Hello people, new to the forum so go easy on me My system is as follows - Pentium D 805 2.66 Dual Core 1.5 GB RAM BFG 8600 GTS OC I appreciate my system is old and tired. I want to be able to play games smoothly but understand this will have to be at low resolutions. I have just tried Bioshock which plays but stutters badly when enemys are on screen, tried Fifa 08 which moves very juddery( why? the graphics are terrible) I want to reinstall my system and start a fresh. What is the best process for this, bearing in mind its an emachines and comes with its own restoration program built into it. Also what are the smoothest drivers to use for my graphics card. Its overclocked out of the box but are there any special techniques to get more juice from it? What things on your computer can optimise gaming performance(I'm on about programs that may affect it running in the background and stuff like that) Do drivers really affect the performance that much? Any help, advice or wise words truly appreciated EDIT - My PSU is an Earthwatts 400
keep it clean...i dont need a antivirus cos i rarely get one. But install ad-aware, a3rd party degrag (O&O defrag is good ), Windows defender and spybot search and destroy... try the newest WHQL drivers from nvidia and Rivatuner to OC em. driver DO affect performance...in a way of optimasation and getting optimum compability. Get a E4300 and OC it to 3.0.Ghz ( that CPU cost less then $110 these days and has very good performance when OC'ed)
Try disabling sound in game/ or from hardware settings screen. Onboard sound cards are infamous for causing stutter in games. P.s The key is Audio hardware Accelleration, this needs to be turned off.
i dont think the pentium d would be a very big bottleneck considering some rigs i've seen but it's stil a bottleneck nonetheless...um. 1.E-machine? care to explain further... 2.i'm running on the latest 163.71 whqls and its pretty gud imho. 3.The lesser the better 4.yes they do affect it A LOT ps. post ur amps on ur psu. it might not have met the req. for the 86gts. and check if you plugged in the power cord for the gfx cheers
xDfieO - thanks for your reply, lol and e-machines is a crappy shop bought brand, gonna try the 163.71 whqls drivers, how do i check the amps on your psu?? Also i did plug the 6 pin power cord in.