Multiple Games don't work

[Nestor]

I tried browsing the forum for something to help me, but nothing seemed to
fit my problem.

I've got an HP Media Center PC with Vista pre-loaded.
-2gb ddr ram
-nVidia GeForce 7500 LE (256mb)
-E6400 Intel Core 2 Duo

And yet games like Doom 3, Counter-Strike Source and Crysis can't run on my
PC faster than 10 FPS on their lowest settings.

Please tell me why my5 year olf P4 2gHz, 1gb SDRAM, GeForce 2 (128mb) with
XP can run all of those fine and why my 1 year old PC cannot- and what I can
do to fix this besides changing my OS?

Thanks for any help, will be deeply appreciated.

 

[Dustin Harper]

I can almost guarantee that Crysis doesn't run that good on that old system.

The big problem with your new PC is the low end video video card. Upgrading
that would make a huge improvement.

 

[Nestor]

That is correct. Crysis was never tried on my old PC and I highly doubt it
would work. I just got it for Christmas and got really fed up with my
favorite games not working and having to go back to Warcraft III and Diablo
II (which I love, they've just been over played)

So do explain why Counter-Strike Source could run at 25+ fps on my last
system but now, on a HP Media Center PC m7757c, can't even get over 5 frames
a second? Honestly, it makes no sense to me.

If the answer is to simply buy a stronger, more powerful (and expensive)
video card... then why the hell use Vista when I know XP will run it?

 

[Patrician]

That is correct. Crysis was never tried on my old PC and I highly doubt
it
would work. I just got it for Christmas and got really fed up with my
favorite games not working and having to go back to Warcraft III and
Diablo
II (which I love, they've just been over played)

So do explain why Counter-Strike Source could run at 25+ fps on my last
system but now, on a HP Media Center PC m7757c, can't even get over 5
frames
a second? Honestly, it makes no sense to me.

If the answer is to simply buy a stronger, more powerful (and expensive)
video card... then why the hell use Vista when I know XP will run it?

<snip>

Your problems are nothing to do with Vista and everything to do with the
graphic card in your new system, It was low-end when released two or three
years ago, now it is about as basement as you can get. You need to get at,
least, a 7800 series graphic card, but preferably an 8800GT so you have
some sort of future proofing.

Another thing to check is that you have disabled as much of the HP junk
that runs at startup by using MSCONFIG. You'll be surprised how much
resources their rubbish uses, and considering you only have 2Gb system ram,
and Vista will take pretty much 30 - 40% of that, you need all you can free
up.

On a related note, I don't understand how on Earth you managed to get
Counter Strike Source, or any of the games you quote frame rates for, to
even run on your old system! I just don't see how it would be possible; are
you sure your old system has a Geforce II?

Trev

 

[Nestor]

I'm sorry, I keep putting false info, it was a geforce 4- the old system had
came with a 2 but my neighbor sold me his old geforce 4 so that I could play
HL2. I'm not that good with computers, I just sorta watch my friends who are.

And since I plan on pre-ordering Starcraft II, I best get a new graphics
card anyways. I do have 2 (apg?) graphic card slots on my motherboard. is
it worth doubling up? Because if I do this- it'll only be once.

 

[James Matthews]

Drivers, Maybe these games need to be updated for windows vista...

 

[Nestor]

That is originally what I thought. I thought wit Vista being a relatively
new OS that it might need new updates to run certain software. (Like, Sims 2
won't run when I use the shortcut, I must put it in the disk drive and have
it do auto run for it to load without failure)

I just got an update for Doom 3 and it works a lot better now. But I still
miss counterstrike source and I wanna play Crysis.

But right now I'm about to give into buying a high-end graphics card.

Any and all suggestions welcome and appreciated. I'm pretty sure my
motherboard has dual AGP. But for all I know it could be PCI X16 (I wouldn't
even know the difference looking at it, my friend has a 9800 and asked me
which slot I have)

Here's the link to my boxed PC:
http://www.google.com/product_url?q...T9UqdUshSixBTAAAAAAAAAAA&gl=us&hl=en&sa=title

 

[Bob Shattler]

Crysis should run, I ran the demo with no problems. I haven't played Doom 3
yet. But the best part of my system is my new 8600 GT video card. Before I
was running a Geforce 6400 and could not get Hellgate London Demo to run.
Now I can play through the demo, I might even buy this game. Definatly buy
a 8000 series Geforce video card. Mine was around $127.00, pretty cheap for
an upper end graphic card.

 

[Dustin Harper]

It doesn't have dual AGP, it has dual PCI-E. But, an NVIDIA 8800GT would
last you a while, and play a lot of games.

But, one thing I did notice. Your old system was probably playing at a much
lower resolution with lower visual quality settings. The new system is
running at a higher resolution which really taxes the video card.

But, it all points to the very low end video card. Heck, my card is better
and still struggles at 1680x1050 resolution in Crysis. Looking at the specs
of that system, you should get a lot better performance with a video card
upgrade. It's not a bad computer at all, but not really aimed at the gamer.