Decrease in graphic performance of games in windows 7

[kyuresai]

Recently I upgraded my computer from XP to 7 to take advantage of the student discount deal. After installing my computer ran better than it has in years, except in one area. I play League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth off of this computer and I noticed immediately after installing both programs graphics were running at about 10-15fps with LoL running worse than HoN. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on what I could do short of getting a new computer after you read my specs. Before Installing I was getting upwards of 25-30fps at the lowest settings in both games. I have already tried to reinstall graphics drivers and it did nothing.

Computer: Compaq SR1000Z
Processor: Athlon XP 2600+ @ 1.92GHz
RAM: 1G
Video Card: BFG Nvidia 6200OC w/256Mb of VRAM

 

[JackNaylorPE]

It's been pretty much of a given that every new thing outta Redmond is slower than the one before it. Win95 was the worst "upgrade" at a 40% performance hit over W4Wgs but it's gotten better each time. The lone exception was the Vista -> Win7 upgrade which Win7 is actually faster than it's predecessor....but it's not faster than XP.

 

[bystander]

The performance loss you are experiencing is not a normal loss for that upgrade. Mostly the differences are very small from XP to Win7. XP out performs Win7 with OpenGL and Win7 outperforms XP with DirectX or very close.

However, I noticed that you have an ancient CPU by technology standards. I'm betting Win 7 was not optimized to run on that technology.

 

[bystander]

One of the issues of upgrading to Win 7 is having drivers for your hardware. Hardware that old will not have the best driver support.

 

[kyuresai]

Yea, I figured that, I was just baffled by the fact that everything but those two programs runs as fast or faster than it did with XP. :/

 

[bystander]

Oh, just saw one other reason for the loss in performance, possibly the biggest one. You have 1G of ram. Vista and Win 7 to a lesser extent, need more ram to be happy than XP.

 

[deadlockedworld]

Windows 7 is a great operating system on computers that can handle it... but your system barely clears the bar. I'm sure its hogging some resources that XP didnt. (you are using 32-bit--right?)

If you can find a very cheap ram upgrade I would consider it, otherwise I would stick with XP until you can afford a new computer. Most of the performance increase you noticed was probably from the operating system fresh install--so you would still have better performance than before if you went back to win xp.

You have tried the basic stuff for keeping an an older computer alive? --shutting down all nonessential processes running, turning off autoupdates, turning off aero, cleaning registry, etc?

 

[kyuresai]

Yes, but even while running these programs I don't max out the ram at all, I fall short by about 200mb.

 

[deadlockedworld]

oh wow you guys are busy-- I wrote the comment about ram before I saw any of your notes. That is definitely the biggest thing--Windows 7 runs better with 2gb or more.

 

[kyuresai]

I know that more RAM would be better for this old thing, but I'm looking for a job and as soon as possible getting a new comp. Also bystander, I just realized you also commented on my cpu, a seperate but equal reason I installed this OS asap was because my CPU actually isn't covered under XP, some driver/software issue causes it to lose processing power and/or crash the system if I try to update windows. I've been sitting at SP2 since one week after SP3 made me wipe it the first time. :<

Oh, and I am using 32 bit, I'm not that bad.

 

[bystander]

But I'm betting there are drivers online that would fix that issue. XP was the newest OS when your chip was released, so they would have had drivers availible to fix that issue.

 

[kyuresai]

The driver that supposedly fixed that bug made my comp crash again every time I tried to update it. (I think I may be cursed.)

 

[bystander]

Ain't technology great

 

[kyuresai]

Ain't technology great

It's only as great as people make it out to be.

 

[bystander]

Anyways, as deadlockedworld suggested, XP is probably your best solution until you can replace your system. Hold onto that copy of Win7 as when you do upgrade, you can use your super cheap copy on it.

 

[kyuresai]

Alright, thanks

 

[deadlockedworld]

Anyways, as deadlockedworld suggested, XP is probably your best solution until you can replace your system. Hold onto that copy of Win7 as when you do upgrade, you can use your super cheap copy on it.

Is it both 32 and 64 bit windows? Because if you get a new system you will want it to be 64 bit so you can have 4gb + ram.

 

[kyuresai]

No, It's just 32 bit, I'm going to partition my hard drive, put XP on one part for my two games, then put 7 on the other part for everything else.

32bit 7 for 30 bucks wasn't a bad deal at all though so eh.

 

[deadlockedworld]

No, It's just 32 bit, I'm going to partition my hard drive, put XP on one part for my two games, then put 7 on the other part for everything else.

32bit 7 for 30 bucks wasn't a bad deal at all though so eh.

Thats a good idea . Any maybe you can still unload the 32 bit on someone that trusts you to give them the registration for like $40 in a year or so.

 

[deadlockedworld]

Oh, and I just had another idea-- if you are running windows 7 on an older computer you might experiment with readyboost--it is supposed to work better on Win 7 than vista. I dont completely understand how it works--but I know it can use some of the faster USB drives as additional system memory.

 

[kyuresai]

Readyboost?

 

[deadlockedworld]

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/features/readyboost.aspx

You can use usb drives, SD cards, etc.

 

[kyuresai]

I'll try it

 

[geofelt]

Readyboost is not a substitute for ram.

I think the 1gb is the primary reason for the lack of performance.
You might look at all the startup tasks and see if there are a significant number that you can eliminate.
See if you can't find some ram on e-bay. I have sold some for very little in the past.

You can also turn off the aero and other eye candy, making it look more like XP

Take the time to reinstall your graphics driver properly.


1) Download driversweeper to your desktop, or wherever you can find it easily.
http://downloads.guru3d.com/Guru3D---Driver-Sweeper-(Setup)-download-1655.html

2) Download your new driver to the same place.
3) Add/remove programs, uninstall any Nvidia or ATI vga drivers and programs.
4) Boot into safe mode. Press F8 repeatedly while booting to enter safe mode. Your display resolution may be minimal.
5) Run driversweeper. Check the selection boxes for the removal of all nvidia vga drivers and ati drivers.
6) Rerun driversweeper. All such components should be gone.
7) Install the new driver from the desktop or saved location.

---good luck---