GPU Upgrade Resulted in Poor Gameplay

goldendragoon84

Distinguished
Dec 31, 2008
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18,510
Hello,

I recently purchased an upgrade for my outdated system that Tom's Hardware had an article on, the Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 4650 1GB GDDR2. Please keep in mind that this is an AGP card.

First I will give you the stats:

MOBO: DFI 875P-T (Phoenix Award BIOS never updated since purchase) with an upgraded bios chip to support my processor
CPU: Pentium 4 3.2 GHz.
Memory: 2GB
HD: 320 Gb Seagate Baracuda 7200 RPM 3.0Gb/Sec xfer speed
GPU: Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 4650 1GB GDDR2 (GV-R465D2-1GI)


I was running the Radeon x900 xt platinum edition previous to my upgrade. If you need me to fetch further specs, I can do so.

Anyhow I opened up my case, dusted it out (esp around the AGP slot), took out the x900xt, dusted again, and installed the 4650. I made sure the power cords where also plugged in. I updated to the most recent drivers (still the ones on the CD) and fired up the infamous WoW. I did not change my video settings from what they were with my last GPU. The game runs choppy as hell. GPU LAG EVERYWHERE!!! Given that this is an old system I am not sure if I needed to do anything beyond installing the card and updating the drivers. I am running all the ATI utilities as well. I havent tweaked anything.

Anyone have any idea what is going on? This card should leave my old card in the dust. Obviously it isn't going be able to play GWAR on max settings, but I just want to play WoW and Titan Quest on normal settings!!!
 

the last resort

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Apr 13, 2008
592
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19,010
First, uninstall any drivers/utilities related to the old graphics card. Then, download DriverSweeper ( http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/ ) and uninstall ALL drivers, including the new ATI ones. Then go to ATI's website and download the very latest drivers ( http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx?p=xp/radeonx-xp ).
Then try defragging, rebooting, etc. and try again. It really sounds like a driver conflict to me.