3D Gaming still stuttery

[nsafreak]

Well after tweaking, tweaking, and tweaking some more I still haven't gotten my PC back to the performance level it had before I had to do a reformat. I can get games to run like WoW, HL2, SWAT 4 demo, etc. but they don't run as smooth as they had previous to the PC being reformated. At this point I'm not sure what to do here's what I've done so far:

1) Updated to the latest BIOS for my Dell (A07)
2) Loaded the latest chipset drivers
3) Swapped out the Geil stick of PC-3200 for Patriot PC-3200 (BIOS now says system is running memory at 400Mhz in single mode though)
4) Tried a few different video card drivers. First tried latest Catalyst, then went with Catalyst 4.12, tried latest Omega drivers (no visible performance increase/decrease), used Driver Cleaner now back on Catalyst 4.12
5) Updated all other card drivers

At this point I'm not sure what to try next if there is anything else that I can give a shot. Here are my specs again for quick reference:

P4 3.0Ghz HT
1 gig of RAM
120 gig HD (SATA, primary)
80 gig HD (ATA133, secondary)
Radeon 9800 Pro (latest drivers)
SB Audigy 2

Update 5/30:

Well I decided that if all else fails, try, try again. So I decided to completely reinstall Windows XP once again. I followed this procedure:

1) Formatted the hard drive
2) Installed XP with SP1a (gotta love slipstreaming, really need to do it with SP2)
3)Installed needed drivers for chipset & NIC (had to get on the internet)
4) Installed needed updates
5) Installed SP2
6) Installed drivers (went with Catalyst 4.12 drivers again)
7) Installed HL2 (and it updated itself via steam of course)

Games now run butter smooth. For you folks that are having similar problems you might want to give the same procedure a shot.

 

[JonnyBlaze]

my games have been acting weird also. i have been trying different drivers for my 9800 pro but no luck yet. our systems are pretty much the same.

 

[DivideBYZero]

- Check IDE Drivers
- It's a Dell

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: DivideBYZero
- It's a Dell

 

[nsafreak]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh

Originally posted by: DivideBYZero
- It's a Dell

It may be a Dell but it was performing better than this before I did a reformat, there is no reason I should see a performance decrease. I did load the latest IDE drivers and it shows my primary drive in Ultra DMA Mode 5 which I believe is correct for a SATA drive.

 

[magomago]

intel applicatoin accelerator?

 

[Fern]

3) Swapped out the Geil stick of PC-3200 for Patriot PC-3200 (BIOS now says system is running memory at 400Mhz in single mode though)

I haven't run Intel for a while now, so I could be wrong. But I'm thinking your system must be taking a big hit in performance if actually running SC mode instead of DC. After all, if there is a big benefit as advertised, there must be big "penalty" for not using it.

Have you run any benchies to "quantify" how things are running. After a reformat/reinstall I like to run a few benchies (Sandra, 3D Mark etc) to see how things are running b4 moving on to games. If I've overlooked something, the "performance wizard" (or whatever it called) in Sandra, or a run of 3D Mark will highlight it.

Good Luck with it,

Fern

 

[nsafreak]

Originally posted by: magomago
intel applicatoin accelerator?

Doesn't work on this system. Tried to use it once and said it didn't support the i875P chipset that is on this board.

 

[nsafreak]

Originally posted by: Fern

3) Swapped out the Geil stick of PC-3200 for Patriot PC-3200 (BIOS now says system is running memory at 400Mhz in single mode though)

I haven't run Intel for a while now, so I could be wrong. But I'm thinking your system must be taking a big hit in performance if actually running SC mode instead of DC. After all, if there is a big benefit as advertised, there must be big "penalty" for not using it.

Have you run any benchies to "quantify" how things are running. After a reformat/reinstall I like to run a few benchies (Sandra, 3D Mark etc) to see how things are running b4 moving on to games. If I've overlooked something, the "performance wizard" (or whatever it called) in Sandra, or a run of 3D Mark will highlight it.

Good Luck with it,

Fern

Here's the thing, before I reformatted the system was running in single channel for quite some time. The reason I swapped RAM sticks was so that I could get matching CAS timings since the Patriot stick has a CAS timing of 3 to match my Crucial sticks while the Geil stick has a CAS timing of 2.5. I haven't run a Sandra benchmark on my system although I did do a bench using the Video Stress Test that comes with Counter Strike Source. It benches my system running at 83 fps which is actually an increase over the 74 fps that my system benched at before the reformat.

 

[Colonel C]

I have a very similar system (yes a dell too, 8300 to be precise) expect with a 3.2ghz Pentium 4. Dell's aren't that bad, I run games fine (CSS 83FPS yayaya...).

