I am having a problem.

[Shad0w]

Now i don't know the best place to talk about this, but gaming seems to be the more related.

OK I have been having a major problem with my performace within the last months. My gaming performance for my system has been droping compared to what it used to be. Now this is not that normal casue i am not playing High Intence graphics games. First let me tell you my Comp stats.
I got a Pentium3, 866Mhz, with 256 MB of SDRAM, a Geforce 256.

For instance let me give you and example. I played with my system like it was, last year. Playing Q3A, at 1024x768 on the highest graphics getting like 60+ FPS average. Now in the present i get maybe get 20 fps avg. if i am lucky. And the odd this is that when i trun down all the grahics i get even slower.... Now what can be casuing this? Could it be that my RAM is getting old and I need to get some newer ones?

Sorry I am not trying to be a n00b on this subject. I know a lot about hardware, but I still don't know all the little details about it. Like is there a time limit on certian hardware like the video card, where it will slow down after the years go on?

Ok well I did some research, one of my buddies has the exact, and I mean exact computer as me, except for a Geforce 256, he has a Geforce 3.... :wink: Now with the new GPU tech out, will this make such a difference on the computer even tho it still has the same cpu as me. Currently he is getting a large increase in FPS compared to me. But I still can't get over the fact that my computer used to be faster... but it is not now. Like a defragged the HD a lot. I kept it cool at 23 deg celicus with my 7 fans... I have the lastest drivers.

Just have to get some answers on what could be casuing this so that i can fix it by either buying a new hardware or fixing something else that could be casueing it. Well if ya can help me please post a message. Thanks.

[Beefy]

what operating system are you using / when was the last time you formatted your drive?

[ReSpAwN DeMoN]

ya. Also hardware does not slow down over time. I thinking if anything that a harddrive MIGHT. Becuase after all it is a mechanical device and over time the motor may not be to spin as effiecient as it used to. But that would slow down your frame rate. As for your friends PC. Does his frame rate kill yours compared with your current ones? Or your old ones that you used to get. Cause a Geforce 3 will get a HUGE performance increase over a Geforce 256.

[Shad0w]

I have WinXP pro, and i have never formatted my hard drive. I really can't format cause i got a lot of import docs and file on this HD. But that should not make that much of an impact on my performace...should it?

See I get great Fps at certian time within the game, but every so often i get like a lag where the image and fps slows down way slow, and then goes back up again. Could this be my RAM?

[Ezelek]

Backup your important stuff, and re-format. As much as you'd think a little thing like a fragmented HDD (heh) wouldn't make a difference... It hella does. And no... I cannot see any reason why it would be your RAM. Unless it's magic RAM, and you let all the blue smoke out of it.

[saidin]

Ahh, the woderful world of OS decay. :laugh:

[Shad0w]

Ok i have found out the problem, and yes it has to do with my HD. No matter how much i defrag it, it still will not preform any better. Ok but here I got a question about how I could attack this problem now that i know it is the HD. What part of the HD is slowing down, the game folder and where it is stored or the OS sector? Ok what I am trying to ask is, if I buy another harddrive, move all my Gaming folders and stilled games to that new HD, and run my OS off my old HD, will this improve my performace? Does the game use the storage area of the game more than the OS on the HD? If it is the other way around I will just make my New HD my Primary HD, and move my Backuped files over from my old HD and formatt the old HD, and set it secondary.

So does pro tweaker know how much and where is the process taken up when a game is runned, is it the game sections, or the OS more or less?

[Shad0w]

Also before i forget, if i do formatt my HD what is the better format NTFS or Win32?? Like for Preformace wize.

[Beefy]

Ok, from what I'm gathering here, your OS has basically become a cluttered piece of !$!@. There's not really all that many thing you can do to fix it, so the best bet is to either backup everything you want to keep and format.. or buy a new HDD and install a fresh OS on that and run them together.

As you are looking to buy a new HDD, then I'd go for that option. The file system doesn't really effect performance, but it seems that everyone is pushing for an NTFS file system, as opposed to a FAT32 file system.

So does pro tweaker know how much and where is the process taken up when a game is runned, is it the game sections, or the OS more or less?

Sorry, I've got no idea what you are talking about.

[Shad0w]

Sorry my english was not good today. ;)

What i meat was that the HD takes most of the process speed for the OS system that is on there?

But ya it seem I might go with buying a new HD casue i was thinking about buying a new computer anyways. Hopefully all I will need is a New HD and a Geforce 4 to make my computer game worthy. If not then i will go for that new P4 and the AGP 8X compatible MB.

[sKuLLsHoT]

have u checked for software running in the background, also if u r gettin intermittent slow-downs, i'd nearly say that you have a memory management issue, probably a large over-used pagefile that is fragmented to the ****.

maybe check out some winxp tweak faqz...

[Shad0w]

i'd nearly say that you have a memory management issue, probably a large over-used pagefile that is fragmented to the ****.

If it was a pagefile that is fragmented wouldn't defrag clear that up?

[Beefy]

when a pagefile is in use, it can't move it so it can't defrag it...

[Shad0w]

Maybe that is my answer. Cause i see a lot of those files when i defrag, maybe i should just look over thoses files and deletes the ones that are not really needed when I do an analisys of my HD.

[sKuLLsHoT]

best way to defrag the pagefile is to move it to another drive/partition if u can, defrag, and then move it back again, that usually does a good job of it