Maybe someone knows what the problem is... thanks to the GOG Preservation Program and their update, the game Dragon Age: Origin stopped working normally.... before the whole game was running at 60 fps without any problems... after the update, the fps constantly drops, the game constantly jerks ...it became very unpleasant to play...what could be the problem???...GOG wanted to do the best but somehow made everything much worse.

Update (13 November 2024)

Enabled Large Address Aware (LAA) support to enhance memory utilization
Limited the game to 2 CPU cores to boost performance and stability
Verified compatibility with Windows 10 and 11
Verified Cloud Saves support

This was the changes done. No one knows your system but it may screw up something on certain systems.

You're using Galaxy, aren't you?

Update (13 November 2024)
Enabled Large Address Aware (LAA) support to enhance memory utilization
Limited the game to 2 CPU cores to boost performance and stability
Verified compatibility with Windows 10 and 11
Verified Cloud Saves support

That's what was changed. Perhaps one of these changes is in conflict with your hardware or settings.

Try to check the shortcut properties, there might be a target commands that force the game to launch with limitations.

As the temporary solution you can also check if the game uses 1 or 2 CPU cores and make it use more cores in Task Manager.

It's almost certainly the fact they limited it to 2 cores (even though the "untweaked" version is working fine on my system happily using 8C/16T threads). It basically means the "preserved" GOG version of one of the best multi-threaded games from 2009 is now going to run like cr*p on many systems, especially ultrathin laptops and handhelds with many low-clocked cores constrained to 7-28w TDP. Exactly what I warned about in the "Game Preservation" thread that "one size doesn't fit all" when it comes to forcing one set of compatibility tweaks on everyone...

And how to convey this to GOG??? that their innovations spoil the games??? I wrote to the support service... but since she works for them, it makes no sense... there are incompetent people.

I haven't read that other thread but ... why are they doing this? How is limiting the game to 2 cores supposed to boost performance?

Or even mini pcs for example But ya I have noticed games that prior ran great now run badly in comparison with the new updates my guess is the fact some games do run like crude on modern cpus with more then 2 cores that or unstable and/or running at too fast a speed on modern cpus ..but they kinda are doing a'' one size fits all'' style of approach

They're probably looking at some common problem / fixes on PCGW then trying to apply the whole lot like a sledgehammer just because it worked on their test system. Thing is, it's quite normal for some systems to need some fixes but not for every system to need every fix. Eg, the Intel iGPU bypass fix for Fallout 3 isn't needed for AMD / nVidia, nor is the "invisible water on Intel iGPU's" fix for NOLF.

You only have to look back at some of the original benchmarks at time of launch to see the difference 2/2 vs 4/4 or 4/8 CPU threads made (eg, Core 2 Duo E6600 (2/2) = 18-28fps vs Core 2 Quad Q9650 (4/4) = 40-63fps) made, even back in 2009. See also how it scales with Phenom X2 vs X3 vs X4 (dual, tri, quad core) AMD CPU's. Literally every review at the time was praising how well threaded the game was and how well it ran on quad-cores, etc (back during that era when quad cores were out for quite a while but still very few games made use of them - this was one game that did).

So this new fangled belief that DAO doesn't work on 4 or more cores is incorrect. I played it through again last year on a 8c/16t system and it worked fine, zero crashes (I applied LAA but not core affinity fix). I also just dug out the original 2009 DVD-ROM retail disc and tested that, and that worked fine too. I don't doubt that it does crash on some systems, but that's often the result of a combination of reasons rather than just be "All quad to octo cores crash for everyone". Same with other stuff, eg, trying to force core affinity (lock game threads to specific CPU's) can affect hetereogenous cored CPU's (newer Intel CPU's with different P cores and E cores) differently to homogenous ones (every core is the same).

Stuff like this is why people are incredibly naive over the whole "I want GOG to preserve my game by pre-tweaking everything perfectly for everyone" thing, when back in the real world PC's are still not consoles, and different people will own very different hardware that may need to include / exclude different tweaks. And if every tweak is forced into the game in advance, you have no "clean" original base to work from to even begin to troubleshoot what breaks what, which is ironically the opposite of what "game preservation" is...

@ Azgiliat I remember playing DA:O GOG version not too long ago, maybe max. 5 months, so definitely before this update pushed by GOG's new program, and I remember that out of a sudden the game started behaving suddenly just as you describe, no change occurred to the game or Windows and after searching the internet for a bit I realized that this game is very broken in the vanilla state.

I went to Nexus Mods and used the following mods/fixes to fix the game and make it enjoyable again (also make it able to be completed):
- LAA (you don't need this one since GOG last updated already set that flag);
- Qwinn's Ultimate DAO Fixpack v3.52;
- Dain's Fixes;
- Law and Order Fixes;
- Bombs Away Quest Fix;
- Awakening Silverite Mines Bugfix;
- Awakening Riot Scene Persuade Fix;
- Joining ritual fix for Awakening companions;
- Awakening Messenger Bugfix;
- Awakening endgame cutscene fixes;
- Baroness Reward Fix;
- Awakening Blackblade Armor Dragon Drop Fix;

I know it's a long laundry list but if you really wanna finish this game these mods are a must.

So much this. All GOG can do is tweak it for their half dozen test systems, then just have blind faith that everyone's PC will react to the pre-applied mods / fixes the same. Even ignoring the usual AMD vs nVidia differences on desktop, you've got laptops, handhelds, NUC's / Mini-PC's, Surface devices (Windows tablets), and a fix jammed into one can easily break another. This "we broke the game for some people whilst 'preserving' it for others" is a perfect real-world example of why people keep asking for an original version / files to be made available (what actual game preservation is far more than bundling non-optional mod packs).

Well that sounds bad.

You can revert back to the older version through Galaxy rollback but once again, offline installers get forever screwed after the point the update happened.

Drastic measures like these (fiddling with core affinity for example) should honestly be left up to the end user because as said, it will differ system by system and can often help for a certain brand of CPUs, but make matters much worse on others. Personally, also played through DA:O on 4/8 core CPUs without issues.

Change the core affinity so that all cores on your system are being used again:

https://superuser.com/a/908870

https://superuser.com/a/1691324

To find out how many cores your CPU has, press CTRL + SHIFT + ESC, and select the Performance tab. Click on CPU.

On the right hand side of the screen, you will see Cores and a number next to it.

The CPU change is something I also did not understand. I currently started playing the game and I did my extensive research about the game and what is really needed to work and I have not seen anyone to mention anything related to the CPU being a must change. The only a must part is the 4GB patch (and lowering your settings). And seeing people are having problems now I really hope while they are fixing the current DLCs issue the game have to also remove the CPU change!