Why are most of my games running like crap?

GOD'SlittleSERVANT

GOD'SlittleSERVANT

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Jul 18, 2001
Messages
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Whenever I play Dragon Origins, the game runs smooth for awhile but when I get into battle sometimes or just randomly it drops to 1 fps for a bit then starts to run normal again. My machine is listed below.

My buddy runs it on 5 gigs of ram with a 9550 phenom and a 3870 ATI @ 50 fps.

Why does it run better on his system than mine? I've cleaned out my machine with a registry cleaner and other tools, but it's still the same thing. Is there things I can check to see what could be causing the problem?
 
Sounds like its time for a windows rerun.Iol.
Have you checked to see if you have ny programs running in the back ground
that might be slowing you down.
 
First of all, the amount of RAM you have makes no difference over 4GB. I have two 512MB 4850s and it never uses more than 750MB of RAM.

So first eliminate that it's something else running on your computer by downloading Gamebooster and running that before you start up DAO. You're going to fall in love with gamebooster anyway.

http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html

So if that turns off all your unnecessary processes and the game still has random hiccups, go ahead and do the obvious:

1. Make sure, double sure -- even tripe sure -- that you're running the most recent drivers.
2. Defragment just the game (gamebooster will do that for you)

And then start going through all your video settings one by one to find out which exact thing it is that makes your computer die. Is it your antialiasing? Could be the AF. Maybe your card won't do triple buffering. Shadows could be killing it. Maybe it's the total resolution of your screen. Ad on and on. There's something that's hosing you and it's probably just a setting in there.

You can google the video tweaks super easy cause this is a real hot topic right now.

Holler back, I want to hear the results. :)
 
Most likely, your GPU is not up to the task at the resolution and in-game settings you are demanding.

Classic frame-rate tanking is seen when the game gets busy, and the GPU can't haul the freight.

Drivers, resolution,in-game settings turned up way too high.

Your GPU is now two generations behind.
Compare your friend's settings in game with yours as well. I bet yours are higher.
The RAM in the computer has little to do with it.

Consider a new GPU......a 4XXX ATI or a nice GTX260 would be an excellent upgrade.
 
Earley said:
First of all, the amount of RAM you have makes no difference over 4GB. I have two 512MB 4850s and it never uses more than 750MB of RAM.

So first eliminate that it's something else running on your computer by downloading Gamebooster and running that before you start up DAO. You're going to fall in love with gamebooster anyway.

http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html

So if that turns off all your unnecessary processes and the game still has random hiccups, go ahead and do the obvious:

1. Make sure, double sure -- even tripe sure -- that you're running the most recent drivers.
2. Defragment just the game (gamebooster will do that for you)

And then start going through all your video settings one by one to find out which exact thing it is that makes your computer die. Is it your antialiasing? Could be the AF. Maybe your card won't do triple buffering. Shadows could be killing it. Maybe it's the total resolution of your screen. Ad on and on. There's something that's hosing you and it's probably just a setting in there.

You can google the video tweaks super easy cause this is a real hot topic right now.

Holler back, I want to hear the results. :)
Click to expand...

Awesome, I will try this this weekend since I am going out of town after work tonight. Thanks a lot, dude.

magoo said:
Most likely, your GPU is not up to the task at the resolution and in-game settings you are demanding.

Classic frame-rate tanking is seen when the game gets busy, and the GPU can't haul the freight.

Drivers, resolution,in-game settings turned up way too high.

Your GPU is now two generations behind.
Compare your friend's settings in game with yours as well. I bet yours are higher.
The RAM in the computer has little to do with it.

Consider a new GPU......a 4XXX ATI or a nice GTX260 would be an excellent upgrade.
Click to expand...

yeah, I plan on upgrading my card first then my GPU. I'm going to compare my settings to his and hopefully that will help some.

Thanks for the help guys. I will let you all know how it turns out.
 
I don't know if it might help but maybe OC your cpu a bit and see if that can improve it? It seems like your video card might be lacking but I know the original phenoms had pretty low stock frequencies.
 
Earley said:
First of all, the amount of RAM you have makes no difference over 4GB. I have two 512MB 4850s and it never uses more than 750MB of RAM.

So first eliminate that it's something else running on your computer by downloading Gamebooster and running that before you start up DAO. You're going to fall in love with gamebooster anyway.

http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html

So if that turns off all your unnecessary processes and the game still has random hiccups, go ahead and do the obvious:

1. Make sure, double sure -- even tripe sure -- that you're running the most recent drivers.
2. Defragment just the game (gamebooster will do that for you)

And then start going through all your video settings one by one to find out which exact thing it is that makes your computer die. Is it your antialiasing? Could be the AF. Maybe your card won't do triple buffering. Shadows could be killing it. Maybe it's the total resolution of your screen. Ad on and on. There's something that's hosing you and it's probably just a setting in there.

You can google the video tweaks super easy cause this is a real hot topic right now.

Holler back, I want to hear the results. :)
Click to expand...

