What's My Bottleneck?

[mnaster]

Most of my games are not limited by my cpu nor my gpu. Usage for both doesn't go over 75% but frame rates are still low. Im thinking it could be my ram but don't know for sure. Heres my specs:

XP pro sp2 + Vista ultimate 32bit
intel board
P4 3GHz HT
1.5 PC3200
3850 AGP 512Mb
430W Antec Dual 12v
4 HDD's: 1 Sata, 3 Pata All 7200rpm

Im planning on getting a pair of 1Gb sticks soon. What do you guys think it is?

[shadowpr]

What kind of games are you playing?

[mnaster]

Bioshock, Crysis, COD4, F.E.A.R., Halo 2, Gears of War, NFSC, NFSP....

Also my Paging on those games range from 1Gb to 1.5Gb

[shadowpr]

Might want a better video card for those games.

And make sure you're not trying to play them at high settings either.

[mnaster]

a better vid card? this is the best AGP gets

[shadowpr]

That might just be the best you get then without upgrading mother board, ram, processor, and video card.

Like I said, what settings are you trying to play with? Try lowering them. That should help.

Also, try stopping background processes from running while you play.

[Alaron]

How full are your harddrives and have you defragged them lately?

[mnaster]

"Like I said, what settings are you trying to play with? Try lowering them. That should help."

With crysis Im running at med settings and 4xAA. I lowered them to low w/ no AA, but the increase is minimal. Theres some kind of bottle neck still.

"How full are your harddrives and have you defragged them lately?"

XP drive w/ games is 75% full, other drives are 60%, 40%, 30%, and Pagefile is on another drive.

[shadowpr]

what else is running in the background?

[mnaster]

avg antivirus, spybot and thats it

[Masaki 7-11]

Your most likely bottleneck is your processor, most new games have support for dual cores, and the core 2 duo series is a lot faster than P4 even when it's a game that supports single core only.

[mnaster]

yeah so i guess im stuck till I upgrade. Thanx guys