New Video Cards - suggestions

[Enduro]

Originally posted by RTR
Enduro,
 just looking at what you posted. You should think about boosting your system RAM a bit.

You would most likely see a fair improvement if you boost your ram to at least 1GB. More would be better.

cc, RTR.  I've been thinking about that.  RAMBUS isn't cheap, though.
I'll keep it in mind.

Thank you.

[Brenjen]

I was using a Dell Dimension 4300 up until this year & I upgraded the CPU to a 2.8GHZ from a 1.8GHZ (P-4) & upgraded the AGP card to a 6800LE (nvidia) I was already running a gig of ram & that is the mobo's max supported ram.

 I had frame rates that would bottom out to 1fps & had a high of 30fps when I was by myself in flight.

 After the upgrades I got 45fps alone in flight & it only dropped down to around 10fps when it got busy.

 The Dell is a good machine for the price, but it is a proprietary machine, there is only so much you can upgrade on one (one like my 6 year old system that is); better than HP/Compaq by a little & way better than a gateway.

 My Dell is still kicking with no breakdowns after all these years.

[Roscoroo]

hits self on head ......I just remembered one other trick ...

ok back when Mrs roo had her old HP pc ... if you loaded windows from the HP restore/installer cd she would get like 30 extra junk processes loaded on ..

I took and pulled all the drivers from the cd and placed just those on a seperate  cd and then i formated it using my win98 cd ... it tripled its performance and gave it a cleaner install .

if you cant get the drivers off the cd then just go to the manufacturer's  website and get them from there .

[Happy1]

Hello RTR & Brenjen, thx much for ur advice re my Dell 4300, did as per ur advice RTR & Driver Cleaner'd Nvidia 84.43 replacing it with Omega Drivers
61.77 which I saved, did I notice a difference in my PC?  Seems like I shaved a minute off my slow responses.

Regarding sweeps of my PC, I do it on a weekly basis, utilizing CleanUp,
Ad-aware SE, CWShredder, Spybot S&D, SpywareBlaster, AVG, Windows
Update, Clean Disk & Systems Restore.   The last sweep was 2 days ago.
I defrag my puter on a weekly basis.

Presently I've used 7.02 GB with 11.60 GB free of 18.62 GB.   The only in-
tensive usage of kb is Aces High II, all other pgms are minimal.  Undoubtedly I'm running pgms in the background of which I've no know-
ledge, but how? or by what pgm can I seperate what I NEED running on the computer vs junk??   How do I identify junk pgms from the good ones??

Btw, how do u use Task Manager?   How many pgms S/b running & which do I get rid of?   Thx for ur kind assistance  

Cheers,

Happy1  

[RTR]

Happy, hit cntrl alt and delete.
This will bring up your task manager.
Click on the processes tab. It will show you a list of all the processes currently running on your computer. Before I launch AH I get them down to 15 processes running. Be carefull what you turn off!

There are a couple of programs you can safely download to help you here. I use FSautostart. (enditall is another one that some are using). FSauto start will explain each process to you and advise you if it is safe to turn off.

Be careful here, some stuff you need to keep running. I hesitate to advise you on what to keep running, or shut down. FSautostart is a good beginning though.

Lastly if you have anything running that you aren't sure of, a quick search on google usually does it for me.

As far as spyware etc. I occasionally run trend micro's online scanner. Sometimes it picks up stuff the others don't (and vica versa).

cheers, and hope some of this makes sense!

RTR

[Brenjen]

I will not advise you of what to turn off myself, just google task manager processes & you will come up with plenty of sites that will guide you. If you shut down something you shouldn't I would feel responsible that's the only reason I don't want to give advice.

 20 to 21 processes for Windows XP is pretty standard & I would even say normal. You can get the task manager by right clicking the task bar (the blue bar at the bottom of your screen) & selecting "task manager".

  & good luck

 Edit: if you can safely get the processes down to 15 that's really good. RTR

[Brooke]

His machine shouldn't be that slow even if there are a fair number of processes running (unless they are total junkware/malware).

He said earlier that he doesn't think his fan is running.  Well, if your fan isn't running, some processors, when they heat up, will switch to much lower clock speed.  I'd check that your fan is running and fix it if not.

Beyond that, I'd install all the latest drivers for the hardware you have (video and sound card) -- not the ones from the manufacturer's or OEM's CD, but the latest from whoever made the chipset for it (like nVidia or Creative, etc.).

If that doesn't work, I'd do a fresh install of the operating system.

[Happy1]

RTR, Brenjen & Brooke  

Thx much for the additional info, I'll act on ur advice tomorrow & shall keep u posted on my results.  Ur advice makes perfect sense to me.

Cheers,

Happy1  

[Happy1]

Greetings,  well I've d/l'd "FSAutostart", checked Task Manager & discover- ed that  I'm running 47 pgms in the background that plus my clog-
ged up fan on my PC!   No wonder my puter's slow.

Now the task of seperating the good, the bad & the ugly begins    

Cheers & thx much 4 ur patience & advice  

Happy1  

[Happy1]

Finally, all done, TY to the people helping me, my PC is is faster, timewise
1/2 minute - 1 minute. Logon/logoff 1 to 1 and a half minutes, occasionally 2 minutes, but rarely.  

Cheers,

Happy1  

[Enduro]

Guys, thank you all for your help.  

I decided to keep the video card as the problems I'm experiencing in-game are not mine alone.  Seems like a lot of people are seeing the screen stuttering that I see--even with the FR counter in the 50's.  

I just reformatted my HD, too.  O man, I love how well a newly reloaded PC works.