How to determine what is causing choke with my games? (program?)

[stainer711]

I get pretty low FPS comparatively to other computers with my specs. I have a suspicion that it is due to having a 7800gt 256 vanilla card from Jaton instead of a quality company, but i'm not sure. I also got the same problems on another high end computer with the only similarities being the graphics card. This may completely show that it is the card's fault, but i want to be sure before i scrap it for another. Is there a utility that analyzes in-game choke?

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My specs are:

7800gt 256mb Jaton Nvidia graphics card (latest drivers)

1 gig of dual channel Corsair ram

450 watt power supply

amd athlon 64 3700+ processor
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I get:

20-100 fps on half-life 2 with full specs and 1280*720 resolution

14-75 fps on Oblivion with standard high settings and 1280*720 resolution

 

[Ethereal_Dragon]

I would say those FPS's seem normal.... the LOW side of them could be caused by un-needed background processes running.....

CTRL + ALT + DEL and bring up the Task Manager... look in PROCESSES tab to see what is hogging the CPU and MEMORY. Also, look for how much the game takes up...

 

[Nitestick]

the maximums seem alright, how often does it hit the minimum you mention and what is the average. perhaps try other driver sets, the latest are not always the greatest.

 

[stainer711]

I only get the lows in counterstrike: source when i navigate to the top of a map in spectator mode and look down at a bunch of action. The low is usually around 40 fps in-game. In oblivion the normal is 25 fps outside looking at a structure., and it only rarely drops below 35 in doors. In the beginning of the game i got down to the teens during the fight sequences. I really just want a new graphics card if these fps are normal or something that would increase it. What would be the most cost effective way to greatly improve my fps? Would it even be my graphics card? I'm willing to wait a bit for the best deals, etc. From my understanding i'll have to upgrade graphics cards for a great deal longer than i'll have to upgrade any other components. (except for the ram)

What do you think the bottleneck is being caused by?

 

[stainer711]

b.u.m.p.

 

[Alex81388]

Honestly, I'd say that was pretty normal.

CTRL + ALT + DEL, and in the bottom of the window it will say how many processes you have running, let us know will ya?

 

[Ethereal_Dragon]

I am not sure how a 7800gt stacks up compared to an x800 PRO, but I have the x800 PRO, and I get similar FPS... I have 2 Gigs of RAM though...

I didn't really ASK in my first post, but I mentioned background processes.... What do you have running in the background when playing games??
Browser windows?
AIM?
Anything else?

 

[Alvin.C]

Re:

Hello,

Do you have an Antivirus program active during gameplay?

 

[The_Lyrics]

ya i get really bad fps with my machine.,...which u can see the specs are really bad...anyways...if a anti-virus program left on...will it really affect the fps while i play cs 1.6? or any other games?

 

[Ethereal_Dragon]

Yes, it will, becuase (with a 1.0 GHz CPU) the game and the AV will be fighting for system resources, which would cause the game to slow down.... looks like it is time for an upgrade.