I submitted a report to Support regarding a laggy game problem. Anyway, I've found a workaround.

When I load Massive Assault, it sometimes behaves in a rather laggy manner, usually when I have programs in the background, but not always, and it doesn't seem to matter which programs or whether they're minimised or not, it's almost random.

I use a Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB for graphics (currently running under Catalyst 4.3 driver, though was on 4.2 when I got MA and had this problem first) and run at 1600x1200 with 6xAA and 16xAF, VSYNC on, and it's smooth enough, with slight slowdown over trees.

I've found now that when I have these "laggy loads" as I think of them, if I change the refresh rate setting and apply, the problem goes away. The refresh rate setting itself does nothing, I have an NEC Diamond Plus 230SB monitor, I have the drivers, and I use the program RefreshForce to force the refresh rate at each resolution (i.e. I only have the choice of one refresh rate at each res, the maximum the monitor can do at that res). Because of this at 1600x1200 my refresh rate is 85Hz, regardless of the setting in-game... yet changing that setting (despite its non-effect on the refresh rate) fixes the issue.

Hope this helps in resolving whatever causes this problem.