games run in fast foreward

My brother's computer (XP Pro, GeForce 6800gt..) is doing this weird thing when playing games. Everything starts out fine, but then after a while the game starts running really fast. This happens on Collin McRae, GTA: SA, Madden 08, and probably other games as well. It has the latest drivers and everything. I was wondering if this is a known problem or what?

 

No, it's definitely not a known problem or even remotely normal. If it was happening with only one game, that would be one thing, but since it happens with all games, it is something wrong with the system somewhere. Is this a recent problem or has it been like this since day one? Maybe a system resotre to a date before the problem started? Or maybe roll back the video driver to an older one? Or uninstall the video driver completely and reload it?

 

Can we get your specs please?

 

I'm not sure of all the specs since I don't have the computer right here..


AMD x64 3800+ Dual Core
1gb Corsair Ram
ASUS sli PCI-E motherboard (can't remember exactly which one)
GeForce 6800


Windows XP Pro..



Actually, I've only seen it do this on Collin McRae a long time ago, so naturally I thought it was something game specific. But I just got done reformatting it, and I installed all of the latest drivers fresh. I gave the computer back to my brother and he put GTA and Madden on it. Then a week later he told me that it was doing the same thing on those games as well. It's pretty weird because this is a fresh updated system and it's still having the same problem.

 

that is actually a known problem and an amd patch on their site
this is what it says:
AMD Dual-Core Optimizer - The AMD Dual-Core Optimizer can help improve some PC gaming video performance by compensating for those applications that bypass the Windows API for timing by directly using the RDTSC (Read Time Stamp Counter) instruction. Applications that rely on RDTSC do not benefit from the logic in the operating system to properly account for the affect of power management mechanisms on the rate at which a processor core's Time Stamp Counter (TSC) is incremented. The AMD Dual-Core Optimizer helps to correct the resulting video performance effects or other incorrect timing effects that these applications may experience on dual-core processor systems, by periodically adjusting the core time-stamp-counters, so that they are synchronized.
heres a link to patch:
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_871_13118,00.html
hope it helps