[Chris Pickering]

Remember that 'Bargain PC' everyone encouraged me to buy a while back? Well, I'm having problems...Posted this on another forum.

It's a Athlon 64 3400+, with a gig of RAM, and a GeForce FX5500 256Mb. Crap graphics card I know, but thats not the point. Basically with newer games, it seems to always auto detect the graphical setting to be pretty much as I'd expect. Even trying out the FEAR demo today, it seemed a tad low. But if I actually try and RUN a game at these high settings, it's jerking along at 2 or 3 frames a second. Same thing happened with the 3D Mark test. As soon as it got to that scene with the goblins, it dropped right down to somewhere between 3 and 8 frames per second.

So obviously things are detecting that I have a reasonably powerful PC, but the actual performance is bloody shocking! Any ideas as to why?

I'll be a bit ****ed if I need to get my money back and buy a brand new unit, purely because I got it as a bit of a bargain, and I've got so much stuff on here already. It'll teach me not to buy a HP PC in the future anyway.

[Ian]

Which game do you have problems with? I wouldn't take the PC back, as that still is a bargain for what you paid

Some of these may seem obvious, but its worth ironing out:

• Definatly no spyware on the system? (MS Antispyware is fairly good)
• Virus Checked?
• DirectX 9c?
• Latest NVidia Drivers (77.72)
• Not much running in the background (close everything and make sure not much is in your system tray)

The FX5500 isn't a gaming beast, but I'd have thought it would be OK still. What are your AntiAliasing settings etc... like in the display properties?

[Me__2001]

what games does it really strugle with ? and what AA, AF and resolution do you have them at ?

[G~MAN]

i would suggest maybe getting a new graphics card as fear is very graphics demanding

but the demo is said to have a few bugs ...

[Chris Pickering]

Everythings fine virus/spyware wise. I like to keep a tight ship

I had a similar problem with the Fahrenheit demo. Went for the options the PC set me,but as soon as the snow popped up in the opening move sequence everything slowed to a crawl! Thing is, actually 'in game' things run pretty smooth at that setting. FEAR's just running pathetically all over though!I have to knock the resolution and settings right to the bottom for a truly smooth ride on that particular demo.

I'm happy enough to actually go out and buy a new 3D card, but I dont want to go slot it in,only to find myself with the same problem because it's something else thats causing my trouble.

Just ran PerformanceTest and everything seems to be perfectly fine, running as expected, APART from the 3D card performance, which was truly shocking. Could it be dragging everything down so much?

Incidently, I've been playing Mafia today, at highest possible graphics settings, and it's smooth as silk. Even Half Life 2 ran very nicely indeed at fairly high settings.

[Ian]

I don't think its anything else then, which is good news, its just the graphics card isn't quite enough to handle some of the very latest games. See if the 3D Marks looks similar to other users with a FX5500 and same spec system, just to confirm

[Chris Pickering]

Well, my score for the 2001 3D Mark was a mere 7425, which seems a bit, well, rubbish.

[crazylegs]

Upgrade your Graphics card and everything will run smoothly, It's the card thats holding your system back enormously Chris...Most of todays games and demo's require a directx 9.0 card and most are using model shader 2 or above, this is where your card falls over i'm afraid as you are still probably using shader 1.4 on an fx5500....This then means Frame rates fall to almost a snails pace as the card renders the Image slower than the frames can be put on your screen

Slot in a new decent card and problem solved....

[Alf]

FEAR will run slow on your machine unfourtunatly, when i had my Geforce 5900XT in my machine the orges part ran kinda slow. so i suggest a new card, if you got the cash

[Reefsmoka]

Ya cant expect to play F.E.A.R. on an FX5500 really, that card is extrememly outdated by todays standard, you should be looking for a 9800Pro atleast or move upto a 6800GT. My comp cant handle F.E.A.R at its highest settings, thats an AMD64 3700+, 2 Gig of Ram (need to get me sig updated )and a 6800GT!