Need Help Please!! HL2 lag!

[2_fast4u]

i just upgraded my video card from Nvidia FX5200 to Asus ATi 9600XT. game ran fine on fx5200 on medium setting and the new card lags badly and takes 10 min to load the game on the same settings. another thread said it could be laging because of the mouse was moved from PS/2 to USB and it fixed the issue. is this possible. when i moved my pc out, i could have moved a usb deice to another port, would that affect the game' performance? the video card runs nfsu2, POP2, unreal tournament 2004 on high resolution really well, so it is not the card.

system specs:

AMD2600+ 2.1ghz
120gig
512 RAM(400mhz)
128mb asus ati 9600xt
dvd-rw/cr-rw

do i need more RAM, a faster prosessor, defragment the hard drive or open more space on the hard drive? the hd only has 7 gigs left.

any suggestion would be aprecciated...really want to finish hl2...best game ever.

 

[rdytorave]

Your specs look fine. You should defragment and try to clear up some space. Windows likes some headroom in the hard-drive.

Also, check your in-game video settings. Under advanced, make sure you are running Direct X 9, and that every other option is set to recommended settings for your pc.