Where is my bottleneck?

[B-Dog]

Is my cpu a bottleneck for gaming? I can play BF2 with medium settings but I get intense skipping sometimes and I am starting to assume that the CPU is choking the system. Most people I talk to say that with my GPU I should be able to run everything on high. Is the CPU underpowered?


AMD64 3500+
Asus A8V Mobo
ATI Radeon X800XT PE AGP
2Gb Corsair XMS 3200LL
SB X-Fi Extreme Music Edition
250GB WD 7200


I'm thinking of upgrading everything to a 7800 SLI setup with FX-57 but if I can just get a good leap with my current config with a small change I would do that first.

Thanks in advance for your opinion on this matter...

 

[denster]

Have you checked your DMA settings in the BIOS and device manager?

Also, make sure you have current updates/drivers for your SBAudigy

http://us.creative.com/support/down.../&hdAllProduct=1&LangID=1033&hdDspLangID=1033

 

[B-Dog]

Havn't. Where are they and what should they be set to?

 

[denster]

well in device manager under IDE/ATA/ATAPI controllers click the plus sign to open then right click parallel ATA controller, click properties, if Let BIOS select transfer mode is checked, then uncheck it, then in the drop down menu select the highest Ultra DMA mode listed... they vary according to drives, mine is Ultra DMA 2 - Ultra 33.......

Do this for each of your drives... It should be enough, but after restarting, make sure Windows has not changed it back to Let BIOS select transfer mode...... if it did then we can check it in the BIOS

 

[B-Dog]

Ok, I'll try it when I get home in an hour or so. Thanks.

 

[denster]

alright, let me know if that works, if not we can look at a few other things..

 

[gpfear]

I play BF2 with an athlon 3000+ so I dont believe its your processor.

 

[B-Dog]

They are set to ultraDMA if available and the current transfer mode is Ultra DMA Mode 2. The only other option is PIO Only

 

[crazywheels]

it is not your processor, i have a A64 3200, and a 6600gt oc, and it runs very well on medium settings

 

[B-Dog]

X800XT Platinum Edition...
3500+

Shouldn't I be able to run it on high everything with nary a stutter?

 

[denster]

Set your drives to Ultra DMA 2 not PIO.

 

[denster]

There are some other things we can check if you are interested. I had the same problem awhile back when I played DVD's but now Problem Solved

 

[pharoah]

when was the last time you did a defrag,cleanup,virus scan,spyware scan etc etc ive seen so many machines people said my hardware is messed up and it was the fact thay hadnt done a disk cleanup or a defrag since they got there computer and was totally riddled with viruses and spyare

 

[parlee]

id agree its probably norton or somthing... how much hd space are u using? when was the last time u defragged? how many processes do u have open (idealy there should be 25, but 30 is normal, for me at least) id say a reformat would most likely do the trick if ur up to it, like every1 said u should run that game maxxed out at 16x12 with AA and AF on... oh if u didnt say ur res nows prob a good time to, i mean that could be the problem if ur running it at 20x16... no card can run games maxxed at that res.