7600GS Problems?

First off I'd like to say hey everyone

I just recently upgraded my video card (AGP) from an ATI 9800pro with 128mb ram to an NVidia 7600gs with 512mb ram and I've been a little disappointed. It seems to run games about the same as the 9800pro? Maybe a little better. It also seems to have trouble running video i.e. cutscenes in some games.. they'll be really choppy. It does this during the intro movies for NWN2 for example. A friend of mine has a 6600 and seems to run games better than me! Anyone know why this is the case?

Windows XP home SP2
AMD 2800+
1gb ram

I've gotten the latest drivers and updated my nforce3 chipset. I haven't updated bios since I got the computer... could that effect performance?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Have you done the requisite malware removal? If not, I recommend that you follow the instructions in that thread to ensure that no viruses or spyware are hurting your system's performance. (As they usually do!)

Next, I would suggest that you minimize your system's resource consumption by following the instructions in this post. This will help you conserve as much CPU time and memory addresses for your game as possible.

 

I'm fairly certain I don't have any problems like malware. I ran an antivir scan yesterday with no findings.

Other than what you mentioned, is there anything else that could be significantly impacting performance?

 

Well, hardware failure in RAM or hard drives often kill performance. You could try running Memtest86+ to check your RAM... dying hard drives usually manifest themselves in inability to read/write files.

Other than that, the biggest killer of performance is Windows itself. Seems after time, the registry gets messy, core files get added/modified/deleted, and Windows slows down. My work machine, for example, is tinkered around with so much that these things are starting to show. My start menu takes forever to list programs, Outlook doesn't like switching folders. You can correct this with extensive repairative work in Windows, but in most cases, its simply faster and easier to "blast and repave"... that is, format and re-install Windows.

Also, you shouldn't dismiss the possibility of malware so lightly! They're DESIGNED to fool you in most cases. Following the procedure will likely turn up things you didn't expect.

 

I think your processor is your bottleneck here. You might have seen a marginal increase in performance with your new video card, but it's possible that your process is hampering performance and holding you back.

I used to have a 9800Pro and a 3200+. I first upgraded to a 7900GT from nVidia, bu my performance wasn't greatly increased. I built a new system with a AMD64 3700+ and 2GB of ram, and I was able to open that card up and see huge increases in game performance.

 

Those specs should be able to run most games fairly well. That is a good point though; what games ARE you running on that system? There are a few newer games that might be a bit much, but for the most part it should be okay... I've run Battlefield 2 on similar specs, and it was alright....