Slow gameplay

[CCSeth]

AMD Athlon XP 1533 MHz (11.5 x 133) 1800+

ECS (Elitegroup) K7S5A Pro

768 MB DDR SDRAM

NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 driver v. 81.98


I just refuse to accept the poor quality I get in the games I play. I made a post about Guild Wars running slowly before and got a reply about overheating. Since then, I've oiled up all my fans and found that to be a great help (even solved a noisy tower issue). My graphic card fan is still the worst, it doesn't want to stay at a decent speed to make good airflow on the sink long enough after I oil it (tried twice so far). Got a case fan out of a scrapped computer and now have it setup standing on the floor of the tower leaning against the side so that it blows air at the gfx card (I'd put it on the bottom to suck air in from below but I have no screws, and the grate for it covers over half the opening so it would block alot of air). While the case has to be open for this to work, it keeps the gfx card at a good temperature. Guild Wars runs better, but still poorly.

I'd think it was obviously my computer and that I needed upgrading if my brother didn't have a similar computer, played the same games, and got much better quality than me. His CPU is only a little faster and is the same brand. Same graphics card too. My main focus this post is about Savage. There are weapons that shoot a stream of electricity out and whenever a couple of people use it, my fps drops to 5. I get 30-35 normally under no load. Other weapons reduce me to 5 fps also but it takes more players using it to make it run that slow. My fps is 30-35 under no load and 5 under load (when fighting is going on) regardless of graphic settings. Yes, there is no difference between picking low quality settings and high quality settings because the speed is the same in game. This also happened during guild wars, only there was an effect (high settings made the performance deteriorate faster to a very slow state, but it still ran fine at first). I'll check on my bro after we've been playing in the same game for awhile and his fps or game lag is not as bad as mine.

I'm just not willing to give up on it and assume his much better speed is that 300 MHz extra that he has.

Computer has been virus checked, spyware checked, and defragged recently.
My possible suspicions for the slowdown are my low harddrive space (2.40 gigs left), and my ram (norton gives an error when scanning my 512 MB memory stick)
Testing 20 patterns on 805306368 bytes of memory
Testing memory using pattern with all bits cleared...
Error detected at address 391491584
Test: Failed
Also, could registry entries slowdown something such as this? I've had this computer for awhile and add/removed many programs.

Any help appreciated.

[misterbadnback]

Download Memtest86 and put it on a floppy then run it. It will tell you if you have ram issues.
http://www.memtest86.com/

Scroll down to where is says "Windows Installation" Then follow the directions on how to create a floppy. After you create the floppy then just put the disk in the floppy drive and reboot the system. It will automatically run and let you know if there is any problem with your Ram. You should test each stick seperately that way if you have one stick bad then you know which one it is.

[CCSeth]

I let it do two passes but had no idea if it it continued forever until you stopped it or not. I need my computer today so I had to quit it. I'll have to try it another time if it is supposed to loop a certain amount of times. No errors found with those 2 passes though.

[G_Dem]

It runs as long as you leave it. 2 or 3 runs is usually enough though. It would of found a problem if there was one.

[CCSeth]

I felt like playing Maple Story recently after not having played for months and was shocked at the performance. This game used to run perfectly fine, but now it runs awfully. I'll get up to 10 second freezes where there used to be none. Even having one other player on the screen affects the fps greatly. The only way to play it decently is by myself and on an empty map, and even then there will be small freezes. This is definitely wrong.

I tried running my computer with my ram sticks seperate, but it still ran poorly. I've also freed up some space on my hard drive and defragged again (5.5 gigs of space left now). I'm sure that there is something wrong now since a game that used to run fine runs poorly now. (Note: it runs fine like it used to on my computer on my bros computer).
Any help is appreciated again

[Lord_Anthrax]

Just go through all the components troubleshooting them one at a time, one of them will stand out. Try doing some run-of-the-mill tweaks too like defragmenting, closing unnecessary processes, doing a system restore etc

[CCSeth]

I can't use system restore since it was recently disabled (so I have no restore points). What components should I look at? I've done everything I know of save for reinstalling windows or fdisking, but this shouldn't be an option. My system is a little scary when dealing with os install (really buggy: trial and error when I first got my computer and after I had to fdisk my comp once) so I'd really rather not resort to something drastic.

I have norton systemworks (though old) and have ran speed disk, antivirus, disk doctor, and windoctor.
I defrag my comp all the time.
I've done memtest on my 2 ram sticks.
I've ran ccleaner.
I've used windows error checker in the C drives properties.
I've ran pandascan.
I update and run Ad-Aware all the time.
I update and run Spybot periodically.
I update and run eTrust Antivirus all the time.
I have motherboard monitor to track my CPU temp when I want to (it's normal)
I check on my gfx card's heat with the sink to make sure it's ok (it is)
Nvidia is updated to the latest driver.
I'm definitely a processor Nazi and don't like anything running that doesn't have to be.
Windows is updated.
I've submitted a hijack this post and gotten it confirmed as ok.
I'm sure there are a few more things that I can't remember.

I can't think of anything else that needs checking. I think the only things I haven't tried that I know about are the last resort things (os reinstall, fdisk) and updating my bios if there is an update (which shouldn't be a problem since it was fine with it's current version). What else is there to do? It has to be something, right? Any help appreciated

[AnthonyB42069]

Maybe deleting a few programs.. Then Clean up.. then Defrag?

OR

Ever try going into Task Manager and ending programs tasks you really dont need working?? That normally helps ALOT..

[CCSeth]

I know this topic is old, but I was at a standstill until recently and was able to do some more tests.

My brother got a new hard disk and let me have his other one. I saw this as the perfect opportunity to copy my files and fdisk, but decided to test if it was even the hard drive at all first. I plugged in his HD and got it setup (it still contains his software) and also unplugged my hard drive so that I'm running his hard drive with my computer parts.

I ran Maple Story on his hard drive. The game still ran slowly!

The game runs fine when plugged into his computer so I now believe that this is not a hard drive issue anymore. Knowing this, I talked him into letting me switch our gfx cards. With his gfx card and hard drive, the game still runs slowly. I think this means that it's not the video card either. The only other things I think I can switch out without pain (and getting him to let me borrow the parts) are the ide cable and the ram (which was tested to be ok, but who knows).

Could parts wear out this fast? The computer is less than 6 years old, and I believe they were all new parts (except for the extra ram which isn't the problem). Any ideas appreciated

Also, this topic should probably be moved to hardware if you agree that it's not a HD issue.