Games jump from smooth to choppy in Vista

[Ron86]

I have recently upgraded my budget pc and I'm experiencing some problems under vista.
Whenever playing Crysis (Play on "high") it plays smoothly until I make quick movements like looking sideways quickly. Same thing with Neverwinter Nights 2 (Settings maxed out) whenever I enter a new area the fps is like 3fps for 3 seconds and then suddenly gets better (40-60). These tiny periods of unplayable havoc is really starting to get on my nerves. I mainly play on 1024 by 768 as I only have a 17'' monitor.

Any advice on what the problem might be? Do I have a bottleneck or something?
Here are my specs:

Asus AM2 Motherboard
AMD 63 X2 3600+ OC to 2500Mhz
3GB Transcend Ram 5-5-5-18 (Had 2GB dual channel. Added another 1GB didn't really change the issue)
ASUS 9600GT (OC to 740/2200)
160GB WD hdd 8MB Cache
Vista home 32bit

[WiK1d]

maybe downscale the graphics a bit and see if it still happens?

[Ron86]

Thanks. I know that its likely to improve if I scale it down. However I would like to know where the problem originates from to keep it in mind for a future upgrade. Would switching to XP make a difference? My appologies for the typo, a AMD 63 hasn't been invented yet. Also my ram is 800Mhz my mobo doesn't allow me to OC it...

[WiK1d]

Well there is a slight chance that your CPU is bottle necking your GPU, do you have AA enabled? If you do disable it and see if it makes a difference. Overclocked RAM won't make a difference so that's definately not the problem, and 3GB is more than ample for Vista.

[I34z1k]

Try defrag, disable anti-viruses and other background aps.

[Ron86]

Will do. I suspected the cpu was to blame. Still don't understand why everything plays well and then suddenly the fps crash and then plays fine again or it plays fine for a few minutes and then freezes for half a second...

[I34z1k]

Been watching temps?

[Stuart]

Fun tip of the day: Always disable the sidebar when gaming, if you don't have it disabled by default.

[Anakha56]

Fun tip of the day: Always disable the sidebar when gaming, if you don't have it disabled by default.

why? I dont have any problems with the sidebar...

I reckon the problem is a bottle neck somewhere as W1k and Mike have suggested...

[Ron86]

Temps shouldn't be a prob:

gpu = 58 max
cpu = 40 max

I have set my Nvidia control panel 3d settings to "performance" preference. No change.
I think I'll disable my sidebar... don't really like it that much anyway.

So u guys are suggesting I should go for a new cpu? I might consider the AMD X2 64 6000+ can't go PhenoM don't have an AM2+ mobo

[Anakha56]

First try putting all gpu settings down to the lowest settings, run the game and see if the same problem happens if it does then its a cpu issue, if it does not then its a graphics issue and you just have to balance the settings accordingly.

/if anyone wants to correct me go for it but thats what it looks like to me...

[Stuart]

Fun tip of the day: Always disable the sidebar when gaming, if you don't have it disabled by default.

why? I dont have any problems with the sidebar...

I reckon the problem is a bottle neck somewhere as W1k and Mike have suggested...

Sidebar is a fairly heavy resource hog. I've had lagging in Crysis and COD4 on my system (which is somewhat more powerful than the system in question), and it was resolved immediately by turning off the sidebar.

[Stuart]

Mind you, I suppose it also matters which gadgets you have loaded.

[RobThePyro]

I think its because when you enter a new area, vista has to quickly read the level/location info from disk and shove it into RAM, so basically its your hdd bottlenecking the data getting to the ram therefore the cpu and GPU dont hav any data to process...

My 2c

[ADV4NCED]

I think its because when you enter a new area, vista has to quickly read the level/location info from disk and shove it into RAM, so basically its your hdd bottlenecking the data getting to the ram therefore the cpu and GPU dont hav any data to process...

My 2c

which leads to the next question... How big is his pagefile

[StarBound]

Reduce the size of the page file too a very small amount. That should force windows into using your RAM instead of hard drive for caching.

I seriously dont see the use for a page file these days. All it does is move data from memory to hdd storage making it slower to access.

[Ron86]

Thanks I'd like to try that. How do I do that in Vista?

[Ron86]

...and what size would you recommend?

[StarBound]

No idea how Vista's work. Some people have told me I should never do it. But in XP I made my pagefile something like 144mb only because some games complained that they "need" a pagefile.

[Hex_Rated]

get ReadyBoost
Drop Pagefile
Check if 4 sticks of RAM are forcing 2t cr
Kill the sidebar

I had a x2 @ 2.5ghz (sometimes even stock) on Ultimate x64 at very high res and found motion blur caused problems. Drop settings to low to check if this is a problem.

[Hex_Rated]

is the gfx 256mb or 512mb?

[bosaap]

I have he same problem and have done all the things that was said in this thread, and my conclusions is that is the cpu ....

[Hex_Rated]

i had the same cpu and 2gb of ram and came to the conclusion it was the setup.

Except i had an 512mb 8800gt and a 64bit os

[ADV4NCED]

Thanks I'd like to try that. How do I do that in Vista?

I wouldn't suggest turning off your pagefile, rather just let the OS manage the swap space it needs

If you have more than one HDD, let your pagefile run on the drive that is NOT running windows

Right click on my computer -> properties

select 'advanced system settings' on the task bar to the left

Under Performance select settings and go to the 'advanced' tab

Under Virtual memory select 'Change'

Deselect the top checkbox saying 'automatically manage paging..'

Now choose your HDD for the pagefile, select the second radio button saying 'system manage size' and then click set

[Ron86]

Thanks for the tips guys...

I've tried everything mentioned - dropped the pagefile, changed it, killed the sidebar, scaled down the graphics, even tried a different pc (with WinXP) with similar specs and nothing helped.

I have come to this conclusion...

Neverwinter Nights 2 is a game much like one of the desperate housewifes. Although still <...fill in> it is aging a bit. The fact thats its an older game makes me think that it wasn't optimized for dualcore utilization. Therefore it might only be utilizing a single core, so it would be like running the game on a system with an AMD 64 1.8Ghz single core cpu. This offers an explanation. It might play better on Intel dualcore cause Intel is just better especially with single core technology. Am i right?

The only other thing I can think is that my Nvidia drivers are faulty. Has anyone experienced any flaws with the Forceware 171.16 drivers. I would download the latest but my internet is soooo slow...