Unknown HW problem (maybe)

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I'm putting this here but I'm not too sure if I have a hardware problem or not. The problem is that when I play a game the picture has a tendency to 'stutter'. By that I mean that it's choppy and seems to freeze then jump forward to where it's supposed to be then freeze again.

I've tried just about all I know or can think of. No other programs running, stopping all unnecessary services, several AV and spyware scans and de-fragging. I thought it was the graphic card to start with so I changed that too. The only thing that I can think of doing now is changing the cpu and/or the motherboard.

Anyone with any ideas? (no matter how absurd)

MoBo Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe
CPU Athlon xp 2600+ (1.9GHz)
RAM 1.5 GB PC2700
Old GC ATI Radeon 9600SE
New GC nVidia GeForce 6200

 

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Can I ask the Game, and the recommended specs of it?

 

You don't say which game! Some games have quite difficult to provide requirements.

The 9600 is a good card (I have one) and works with most mid-level games just fine. However, some of the latest top-of-the-range games demand some astonishing power from the video, and only the best will do.

What happens when you reduce the requirements, like lower res and reduced detail?

Harry.

 

Luddy the 2 at the moment are Guild Wars and Knightshift (once upon a knight)

specs are for Knightshift pc with 450 MHz and 128MB ram, win 98,2K, XP, graphic card with T&L support (geforce, radeon, parhelia) and directx 9

for guild wars pc with 800 MHz and 256 MB ram, win 98,2K, XP, graphic card geforce 3, radeon 8500, and directx 9


harry, not too much difference.

 

That's a tough one Nugget, it could be some kind of bottleneck with the hard drive access but I've no idea what could be causing it. Have you tried running Task Manager while you're playing the game? That way, you can see how many of your CPU cycles it's using and if there's anything else using them at the same time.

 

Have to admit thats a stumper.

I know this is going to sound like a duh moment, but have you got the latest drivers for the video cards? And the latest Direct x?

 

Hard disk / page file bottle neck?

You didn't list your hd speed in there.

 

nugget,

Which operating system are you running?

 

Sorry Harry, I should have been a little more clear. It does help a little but the problem is still noticable (and looks like crap too).

Baba, I've already tried that too and have cut out so many processes from running at the same time that I'm surprised that windows even runs.

Luddym, I have directx 9c installed and a newer graphic card than before and the problem is still there.

Simon, the hdd runs at 7200 , 8 MB cache.

r.h.lee, I'm running XP Pro (and I think I'm due for a total re-install)


I have found out a couple of new things though. Firstly that I was running Guild Wars in a window and then when I ran it in full screen mode the problem seemed to disappear. Then when I looked at the process priority it was set to low. I changed this to high and the problem seems also to have disappeared when played in a window. Very strange.

 

nugget,

Questions:
1) When you played Guild Wars in a window, what other windows were open at the same time?
2) When you noticed the "stuttering", was Guild Wars in the active window or a background window?

 

nug,

Have you contacted the software people that made the game? I had a game which didn't like me having my page file on a different physical drive to Windows....

 

Boyce, funny you should say that mate. I was just checking out Simons's suggestion and in the performance monitor it came up with 2 choices for the pagefile object, c: and e:. This seemed rather strange to me as I was sure that I'd put the pagefile on e: as I'd also gotten another hdd. Anyone know what happens when the system tries to use 2 pagefiles? Very strange things indeed.

I seem to remember that the game ran fine to start with. I guess thats what you get when you fiddle with your system too much.

I'll put the pagefile back on c: and see if that makes a difference.

 

My mate has put a pagefile.sys on all of his hdrves, what diff would that make? he only uses it for downloading... i thought that would make no difference cuz i thought it will stablize his system...

 

How can you split a pagefile across multiple drives? Is that possible? Moving it, yes. Splitting it?

EDIT: What do you mean 'he only uses it for downloading'?

 

Read Microsoft's take on this here .

Harry.

 

I buiilt a machine for my mate - added 2 extra hdd inthere, took away 1 cd-rom. All the computer is used for is just to download stuff and nothing more. I changed his computer you make the use of more performance (changed the look of XP - made it look more like win 2003) + and click the option for pagefile and selected it on the other 2 hard drives aswell...

 

Dont know if tihis will help but i had the same problems a few years back, cant remember what game it was but i had problems with it stuttering and freezing, then one day i upgraded to a better sound card and the problem was solved i know it sounds nuts because all it is is a sound card but it but the PC must have been waiting for responces from the sound card and that caused the game to do the above mentioned, Is your sound card onboard or separate card? Let me know if you try this and how you get on. Good luck.