Ah hahahaa please :p. OP please check your settings with your buddies, esp screen resolution etc but do yourself a big favour and don't install rubbish like this. You're just asking for grief.
 
Either running out of CPU power, GPU power or GPU memory.

Use task manager to verify if a CPU core gets to 100%.
Use Rivatuner to see if you exceed 640MB video ram.
Use NVidia system tools to tell you if the GPU core gets overloaded.
 
Violator said:
Ah hahahaa please :p. OP please check your settings with your buddies, esp screen resolution etc but do yourself a big favour and don't install rubbish like this. You're just asking for grief.
Click to expand...

You're full of shit. Investigate before you start the flaming.
 
Earley said:
You're full of shit. Investigate before you start the flaming.
Click to expand...

Actually I'm not. If you rely on 'programs' like this to 'optimise' your PC for gaming, I'd be wondering just who actually knows better. Try investigating how your PC actually works first before spouting off.
 
installing an extra program to boost his games when the problem is probably that he has too many programs running/installed doesn't make sense
 
Violator said:
Actually I'm not. If you rely on 'programs' like this to 'optimise' your PC for gaming, I'd be wondering just who actually knows better. Try investigating how your PC actually works first before spouting off.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry if you want to chime in and not say anything helpful to the poor OP just so you can feel like you know something, but I was trying to help him. That program does exactly what I said it does, which you would know if you were interested in facts instead of just trying to be right or sniping at me so you can feel superior and repeat advice that has already been offered.

GameBooster just shuts down processes you don't need for gaming. Simple. It's not weird, not spyware, not fancy at all. It's something that I recommend to my friends with lower end PCs running windows that I found out about back when I had a lower end PC. OP has a lower end PC that will definitely benefit from that program.

Not that I care about trying to educate you, because it's all about you and not the OP's problem, eh?
 
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Earley said:
I'm sorry if you want to chime in and not say anything helpful to the poor OP just so you can feel like you know something, but I was trying to help him. That program does exactly what I said it does, which you would know if you were interested in facts instead of just trying to be right or sniping at me so you can feel superior and repeat advice that has already been offered.

GameBooster just shuts down processes you don't need for gaming. Simple. It's not weird, not spyware, not fancy at all. It's something that I recommend to my friends with lower end PCs running windows that I found out about back when I had a lower end PC. OP has a lower end PC that will definitely benefit from that program.

Not that I care about trying to educate you, because it's all about you and not the OP's problem, eh?
Click to expand...

What 'processes' exactly does it shut down then? And in doing so, how exactly does this improve your gaming performance? Do you like having some 3rd party program decide what should be running on your PC? How about if it just shuts down your firewall and AV, is that OK as well?

Other than the general placebo effect that these idiot programs provide, where are the actual benchmarks, where are the statistics to say 'yes', this program will definitely improve your gaming perfomance compared to what you had before. All I see is a few vague comments regarding performance with nothing to back it up. Defrag your drive? oh yes because that is going to give you an extra 20fps in your latest game.

And actually yes, it is still about the OPs original problem, I'm trying to save him some future pain from installing this crap. Until we know more about his friends specs, there isn't much else can be done.
 
Violator said:
What 'processes' exactly does it shut down then? And in doing so, how exactly does this improve your gaming performance? Do you like having some 3rd party program decide what should be running on your PC? How about if it just shuts down your firewall and AV, is that OK as well?

Other than the general placebo effect that these idiot programs provide, where are the actual benchmarks, where are the statistics to say 'yes', this program will definitely improve your gaming perfomance compared to what you had before. All I see is a few vague comments regarding performance with nothing to back it up. Defrag your drive? oh yes because that is going to give you an extra 20fps in your latest game.

And actually yes, it is still about the OPs original problem, I'm trying to save him some future pain from installing this crap. Until we know more about his friends specs, there isn't much else can be done.
Click to expand...

Like I said if you did even the most basic investigation it would all be clear.
 
It's not GPU/CPU related. If the GPU/CPU was overheating or something, then I could understand a drop in performance and it would sit at very low FPS, but he pointed out it jumps back.

What it sounds like is going on is when the game loads a new asset or something like that the performance drops because accessing a slow HDD can really slow down the entire system while gaming. What kind of hard drive are you using and how much % of it is full?
 
bigdogchris said:
It's not GPU/CPU related. If the GPU/CPU was overheating or something, then I could understand a drop in performance and it would sit at very low FPS, but he pointed out it jumps back.

What it sounds like is going on is when the game loads a new asset or something like that the performance drops because accessing a slow HDD can really slow down the entire system while gaming. What kind of hard drive are you using and how much % of it is full?
Click to expand...

a TB with 2 partitions. only the 600mb partition is 200gigs full while the other partition is 100% free.
 
First, dont install gamebooster. Second, don't re-install windows (you're running 7, not XP). If you're running anti-virus, try disabling it when you run your games and see if it makes a difference. Upgrade your drivers and check your temps.
 
i'll do all of that tonight. I was out of town the whole weekend. I'll let you guys know how it is.
 
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