Lag on old PC games until a gamepad is connected

Solution 1:

I'm gonna guess that its from a release of gamemaker that causes problems. (The lag is clearly not coming from the game itself, because with your specs you could probably run at 1000fps.)

Something like Gamemaker, before every frame, checks what the input pressed on the controller is. Windows, not having any controller plugged in, has nowhere to send that request so it doesn't crash, it just hangs. And Gamemaker is waiting on that response to render the following frame. That response at least got a delay that if nothing is received, it kills the promise and continues rendering the frame.

So, any solutions? Not really. Here are my 3 fixes.

• Have the author of the game recompile the game in a earlier or more recent release of gamemaker that doesn't have the problem.
• Have a windows plugin that emulates having a controller plugged in, and leave it neutral.
• Just have a plugged in controller on the side and play with keyboard like you were about to.

Solution 2:

Maybe there's a service that is running on the background awaiting the connection of the game-pad doing attempts to connect every second or so...

What I would do is to search in Windows services and look for a service related with the name or brand of the game-pad, and then stop it.

Option B: Ctrl + Alt + Supr and go to the startup programs, then disable the unwanted services.

That should kill this background process and allows you to start the game fluent if you are not using the game-pad at this time.