Problem with pc when playing games

[DeaconD]

My pc has an issue when playing games.

Works smooth as you like and then will slow and stutter for about 20-30 seconds then go back to being normal and playing fine for a few minutes .

All drivers seem upto date.

Spec is old but has always done this.

9800GTXX
Duel core 64 athlon 5600++
Asus M2N-slideluxe mobo
4 gig of ddr2 corsair ram
Seagate HHD
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit


When its not having a stutter attack it plays most stuff fine ( running sleeping dogs at the mo - passes all benchmarks with no issue)

I thought I would try and catch the problem as it happened.

So here I have left the pc to its own devices and watched what happens... the cpu goes from 70-80% use down to about 15-20% and the game slows down.

Then with no changes or interference with the pc and after a while you can see it going back up to 70 to 80% and the game runs fine again .

Any ideas ?

 

[Addicted]

The stuttering will be down to not enough Video Memory on your graphics card - you'll get the same with other big games like GTA IV etc.

The problem is because you have such little VRAM, you have to constantly load new textures into ram, thus causing the lag!

 

[Darren S]

The stuttering will be down to not enough Video Memory on your graphics card - you'll get the same with other big games like GTA IV etc.

The problem is because you have such little VRAM, you have to constantly load new textures into ram, thus causing the lag!

^^^ - that sounds the most likely culprit. I ran that same board for years with ATi, single nVidia cards and nVidia cards in SLi without the issues you mention. Being the SLi-spec board as well, both PCI-e slots run at x16 - so it shouldn't matter which slot your gfx card is in. Some of the lesser capable boards of that era had one 16x slot and the other was 8x.

Just as a test, try switching of all anti-aliasing and advanced graphics options within the game and then restart it. The game might look pap, but with all the bells and whistles off - it might run smoothly. If so, it's 99.9% the reason that Addicted said.

D.

 

[DeaconD]

Turns out i installed an older driver for the card - now runs great,

 

[Addicted]

Hah! Glad to see you got it sorted, it had to be drivers or VRAM tbh!

 

[DeaconD]

Check this out though

Playing sleeping dogs... notice that msi is telling me the gfx card is at a toasty 106 degrees...

Open it up – dusty as a pharaohs scrotum, look at card and think.

Hmmm can I be bothered to open it up or just sort out the fan bit.

Glad i did, The heat skink was blocked by “the wall of fluff” – it’s a piss poor bit of design with added lack of maintenance means it could have cooked.

cleaned.

 

[DeaconD]

It now runs at 52 degrees moving to about 65 when gaming.

 

[Silent_Scone]

106c is actually not a death sentence on that card, they did run ridiculously hot. They don't even throttle till around 100c. Wouldn't of done your performance any good though

 

[Darren S]

PMSL! I haven't seen one that bad since I bought a Physx card off eBay years back! One of the benefits of having several air-compressors at work - I blast out my PC every couple of months.

Glad you got the issue sorted too.

D.

 

[Addicted]

LOL That dust!

You should be ashamed. .

 

[DeaconD]

alot of it is talc powder!

 

[Addicted]

Hold on, why is there talc powder in your machine?

 

[Dan519]

Stop talcing your balls!!!!!

 

[Silent_Scone]

Maybe it's not talc :O

 

[DeaconD]

Stop talcing your balls!!!!!

You knows it - Its the future chaps. teflon balls.