Evertything works in tandum. Soundcard, video card, harddrive, modem (dial up), Network card, and the internet if playing online. Anyone of these card and will cause FPS to suffer. ie, harddrive, a 5400 rpm hard drive can have a hit on FPS more so then a 7200rpm, also if the HD haven't been defraged in a very longtime. Winmodems will have a hit on FPS more so then a regular modem as the Winmodem uses the CPU to work instead an onboard chip on modem to control it. Soundcard can have a hit on FPS if a cheap soundcard, playing to many sounds at 1 time, not fully directx compat, old drivers. U name it, anything can have a hit on FPS. There just to many things to list that can cause a hit on FPS. Video card being the biggest one and soundcard being second which most people overlook most of the time. Most people don't think that a soundcard would do that but it does, more so then U believe.