CPU not up to scratch?

[GonzoBabbleshit]

I know there must be loads of these threads but well, i doubt any of em will fit my exact situation so my Specs are..

P4 2.6Ghz
1.2gb DDR 400Mhz RAM
Sapphire X800 Pro 256mb
120gb HDD
and i'm on a 2mb connection

but my FPS in HL2 is really, really low at times. i'm talking about 10 in some open areas and i can't figure out why! I've done allsorts of tweaks like updating my BIOS and a full system restore and it's barely made any difference. I'm looking into buying myself a 3.2Ghz P4 but i can't quite afford yet and well, my PC meets and exceeds HL2's recommended requirements so i kinda expect better.

Anyone have any ideas on why this is happening and how I could solve it? Thanks!

 

[DrDevin]

Your CPU isnt fast enought for your videocard making you CPU limited at low resolutions without AA or AF. However you should still be getting at least 60FPS if not 150+ depending on your game settings. I would try reinstalling all your drivers especially your motherboard driver followed by your videocard driver. Finally I would purchase an athlon 64 because of its cheaper price and faster gaming performance if you want to upgrade especially since windows XP 64 bit edition is being released soon. Try this and tell me what happens. (and make sure your not forcing max AA and AF in the catalyst control center)

 

[Flyingbig]

With an XP2400+ with a GF4ti 4400 and 512 ddr i would never drop below 20-25 frames. Something is wrong.

 

[GonzoBabbleshit]

i have the latest bios, latest graphics card drivers, latest sound drivers (realtek AC97 btw) and latest motherboard drivers. and i get 9-10fps when the game starts in the train (when i look down the train, it increases to 20-30 when i look out of the window). my settings are the game defaults for my system (1024x768, high everything, 4xAA and 8XAF), turning the settings down gets me about 10fps improvement, that's when the setting are really low (640x480, medium everything, no AA)

It's really beginning to piss me off now to be honest!

 

[Flyingbig]

Could be a motherboard issue, does it support 8x AGP? Also using onboard sound does not help the issue. I cheap SB live 5.1 card would hepl you out because i would generally lose 5-10 frames using onboard sound. Also did you reformat your PC when you bought the new graphics card and if you did reformat make sure you have the motherboard drivers installed including the chipset drivers whether it be Via or Nforce.

P.S. what is your Pentium processor equivalent to in the AMD market. I haven't owned a Pentium processor in years so it sort of confuses me.

 

[GonzoBabbleshit]

yeah, it's Giga-byte GA-8I848E. it supports 8x AGP and FSB up to 800Mhz. i've been wanting to buy a soundcard for a while actually so might have a look, but still with this spec i wouldn't have expected 10fps at the start of the game! :S

I reformated when i got a new motherboard, when i got more ram, when i added graphics card! It's become like a habit now! Not sure what you mean by "otherboard drivers installed including the chipset drivers whether it be Via or Nforce" though.

And, AMD's are named according to their speeds in relation to Pentium's ....an Athlon 3200 isn't actually 3.2Ghz (it's something like 2.6Ghz) but it runs at the equivalent of a Pentium at 3.2Ghz. So, to answer your question....it's the equivalent of a 2600 AMD

 

[Flyingbig]

Does your motherboard have a VIA or Nforce chipset? Findout and download the latest chipset drivers from Guru3d.

I mean if you reformat and install only the drivers for your hardware then do a fresh install of HL2 then you can safely say this is not software related. Hardware must be faulty, i would post this on Firingsquad, andantech or tomshardware to see if someone can help you pin point which bit of hardware is letting you down and return it. Thats all i can think of. Likely culprit is that new ATI card.

 

[GonzoBabbleshit]

it's an Intel chipset from what i can tell :S

I'm gonna be trying my friends 9800 pro out today so i'll see if that makes any difference.

 

[Flyingbig]

Ahh Intel chipset, i remember popping that cd into my mates computer when i was doing a reformat for him. For teh record he had an X800 XT and his HL2 ran very smooth although he did have the sound stutter bug. He has a 3.6 Pentium though which may explain it but the contrast in difference shouldn't be so large.

 

[GonzoBabbleshit]

ok it seems to be my PSU. I was (unknowingly) using a 200w supply, which is barely enough for my processor and my g'card requires power from the PSU to function properly. I changed to my 350w supply and got a 5-10fps difference with the settings set to the highest! So i'm gonna get a 500w or 600w PSU and hopefully that should give me the frame rates i expect (and deserve! )