

-caryl

I'm glad I can count on random gamers for help on these issues. Going through tech support I stated problems only occurred only after applying the patch and have done such things as disable my old and unused on-board sound device via BIOS and lowering the process in the task manager and garnered such trivial responses as to update my audio/video drivers and delete my temp folder.

Resorting to googling, I found the unreferenced spore forum (Seriously, where's the forum link on the main page or in the support section? nowhere) and a quick fix.
Thanks to all you players who found a quick fix and no thanks to EA or Maxis for not even accepting that the 1.1 patch is causing easily fixed problems.

Radioactiwe wrote:solution = Remove that ****n securom

Fixed that typo for ya.