New 64 system, poor performance :(

[Jacko85]

Hi all,

I've come here to hopefully find an answer for my question. That question being "what the hell is going on?!". I'll be as clear as I possibly can, but I've had a hard day at work so I'll apologise in advance for any random ramblings.

Basically I'm an avid (sad) gamer. After years of being on a 1.4 Athlon (and then a 2.8 Celeron when my Athlon finally blew up, literally) I finally invested in a 'good' PC. Or at least I thought I did. Now before I go into this, I would like to point out that myself and a couple of my friends have almost exactly the same systems, and their performance far exeeds mine. The specs are as follows:

AMD 64 3500+
1GB Corsair TwinX DDR ram
Powercolor Radeon 9800 Platinum Pro (128mb)
Asus A8V Deluxe mobo (VIA)
160GB Hitachi SATA HDD (despite the fact that I asked twice for a bloody Maxtor ¬_¬)
650w PSU

Technically, that PC should be the mutts nuts for games. The aforementioned friends have no problems at all... allow me to explain (bear in mind that I've actually been to their houses and seen the performance for myself).

Counter Strike Source: My friends PCs = 80fps minimum with everything set to high. On my system, I can't even play with high settings - my system simply locks up. On medium, I get an erratic framerate. One second it's 20, the next it's 90.

The difference between our PCs? I have supposedly faster ram and a faster HDD. Ha...

World of Warcraft My friends PCs - smooth city. My PC? Lockup city. Juddery framerate in the wilderness, lockups in cities

Unreal Tournament 2004 My Friends PCs? Over 100fps with everything on high. My PC? Sticks to 84/85 like superglue, but that's with everything cranked down. Ok so it's smooth, but it's not the performance I should be getting.

More info:

Gfx card settings set to 'blend', driver version 6.14.10.6517 released 22/02/05
CPU / Mobo / HDD drivers all base. Soundblaster 5.1 base drivers as the drivers I need are now obsolete and cannot be found anywhere on the bloody internet (and believe me, I've looked).

Everything in Bios is set up correctly, virtual memory is set to over 3GB....

Maybe I should take the bloody thing back?

It's also worth noting that there are a few texture issues. Anyone who has seen the HL2 video stress test will have seen the cool glass type things right at the start? All I get are big red 'ERROR' words

Also, there was a texture b0rk in CS:S. Some of the flooring that should've been shining white had a bright purple texture floating around. My 3D card was fine in my other machine, though.

Any suggestions? I'm about to throw the bloody thing away.

[gigadave]

Dude, what can I say? I know full well how bloody annoying it isi when you've got all that lovely stuff and it isn't working like it should. The only things I'd suggest are to check your RAM is correctly installed in the mobo (they can be a bit picky about what slots you put them in. Also what drivers did you say you had for the GFX? It looks like you're using the wrong drivers (the latest ones for the radeon family are 5.3). Also, is your power supply up to the job?

Let us know if you have any joy, and Good Luck!

[Jacko85]

Originally Posted by gigadave

Dude, what can I say? I know full well how bloody annoying it isi when you've got all that lovely stuff and it isn't working like it should. The only things I'd suggest are to check your RAM is correctly installed in the mobo (they can be a bit picky about what slots you put them in. Also what drivers did you say you had for the GFX? It looks like you're using the wrong drivers (the latest ones for the radeon family are 5.3). Also, is your power supply up to the job?

Let us know if you have any joy, and Good Luck!

Yeah I'm pretty sure the PSU is up to the job, it's a top spec (gold plated blah de blah) 650w!

Drivers? I'll certainly have a look.

Pretty sure the ram is installed correctly, too. Thanks for the input!

[Jacko85]

Originally Posted by Jacko85

Yeah I'm pretty sure the PSU is up to the job, it's a top spec (gold plated blah de blah) 650w!

Drivers? I'll certainly have a look.

Pretty sure the ram is installed correctly, too. Thanks for the input!

Just installed 'the latest' cats and it's telling me they're the same version as the ones I had installed previously.

[sirchumpalot]

thats strange. did you set your memory settings correctly in your BIOS?

Im using an a7n8x-e deluxe system. maxed everything, 1 gb ram, athlon xp 3200+ runs everything great. first try puttuing it together, it worked perfectially fine.

[Jacko85]

Originally Posted by sirchumpalot

thats strange. did you set your memory settings correctly in your BIOS?

Im using an a7n8x-e deluxe system. maxed everything, 1 gb ram, athlon xp 3200+ runs everything great. first try puttuing it together, it worked perfectially fine.

I'm guessing the memory settings are correct - everything is set on the highest possible option.

[Jacko85]

I've had to reformat tonight thanks to windows messing up big time (i.e. unable to boot). I've installed the base drivers and tried HL2. Talk about erratic framerates... amazingly, I've had as high as 170. Not bad eh? Especially when you consider everything is on high.

Thing is, the framerate has also dipped as low as 30

Ah well. I'll keep tinkering.

[Jacko85]

Sorry to keep bumping my own thread, but I might've found the problem. My AGP.

According to my BIOS, my 3D card is set to 8x AGP and AGP Fastwrite is enabled. According to Windows however, AGP isn't even on and Fastwrite is disabled. Turning it on prompts me to reboot my computer, and when I get back into Windows it's still telling me that it's off!

Is there any way I can check for sure if it's on or off?

[Jacko85]

Sussed it. Amazingly, I'd overlooked the fact that I hadn't installed my motherboard drivers

Now peaking (even more amazingly) at over 200fps in HL2 with settings @ high. Average = 90.

\o/

Thanks to those that gave input.

[gigadave]

D'oh!

At least you sussed it...