Possibly a solution to lag/ game crash. Just an idea from what i have experienced. You might want to check it out. Hope it helps.

Situation :
There has been a lot of complaining about lagging/ crashing / game freeze due to server load. Also there is complain about the game need too high requirement for a 2D game. Also when using certain skills or when fighting certain bosses, sometimes it laggs certain players. This game barely can be played using 4GB Ram with intel 5.

What i have experienced :
I always wondering why does this game need a very high requirement on the computer specification, so ussually with my very little to almost none knowledge of game programming, i will just trying my best sharing my experience that might help to solve the problem. I have a believe that if using my computer, i can even play most of 3D games without lag and crash at all, why is it so bad just tryint to play this 2D game?

But this Maplestory frustrated me that even though it is a 2D games, It lag me down due to having "only" 4GB Ram and intel 5". As a comparison, my computer can even play PLaystation 2 Emulator fine without any lag at all / smooth. Also it is not my internet speed because my internet can even download 1GB movie in around 25-30 mins. Even though it is not the fastest internet out there, but i never experienced any lag playing any games out there. so i still trying my best to report any strange happening in Maplestory with a hope that it can solve the problem in Maplestory.

As the myth / rumour spreading around that Maplestory is run on an old system that caused the lag, i don't want to believe. As a lot of 2D MMORPG i have played, doesn't actually lag at all, eventhough they are also running under the old system. So my believe is, there is something that is inside the program that cause instability/lag issue.

After hundreds of lag, crashing and game freeze, i realise something strange is happening. I always wondering why does this game need a very high requirement on the computer specification. Ussually after a game crash/ game freeze, i press CTRL+ALT+DEL to activate the Task Manager. Ussually i can't directly click into the the task manager coz somehow, maplestory game lock my windows so that i can't click anything except the task bar on the bottom of my windows. After several times, i found out that i can just scroll my cursor on the task manager until it shows "minimised task manager". After that moving my scroll to it and by using tab, i can move into the Maplestory running program and delete it to close the Maple story program that was currently lag/freeze out.

After hundreds times of doing this, i realise something strange is happening. Everytime i lag/freeze out, after i use CTRL+ALT+DEL, when i scroll over to maplestory taskbar, it visualise my game situation which was happening before. Sometimes it showed me a screen which was 2 hours ago. Sometimes even 4-6 hours ago. I might be wrong about the exact time.

To explain it clearly, i will give some example. When i started logging in, i have several of my guild members saying welcome back to me. And 1 of the members asked me to party up for Damien. After that we went damien and then i did my dailies and levelling up for around 3-4 hours while also doing some bosses. But after around 3-4 hours , my game freezed out.

So like usual, I did CTRL+ALT+DEL. If I scroll over to maplestory task bar, and it will open up my maplestory on minimise mode but the game still freezes. What shocked me was that what I saw was a screen that was happening hours ago when I have just logged in and my guild members saying welcome back to me and asking for Damien boss run. I keep questioning myself, does the system/the data actually saving the whole time when I first login into it until the next 4 hours?

Won’t it actually be a burden to your system to actually saving all those data and image and possibly transferring it back and forth from the players computers to Nexon server? It might worth to check it out. It possibly what makes this game lag a lot or freeze the game.

Several people whom I met before, actually told me that Maplestory which is a 2D game, supposedly doesn’t use a lot of traffic data or proccess that should lag/freeze the game. Tho, don’t count on these people opinion, you might want to check it by yourself and find the solution.

Suggestion :
(All of this suggestion is given by someone who doesn’t have any experience in computer programming at all, mostly I know is how to operate Microsoft Word and Microsoft excel. I know a bit of Microsoft access, but not much. But I still hopefully it can help improve Maplestory)
1. Check it if the game client actually clogged/record/saved out a very huge data and image or even videos of hours of game play and possibly even transfer it between the game client to the server and back. If it is what happening, no wonder it becomes a burden on the system
2. If it caused by a huge data transfer, why not simplify it. Does Maplestory char actually doing so much actions which caused a lot of data to be transferred to the server?
3. On the bottom right of my windows, there is an arrow icon (notification icon) that will shows us most of the program that is currently running + volume, battery, internet access, etc. Normally, when i opened Nexon launcher, there will be only 1 Nexon icon there. But sometimes, ussually after sometimes, there are around 3-5 Nexon icons in there. Don't know if that is also caused some trouble with the game performance. But you might want to check it out