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Gaming question..
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Posted by: bellisimo
I've never used my computer to play games until now and I don't know what I need in terms of hardware.
I recently bought a game of snooker online. It's quite realistic and plays pretty much like a real game. The problem is that when I break up the balls to start a game sometimes it works very well and other times the ball travels so slow it hardly breaks them up at all.
I thought it must be insufficient RAM so I bought more and doubled my memory. I still have this problem.
I use the mouse to navigate the shots. My PC info is below. Can some one please tell me what's causing my problem?
Thanks in advance,
Motherboard
CPU Type AMD Athlon XP, 1466 MHz (11 x 133) 1700+
Motherboard Name MSI K7T Power/Pro/Pro2/Pro2-A/Turbo/Turbo2/Turbo Limited Edition
Motherboard Chipset VIA VT8363A Apollo KT133A
System Memory 1536 MB (PC133 SDRAM)
BIOS Type Award Modular (12/19/01)
Communication Port Communications Port (COM1)
Communication Port Communications Port (COM2)
Communication Port Printer Port (LPT1)
Display
Video Adapter RADEON 9200 PRO Family (Microsoft Corporation) (128 MB)
Video Adapter RADEON 9200 PRO SEC Family (Microsoft Corporation) (128 MB)
3D Accelerator ATI Radeon 9250 (RV280)
Monitor Plug and Play Monitor [NoDB] (108A05053)
Multimedia
Audio Adapter VIA AC'97 Audio Controller
Storage
IDE Controller VIA Bus Master IDE Controller
Floppy Drive Floppy disk drive
Disk Drive Maxtor 6Y120L0 (120 GB, 7200 RPM, Ultra-ATA/133)
Disk Drive Maxtor 6Y120L0 (120 GB, 7200 RPM, Ultra-ATA/133)
Optical Drive HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-4163B (DVD+R9:4x, DVD+RW:16x/8x, DVD-RW:16x/6x, DVD-RAM:5x, DVD-ROM:16x, CD:40x/24x/40x DVD+RW/DVD-RW/DVD-RAM)
Optical Drive SONY CD-ROM CDU5211 (52x CD-ROM)
SMART Hard Disks Status OK
Partitions
C: (NTFS) 117232 MB (104259 MB free)
D: (NTFS) 117239 MB (85236 MB free)
Total Size 229.0 GB (185.1 GB free)
Posted by: goranpaa
My best guess is the videocard beeing too weak. And maybe too old?
The 9200 , is the slowest card in the Radeon 9000 series. And its 3 generations old by now.
So it may lack some support for different things in todays games.
The videocard and RAM, have the biggest impact on the performance when gaming.
Get a Radeon X1600Pro, or even better, X1600XT AGP videocard. This will play most games on a mix of mid to high quality settings. And have support for the latest shaders and stuff.
Just be careful, so you really pick the "AGP" version of this card, and not the PCI Express dito. That wont fit your motherboards graphics slot.
Many of todays videocards, comes in both flavours.
Other videocards to consider are, Geforce 7600GS and the faster 7600GT.
Gecube
HIS
Powercolor
Sapphire, are the best Radeon card makers.
Best Geforce cards makers are eVGA, Gigabyte, Leadtek and XFX.
Another thing you could try. Is to have the resoloution setting in the game options, set to 1024 X 768
And low quality settings. This may at least give you less stuttering or slowing downs.
Also keep the hd in shape, by defragment it once a month will be of help.
And of coarce, keep your pc free from spyware and viruses.
But you should soon start to consider the leap over to PCI Express.
The AGP is fast dying now. And both Nvidia and ATI, have said, they wont make any new cards in AGP flavour.
Posted by: pdnielsen
By "fast dying" he means that soon AGP will be considered obsolete technology and won't be available anymore. He doesn't mean the components will die quickly. I point this out because his primary language is Swedish and I didn't want you to interpret his phrasing incorrectly. Goranpaa still does a great job of giving people advice though. I don't speak a word of Swedish myself! 
Looks like you've got plenty of hard drive space empty, but like Goranpaa says your CPU, mobo, and memory are all "senior citizens" now. If you decide to buy or build a newer rig, stop by OTS to ask more detailed questions about hardware. If no one else comes up with good advice - Goranpaa certainly will!
Posted by: bellisimo
Thanks a lot, guys,
I really appreciate your advice. I hope to upgrade in a few months and at that time I'll definitely be back with more questions.
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