Checking System Resources
If you are having sluggish response times and irregular animations in the game, but the Gossip Mice aren't complaining about network issues, your computer (or device) might be overloaded.
A computer capable of having a great Tootsville experience might not perform as well when other programs are taking up its resources.
The three basic resources are: Memory, Processing, and Networking.
Here's how to check what is using those resources on your computer.
Fedora Gnu/Linux[edit]
This applies to any Linux® workstation with the Gnome desktop.
Open the Activities Overview by any one of these actions:
- Tap or click the Activities button on the Top Bar
- Press the Super key on your keyboard (usually has a logo of some kind, between Control and Meta or Alt keys by the space bar)
- Move the mouse cursor to the top-left corner of the primary screen and “bump” it into the corner
Launch System Monitor by one of these actions:
- Start typing System Monitor. The screen will update as you type. When you have typed enough that the System Monitor icon is the first (highlighted) icon, press Return or Enter, or, as soon as you see the icon appear, click on it.
- Click on the Applications List button (the nine dots at the bottom of the Dash; or, hold the Super key and press A) and then click All at the bottom of the screen. Scroll down if necessary (by dragging the screen with your finger, touching the white dots in the right margin, or using the wheel on your mouse, until you locate the Utilities group icon. Tap or click on Utilities, then System Monitor.
In the System Monitor window, click on the Resources button at the top to show your CPU (processors), Memory, and Network use.
Your game experience will be best if each of these is lower. In particular, if CPU or Memory reach the upper margin, your computer will have to slow down every program to continue operating.
To discover what program(s) are using the most of a resource:
Click on Processes in the top of the window.
Click the menu button at the top-right, and choose My Processes.
If you do not see both Memory and % CPU columns, click the application menu (System Monitor in the Top Bar) and choose Preferences, and then click Processes in that window. Under Information Fields, find and check the boxes beside % CPU and Memory, as well as Process Name. Then, close Preferences.
In the System Monitor Processes list, click the % CPU or Memory headings to sort the list. Click again to reverse the sort. To find the biggest or busiest processes, you'll wat a “downward” sort.
If you see an application is using a lot of CPU or Memory, and you are short on that resource, switch to that program and quit it. For example, if you are full on Processor (CPU) resource use, and you see that you have another game open using a lot of CPU power, you might want to quit that game.
Notes:
1. You'll see a lot of processes here that you might not recognize, usually with the blue diamond icon with gears inside. These are often “background” programs that provide services that other programs make use of. For example, “gvfsd” is the service that accesses file folders on your computer's internal and external storage and network shared storage. It is usually safe to ignore these programs. 2. The “% CPU” may be based on each CPU core. So, if you have an 8-core CPU, the total will be 800%. It's not unusual to have one application using more than “100%” CPU. To see this as a percentage of total power on your system instead, in Preferences, Check the box Divide CPU usage by CPU count.