Frame Rate

[Masherbrum]

While I agree that is a weak card. You still have to have your computer as clean as possible. He should really start with a sound card and check resource usage as well and then move to the vc.

Yep.   

[Fulmar]

While I agree that is a weak card. You still have to have your computer as clean as possible. He should really start with a sound card and check resource usage as well and then move to the vc.

I respectfully disagree.

[Masherbrum]

Fulmar, take my PC.   I used onboard for about 3 weeks and could not stand the bad sound.   During games when explosions came up, the sound would go blank.   I am now considering getting a better soundcard to replace my Audigy Gamer from 2004.

He may have a trojan, but I doubt McAfee would find it.   He's probably better off installing ESET NOD32 or Smart Security suite.   I agree with Skuzzy in that especially those two AV's, should be considered viruses.   

Where he'd benefit most from is an 8800GT or comparable ATi card, depending on his liking.  Also, 4GB of matched RAM and a beefier PSU.   But, this might move the bottleneck to his CPU.

I guess I should have been this clear.   His problem doesn't seem to be in "one area".   

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Try running the free Nod32 online scan tool at http://www.eset.com/onlinescan/

[Getback]

I respectfully disagree.

What disagree with me. Why you ...... I oughta. 

Here's my thinking and please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Now I know that the VC and cpu are bound by each other. I'm not sure why but they are. I even read an article on it. When I was over clockinging my CPU I found that my video card could be further over clocked using the auto tune feature. So if I oc'd my cpu to 3.3 my vc could be increased and if I oc'd to 3.7 the vc could be auto tuned even faster. Of course at some point the vc says no, not going to happen and the same for the cpu. So my thoughts are that if you have something affecting the resources such as on-board sound then that will affect the vc as well. Now I'm sure there is more to it but that just seems logical.

[Fulmar]

Fulmar, take my PC.   I used onboard for about 3 weeks and could not stand the bad sound.   During games when explosions came up, the sound would go blank.   I am now considering getting a better soundcard to replace my Audigy Gamer from 2004.

He may have a trojan, but I doubt McAfee would find it.   He's probably better off installing ESET NOD32 or Smart Security suite.   I agree with Skuzzy in that especially those two AV's, should be considered viruses.  

Where he'd benefit most from is an 8800GT or comparable ATi card, depending on his liking.  Also, 4GB of matched RAM and a beefier PSU.   But, this might move the bottleneck to his CPU.

I guess I should have been this clear.   His problem doesn't seem to be in "one area".   

Sum of Benchmarks at 1280x1024.  Feel free to check out the rest of the benchmarks on this site.  The fact is the 7300GS is at the very BOTTOM of almost every single game benchmark.
Tom's Hardware - Benchmark Sum of FPS Benchmarks 1280x1024

[eagl]

Almost every computer can benefit from a little clean up and running antivirus/spyware scans routinely is always a good idea, however in this specific case it's pretty clear that the "symptoms" of low and variable framerates can be directly attributed to having a slow video card.  Even a fresh install of a "lite" stripped down version of winXP would still suffer low and variable framerates because of that video card.

The relevant questions then are what kind of video cards would be suitable replacements (ie. AGP or PCI-e and are there any other limitations such as a small or otherwise non-standard case), do any other components such as the power supply need to also be upgraded, and what is the upgrade budget.  Answer those three questions and we're on track to boosting framerates to where they belong.  The ram and cpu is fine, and if he discovers that his windows installation is infected or otherwise damaged then he can work on that too, but he'll NEVER get decent framerates with that video card unless he turns down all the graphics options and even then, he might still have slow or variable framerates and an unsatisfying playing experience.

[Masherbrum]

Sum of Benchmarks at 1280x1024.  Feel free to check out the rest of the benchmarks on this site.  The fact is the 7300GS is at the very BOTTOM of almost every single game benchmark.
Tom's Hardware - Benchmark Sum of FPS Benchmarks 1280x1024

The Video is known to be a poor performer.   But like I said, it seems he could benefit from a couple other upgrades as well.   I'm not trying to start an "I'm right and you're wrong" type thing here.   I should have typed what I did, instead of a "Yep."