OT: Calling All Computer Gurus! Help Please.

[slick4hire]

I would normally post this on the Tech or OT forum but I trust people in this forum much more, so sorry in advance Zappa...

:scratch:

Here is the problem: I had an AMD Athlon 1.2, 164 Meg of RAM, ATI 64 Meg Video Card, SB Live sound card, 56K modem, dial up ISP and Windows ME.

I upgraded, and now have a Pentium 4 2.4 gig, 256 Meg of RAM, ATI 64 Meg Video Card, SB Live sound card, 56K modem, dial up ISP and Windows XP Home.

The mother board, processor, memory and operating system were replaced. All other items are leftovers from the last one.

Here is the dilemma: My frame rate sucks. I am steady at about 8 FPS in town, and about 2-3 FPS while questing. I did not change modems and am connecting at the same rate (52K) so I think I can safely rule out the modem and connection. I also loaded the program on the hard drive and ran it without the CD in the CD Rom with no change in performance so I think I can safely rule that out.

Here is something interesting I ran across however. According to ATI's web site, they make video cards for AMD and I saw nothing about pentium video cards anywhere on the site. Obviously it works in the Pentium mother board as I have graphics, but do they work properly? Could this result in terrible frame rate performance?

Also, the on board 16 meg video card on the mother board is disabled so there is no interference from that.

Any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated!

[Winona]

Id say ur problem lies within upgrading to windows XP. 256 ram is minimum for XP and it could easily make a snail out of ur computer. Especially if u have lots of other applications running.

You could also check ur Bios to c if ur FSB and muliples are set correct and if ur card uses AGP over 2, make sure that its set to max.

OR

If ur card is AGPx8 try setting it to 4.

ALSO

Check ur directX, and make sure direct draw is enabled.

[slick4hire]

Id say ur problem lies within upgrading to windows XP. 256 ram is minimum for XP and it could easily make a snail out of ur computer. Especially if u have lots of other applications running.

You could also check ur Bios to c if ur FSB and muliples are set correct and if ur card uses AGP over 2, make sure that its set to max.

OR

If ur card is AGPx8 try setting it to 4.

ALSO

Check ur directX, and make sure direct draw is enabled.

The only applications running in the background are Norton 2004 and Sygate Personal Firewall. Both of these were running on the last comp as well.

I understand how to access the Bios and know just enough to not screw it up. What is FSB and muliples? Also, how would I know where to look to see if my card uses AGP? Also, where do I look to change settings on DirectX? Thanks again.

[Aerath]

Yup - my thoughts too...

256 for a XP computer (specially if you are running anything alongside it) is just not a lot...

If possible, upgrade to 512 or so. RAM isn't too expensive these days, and it should improve your performance fairly well.

FPS is not related to your connection. It -is- related directly to your computer's performance.

[Winona]

First of all, Windows Xp is much more ram demanding then Windows ME. And norton is a system hog aswell.

But assuming thats not ur problem id start with checking ur directX settings.

use the run option in start menue and type: dxdiag

the click the 3d folder, should say display or something, not sure what they call it in english since im using a swedish version.

There you would have an option for activating and deactivating directdraw. It should be enabled. Also use the test to make sure nothing is wrong with your dx version.

As for bios, this vary from motherboard to motherboard as they use difrent bios. Usually this isnt the problem, but if u mad a hard reset or if u had some sort of unatural shutdown happening, sometimes the settings for your frontside buss can be set minimum.

I really can tell ya how to fix this unless i know ur MB. But i dont think this is the probelm. At anyrate, u can easily tell if your bios is set correctly when starting ur comp. As it should tell you that ur running this and that at 2.4 Mhz.

Also try downloading the latest drivers for your grafic card from ati. Again, id need th full name to point u towards a dl link.

[Winona]

S for AGP setting, u would find this under something called Advanced Chipset Features. Disabling AGP x8 support has been know to help at times, but i really dont recommend fooling around too much here if u dont know what u are doing.

[monad]

go to the dii folder and run the video test agin. if your vid card is configured right you should get at least 2 button options try each but the bottom one is usually best. hope this fixes it :idea:

[kurg]

run vidtest from the d2 folder and force it to use 2D. 3D mode for diablo does nothing but slow you to a crawl.

[Mn_Swe2]

A qualified guess is you're running low on RAM. I run Win 98 at home having 256 MB RAM, and playing Diablo for a while has my RAM-usage almost maxed out. XP will use alot more then 98, so I can see your problem...

Use the /fps command in Diablo and watch your RAM usage, I bet you're easily maxing it ;)

So buy 256 MB more and you'll be fine :)

/Magnus

edit: And as Kurg said, run in 2d-mode helps

[minion]

My friend has 256 and a geforce4 with windows xp and gets moderate frames (20-30 in town)

I have 512 and a geforce fx 5600 with windows xp and I get 60+ in town and 30 ish when questing

[Project]

Like everyone else said, 256 Ram is not enough if you are running XP. You should use at least 512, or 2x 512 sticks if your board supports it (Which it should).

My friend runs Win98 with 512 Ram and the stock Vid card that is mounted to this board and a 1.4ghz AMD 2400 I believe, and runs about 50+ frames in town and 30ish questing. I run a 533mhz Celeron with 128 Ram and my stock Vid card with Win98, and I run 40ish in town and about 25-30 questing.

Also, would shaders from the Vid card affect his fps? Just a though.

--Project

[Rueter_Reborn]

That card is more than capable of running in 3d mode.

1. Update your driver (keep in mind different drivers perform better than others given your hardware setup and os config)

2. Make sure your card is running at 4x AGP and not 1x

3. Shut down non used services and apps that are using resources (edit)

4. Buy more ram.



Try it in this order. You don't have to run out and buy more ram. It prolly wouldn't hurt though.

Only way shaders would effect the cards performance is a driver issue. or an overwhelming amout of shading--but that card can handle d2 easy.