A reinstallation may work?

 

[nsafreak]

A reinstall of the operating system or of the games?

 

[nsafreak]

Any other ideas?

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: nsafreak
Any other ideas?

Did you reformat using an XP cd, or the Dell quick restore disks? I don't know if Dell does it, but a lot of OEM vendors place special tweaks and what not on their systems which are not saved during a reformat. Only way to get them back is to use the included quick restore disks. I've seen this on my VoodooPC Envy notebook. Using the Voodoo Recovery CDs produces a much smoother system than using an XP cd. Not to mention, if I install the IDE drivers that WindowsUpdate tells me to install, then the system blue screens on bootup.

 

[nsafreak]

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: nsafreak
Any other ideas?

Did you reformat using an XP cd, or the Dell quick restore disks? I don't know if Dell does it, but a lot of OEM vendors place special tweaks and what not on their systems which are not saved during a reformat. Only way to get them back is to use the included quick restore disks. I've seen this on my VoodooPC Envy notebook. Using the Voodoo Recovery CDs produces a much smoother system than using an XP cd. Not to mention, if I install the IDE drivers that WindowsUpdate tells me to install, then the system blue screens on bootup.

I used the disc that came with the Dell but I finally managed to get it running smoothly. Details are in the edit of my original post.

 

[Scrubber]

Originally posted by: nsafreak
Update 5/30:

Well I decided that if all else fails, try, try again. So I decided to completely reinstall Windows XP once again. I followed this procedure:

1) Formatted the hard drive
2) Installed XP with SP1a (gotta love slipstreaming, really need to do it with SP2)
3)Installed needed drivers for chipset & NIC (had to get on the internet)
4) Installed needed updates
5) Installed SP2
6) Installed drivers (went with Catalyst 4.12 drivers again)
7) Installed HL2 (and it updated itself via steam of course)

Games now run butter smooth. For you folks that are having similar problems you might want to give the same procedure a shot.

Correct driver installation order If you install your graphics drivers before you install DirectX, the 3D controller won't function properly.

 

[Seeruk]

You say that you have updated your BIOS, this normally resets your BIOS settings to defaults so may I suggest you run through them all and make sure things like AGP aperture are set correctly.

Most specifically make sure that DMA mode is enabled - and then verify that within Windows

 

[nsafreak]

Originally posted by: Scrubber

Originally posted by: nsafreak
Update 5/30:

Well I decided that if all else fails, try, try again. So I decided to completely reinstall Windows XP once again. I followed this procedure:

1) Formatted the hard drive
2) Installed XP with SP1a (gotta love slipstreaming, really need to do it with SP2)
3)Installed needed drivers for chipset & NIC (had to get on the internet)
4) Installed needed updates
5) Installed SP2
6) Installed drivers (went with Catalyst 4.12 drivers again)
7) Installed HL2 (and it updated itself via steam of course)

Games now run butter smooth. For you folks that are having similar problems you might want to give the same procedure a shot.

Correct driver installation order If you install your graphics drivers before you install DirectX, the 3D controller won't function properly.

Considering that I'm benching at 92.74 fps on the Counter Strike: Source video stress test I would say that's not always true.

 

[OvErHeAtInG]

Originally posted by: nsafreak

Originally posted by: Scrubber

Originally posted by: nsafreak
Update 5/30:

Well I decided that if all else fails, try, try again. So I decided to completely reinstall Windows XP once again. I followed this procedure:

1) Formatted the hard drive
2) Installed XP with SP1a (gotta love slipstreaming, really need to do it with SP2)
3)Installed needed drivers for chipset & NIC (had to get on the internet)
4) Installed needed updates
5) Installed SP2
6) Installed drivers (went with Catalyst 4.12 drivers again)
7) Installed HL2 (and it updated itself via steam of course)

Games now run butter smooth. For you folks that are having similar problems you might want to give the same procedure a shot.

Correct driver installation order If you install your graphics drivers before you install DirectX, the 3D controller won't function properly.

Considering that I'm benching at 92.74 fps on the Counter Strike: Source video stress test I would say that's not always true.

Hmm.... I'm having a similar issue after a reinstall. I'm running Windows 2000, on a P4"b" and 9800 pro. My system's not OEM, I originally installed Windows. I just lost >400 3DMarks on 3dm03. This MAY have to do with the driver, since I just installed whatever was the latest. I also installed DX after the vid driver, but I've always done that.

But what actually caught my eye was where the Intel site said, for Win2K, install your service pack BEFORE installing chipset driver. That's news to me. Also IAA before device drivers; I didn't think it mattered.

So it looks like I, too, have another reinstall in my future. *snore*. Don't mean to hijack your thread nsa...

thanks for the link scrubber...