Minor Stutters

[The Fugitive]

You said the stutters are quick, maybe quick enough that the FR recovers before you see much of a drop?

Like Skuzzy said, it sounds like it might be resource related. That computer isn't the strongest and if your trying to squeeze more eye candy than it can handle it will stutter as it tries to catch up.

What in game settings are you using, textures size and such. Maybe switching the monitors refresh rate and resolution to its native/natural settings. You may be pushing the monitor too hard as well.

[Chalenge]

Sounds like you have triple buffering on.

[Skuzzy]

Roger, but is getting occasional stutters *without* the frames dropping badly normal?

Yes.  That simply means the video card can be running out of resources.

Sounds like you have triple buffering on.

If you force triple buffering on, on the video card, this will cause problems as the game already does its own triple buffering for the video output.

You can easily swamp 512MB of video RAM with a combination of anti-aliasing, 2048 textures, and/or soft shadows or environment mapping enabled in conjunction with bump mapping.

Easy to test these theories.  Turn down everything and see if the stutters go away.

[BnZs]

Would the easiest fix be a stronger card?

Yes.  That simply means the video card can be running out of resources.

If you force triple buffering on, on the video card, this will cause problems as the game already does its own triple buffering for the video output.

You can easily swamp 512MB of video RAM with a combination of anti-aliasing, 2048 textures, and/or soft shadows or environment mapping enabled in conjunction with bump mapping.

Easy to test these theories.  Turn down everything and see if the stutters go away.

[Drano]

Would the easiest fix be a stronger card?

That machine is pretty dated amigo. 2008 tech heading into 2014. I'd say that'd be throwing good money after bad. Been there! I tried souping up my old P4 rig that was similar to yours (XP, not much RAM, 4600 series video card) and it just couldn't get there (AH-wise) even with all the overclocking I could throw at it--and I did that! And that was with the current graphics model which is about to get a minor/major bump. New pretty much top to bottom rig was all I could do. I saved my nice fatality sound card and that was about it. I think I "future proofed" myself for this next bump but we shall see.

[Skuzzy]

Would the easiest fix be a stronger card?

It is not about the speed of the video card, per se.  The resources, in this case, is the limited amount of video RAM.  You should be able to run with basic settings, pretty smoothly.  It is not going to look all that good, but it can be made to work fine.

A video card with 1GB, or more, of video RAM will prove useful, especially as we move forward.

[BluBerry]

A video card with 1GB, or more, of video RAM will prove useful, especially as we move forward.