Hardware question, but specifically gaming related....

Chris [BEANS] · 27 May 2009 at 14:50

Hi,

Fed up with learning from my mistakes, so I'm going to ask before I just go ahead and spend money!!!

I've just built a new, mid range system and I've got back into PC gaming after years of not being able to play anything new.

It's an:-

Athlon 64 X2 dual core 4400+
2gig 6400 ram
Radeon HD 4670
Vista HP 64
All drivers on latest version

and I'm using an Asus V222h 1080 monitor set at 1400 x 900 in game

In both games below, the graphics settings are at whatever the game reccomends.

Anyway, noticed two problems:-

In company of Heroes, when panning the camera around the battlefield, it will often become very jerky, or even pause for a split second and then jump to wherever it was panning to.
Once this has happened once, it will smoothly pan over the same area no problem.

Also, the FMV is slightly jerky if you look closely enough....

In the Bioshock demo (awesome!! definately going to buy it!!).
Again, panning the camera is occasionally jerky and there will rarely (but still too often) be half seconds pauses while playing.

So... Am I right in thinking, more ram will help/solve my problem?? Or am I going to be better off lowereing settings, or what??

Was about to buy some ram, but realsied its been a long time since I've known what I'm on about so needed advise from people who know what they're on about!!

Cheers

Chris [BEANS] · 27 May 2009 at 15:18

More ram it is then

It's a pretty clean install, only things that have gone onto it are AVG, firefox, steam and CoH.
All the components are new, so no dust, and there's a HUGE fan on the CPU.

Cheers for the advise guys.

Oh, as for lowering the res, I know it's pretty much always game specific, but as the components are new and half decent, and the games are a year or two old, what sort of res should I be looking at?? I figured 1400 x 900 should be fairly reasonable...?

Chris [BEANS] · 27 May 2009 at 15:25

Fair play, cheers.

I'll give the different AV a blast, get more ram (as it appears I need it regardless) and if the problems persist than I'll have to drop the res.

Thanks again all

Chris [BEANS] · 27 May 2009 at 15:28

uv said:
Is your CPU overclocked at all?

No....

Chris [BEANS] · 27 May 2009 at 15:35

Sounds like I'm paying the price for not keeping up with it all.
The previous system I built included a 9800pro when they were brand new. Did LOADS of research and faffing back then, built a great little rig.

Not paid any attention to what's going on since then and I've ended up with a fairly pants system when I could have had much better for a little more cash!! Oops!! lol

Perhaps I'll try again when Windows 7 is released! (Lol, I i'd never even heard of windows 7 til a couple of weeks ago!! well out of the loop!!)

Chris [BEANS] · 27 May 2009 at 15:41

Lol, might knock it up a touch, never really been into overclocking. Did it when my old rig was new just because I could, as this system would genuinely benefit from it I guess I should....

Chris [BEANS] · 28 May 2009 at 08:52

RAM ordered, AV changed, and ingame res dropped to 720....
It's lower than I intended, especially as I used to play games years ago on 1024 x 768 which is obviously taller, BUT i figure it's the same res as most of my PS3 games and everything runs at high and looks great, so perhaps I was worrying over nothing

As for the overclocking...... If any of you are regulars in the hardware sections, expect to see me in there moaning that I blew up my PC!!!!