Can your PC be too fast for games?

[pro2a]

My specs are in my signature. I still really enjoy playing Sim City 4 on occasion and I have all the graphics set to the highest. When I am playing it, it likes to slow up a lot. My PC is a little over a year old (custom built) and recently upgraded to the specs below. I do not believe my PC is an issue.

For a game that is about 5 years old, it should run just fine on my system, yet it runs slow when my cities get large. What could be the issue?

 

[Trotter]

The GT 240 is most likely the culprit. Even with 1GB of its own memory it is still a GT 240. If the 250 is basically a 9800, I would figure the 240 to be a 9600 at best.

 

[Slaymate]

Have you downloaded and installed the game patch?

FilePlanet: SimCity 4 Retail Patch v1.0.272.0 [US][US]

 

[pro2a]

I downloaded the patch, it seemed to help a bit. It's better then it was but still gave me some issues.

Maybe I'm not understanding how a 2009 video card can't run a 2004 game. According to Systems Requirements Lab, creator of Instant Expert Analysis my video card is more then enough for the game. It runs modern games like MW2 and SC2 without a hitch, but not Sim City 4...

 

[pro2a]

Edit: Actually I think I just figured it out. I am running it with Vista 32 bit... I set the compatibility to XP SP2... and it seems to have fixed it. Maybe it was an OS issue...

 

[Trotter]

Yes, that could have been the problem.

 

[Oreo]

I know you have solved your issue. But certainly, PC's can be too fast for old games. The problem is usually CPU based.

For example the original Postal game (terrible game) literally runs too fast on modern processors. Set processor affinity to 1 core fixes the problem. Without changing anything the game plays at something like 3x the normal speed and the main menu is nigh on impossible to use.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

A lot of games that don't keep a track of the system time run fast, try playing Warcraft: orcs and humans on a modern pc...

 

[Harper]

Yes. I remember enjoying C&C: Tiberian Sun back in the day. However ever since my computer when from Mhz to Ghz, the game is just too fast even on the the lowest speed settings.
I remember installing windows 98 on a Core2 system a few years ago. It would of been great if there was driver support for the motherboard. Customer was too used to Windows 98, I have to do a lot of talking to get her to finally upgrade to windows xp.
We did the same with Windows 3.11 just for the LOLs-value.