Problem with general PC Performance

T

teethmonkey

New Member
I have built myself a computer system to play video games with my beautiful wife. Our game of choice happens to be world of warcraft which is mild when it comes to required system resources. I would consider the resources in the machine I built to be overkill on paper yet when I play the game it is very very choppy and not pleasant at all to play. The computer has windows xp installed and I reinstalled the OS from scratch just to make sure that there wer eno problems from any spyware or registry problems. The following are my system components. If you have any ideas why my computer plays world of warcraft like crap the please share.

Processor - P4 Socket 478 3.00 GHZ 800fsb
Ram - 2X 1 gig sticks DDR 400
Video Card - Radeon 9250 256MB
Hard Drive - 250 gig ata 100 4200rpms
 
The first thing to start you with here is a big Welcome to the Computer Forum! http://www.computerforum.com/70672-official-welcome-thread.html Please be sure to review the http://www.computerforum.com/52038-forum-rules.html

At first glance not knowing the make and model mother board you have the one item that stands on the Socket 478 board htere is your video card. The 9250 I assume used there is an AGP card. Most of the newer releases will seem to demand the newer driver versions run on newer model cards. W of W will be one of the games where a newer model card would help.

With the Catalyst Control Center auto loading with Windows if you have downloaded one of the newer versions past 5.11 you will see problems. For over the Cat. 5.11 for the older card there you would have to run the basic drivers only. That's unfortunately the way ATI updates work. http://downloads.guru3d.com/downloadget.php?id=1269&file=4&evp=7314b3ef12dd94907e7063f79ec0ca14

The current 6.11 along with the other previous updates are seen at http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/xp/radeonx-prer300-previous-xp.html

Boosting memory from 1gb of Corsair xms series DDR 400 PC3200 upto 2gb of DDR 400 Kingston Value Ram saw a big improvement with Half Life 2 and other games on the old case here. Reducing the items that load along with Windows using the msconfig utility and shutting down antivirus, firewall, and other programs running in the background can also see an improvement while gaming.
 
Very impressive

You were right on the money. I had the very latest drivers from ati so I uninstalled them and tried to install the older version you had linked to. FOr some reason the drivers from that version wouldn't work but XP kicked automatically with it's own drivers for the 9200 series and the performance is much better. Like night and day.
 
I wish Vista was like that! :P With the initial release of Home Premium I decided to let Windows search for an update for the Creative SB Audigy 4 Pro used here. Where you seem to have seen good results by allowing XP to find the working combination Vista proceeded to install sound drivers and software for a different model card. :eek: Blue Screen Of Death! When the other model was removed when spotted EAX makes good sounds! :D

The ATI Catalyst itself is the one item that has been known for causing problems where you have to go back a few updates when going to install it. You can also choose to disable it in the msconfig from autoloading or simply right click on the icon usually seen in the system tray when going to game. Try that if you start seeing the same problems reappear.
 
wowhacks said:
so far vista hasn't been doing so good with my setup. low frame rates in almost every game i play.
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It seems we need to Welcome someone else here! http://www.computerforum.com/70672-official-welcome-thread.html Be sure to review the http://www.computerforum.com/52038-forum-rules.html along the way.

At this point like all previous versions the "bugs" are still in at the moment. What that means is an actual lack of fixes and driver support especially for trying game in high end mode. Yet I'll take an old game like Duke Nukem Manhattan Project, Return to CastleWolfenstein, Soldier of Fortune Platium as well as SOF2: Double Helix and they run fine at stock.

The only real problems seen in any game so far tried was two spots in Half Life 2: Episode One where the current Creative beta drivers are the chief suspect for those two game crashes. ruf! ggrrrr... ! :mad: Lack of driver support! ruf! for their Audigy line of cards.
 
The current 6.11 along with the other previous updates are seen at
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For the record, the latest drivers dont support his video card. ATi dropped support for anything with a lower model number than 9500 with their Catalyst 6.6

You were right on the money. I had the very latest drivers from ati so I uninstalled them and tried to install the older version you had linked to. FOr some reason the drivers from that version wouldn't work but XP kicked automatically with it's own drivers for the 9200 series and the performance is much better. Like night and day.
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How exactly did you manage to install drivers that dont recognize your videocard?


so far vista hasn't been doing so good with my setup. low frame rates in almost every game i play.
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Thats for three reasons:
1. Vista itself is shaky
2. Vista drivers are shakey
3. Your videocard isnt exactly a gaming oriented card, even for WoW


for their Audigy line of cards.
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Well vista no longer gives a crap for audio acceleration.....
 
The 92XX series cards are not designed for gaming, they are just budget solutions, so maybe that why you are getting choppy framerates.
 
Anything over the Catalyst 5.11 and 5.14 had to be disabled to avoid seeing problems with the ATI 9550 256mb model used in the previous build here. That model had the 9600 chip in it. For older models ATI simply dropped all support and listed them as discontinued. The X850 presently gets by with the Cat. 6.1. The 9200 line was mostly PCI not AGP and definitely not gaming cards by a long shot.
 
It's also a higher model then the 9550 that has the 9600 chip, the 9800 al in wonder, the X700, and X800 models as well. That's the one thing about ATI that stinks there. They never specify which models are actually supported with any particular version of the Catalyst.

Even when choosing a series like Radeon and the version of Windows it brings you right to the latest. Tech support has to be contacted directly for them to provide a link for their older versions. I ran into that on the last build with the 9550 trying to go with Catalyst 4.X lineup when later cpu temps were an actual to be solved. When you select the 9250 model card at the support site you get sent to http://img375.imageshack.us/img375/3381/radeon9250am4.jpg :rolleyes: That's rather "lame" considering it's a discontinued model?!
 
That was the part that annoyed the heck out of me when switching from two NVidia driven cards to the ATI Radeon 9550 on the last build. You would go after the latest and ??? crash.... say what? driver crasssssshhh..! This was first seen when the 6.1 thru 6.5 versions first came out. So go back to the 5.11 and everyone's happy again. Their support simply says "radeon" and nothing else. A 7.2 now out certainly won't work on the 9550 let alone a 9250!
 
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