Older games play slower with newer graphics card

[aveguy]

Hello All

New to the site and need some help. I have an old rig and I don't plan on getting a new one. It plays my old games which I like. My rig is as follows:

Pentium 4 2.8 Ghz Hyper-Threading CPU
Intel Motherboard socket 478 - D865GBF/D865GLC
Leadtek 5600 XT 256MB Graphics card
2GB RAM

I saw a Forsa 6600 graphics card and thought it would be a great way to upgrade a bit and get some old games running faster. Games like Fable The Lost Chapters played smoother/faster, but then other games like Nox and Diablo 2 actually played slower. I put the 5600 back in.

Anyone know why this is. Do I need to get a better card. I have read that an Radeon 3850 might be a good match with a Pentium 4, but I have also read things about bottlenecks. I don't mind hunting for a better card, but I just want to make sure that some of my old games actually run faster.

Thanks for the help

 

[dontlistentome]

I assume you mean Geforce 6600. Which specific model? There were two different AGP models. The "LE" was the slow model, the "GT" was the faster model. One thing I'd suggest, see if you can find a utility that will let you observe CPU and videocard usage while you play your games. You want to make sure your CPU can benefit from a faster card. I don't have the time right now, but I'll look into AGP cards later. I used an X1600 Pro back when I was using AGP and I also had a P4 back then, Diablo 2 ran great for me.

 

[aveguy]

Thanks for the help. I checked the packaging. It actually doesn't say. It is very plain. It just says geforce 6600. There brand is forsa. It has 256MB. I have no idea how to use a utility to tell if the match is good between CPU and graphics card but will do some research.

I will have a look at the graphics card you had.

 

[dontlistentome]

To answer your question, game performance can fluctuate because not all games require the same resources. Back then, pixel shaders and vertex shaders were handled separately. So one card could be strong in one area, another card might be stronger in the other. Now cards just have 'stream processors' or 'CUDA cores' if AMD or Nvidia.

A Geforce 6600 GT is around the same performance level as the X1600 Pro, so that's another card you could look at.

edit: Older cards usually had suffixes like "GT" or "LE" or "XT". One might designate the gamer version of the card, while others would mark that card as a lower cost but reduced performance version. Make sure you understand which you are buying before you pay for it.