OT - Any Computer Whiz Kids Out There?

#1

Totally Off Topic I’m afraid but here goes…

My lovely DH bought me a PC game for Christmas - Broken Sword 4 Angel of Death - and although my PC has all the other recommended system requirements my graphics card is an Nvidia GeForce FX 5200 and the box recommends Nvidia GeForce 6200.

I’ve updated my drivers - long story! Ask me about it sometime!!! - and downloaded the recommended patches from the game manufacturer’s site but I’ve got a severe case of mouse delay.

It’s driving me mad and I just wondered if anyone knows how to fix it???

Would buying a new graphics card help do you think? I’m happy to buy the 6200 if it will fix the problem but if it doesn’t then I’m gonna be mad!

Any tips gratefully received!

Thanks guys :muah:

#2

How much memory do you have? I’ve found that extra memory cures almost all ills. Don’t have any specific recommendations, though…

#3

My DH says I have loads of memory! We already added some to my PC a little while ago because it was getting so slow I was ready to punch it!

Thanks anyway - I’ll get him to check again just in case…

#4

Defrag!

You should defrag every 6 months.

The video card should do the problem, as long as your processor and operating system and RAM (memory) are good. It’s already installed, so hard-drive space shouldn’t be an issue.

#5

When I bought Sims 2, I had problems with delay and jerky movements, too. I put in a new graphics card (Radeon 9600 series) and upped the RAM to 1G. I think it’s better, but I still find that when there are too many things going on as in too many Sims, too large a house with too much stuff in it, etc. the game bogs down. I don’t know what do do at this point. Computer problems are frustrating! I hope you can figure it out!

ETA: I just read Lisa’s post below. To access msconfig in XP just click START/ RUN and then type in msconfig.

#6

Oh, and make sure you don’t have stuff running in the background!

I forget how to access msconfig from Windows XP, but a quick google (or someone who here who knows) will tell you.

Windows has a lot of stuff that runs in the background. A lot of it will be processes that run all the time, so that when you open the program for that process, it loads a little faster. Which is nice, but pretty much every program has these! The fewer you have set to run at start-up, the faster your computer will be because it will have more available resources.

Just make sure you google every thing to make sure you know what you’re doing! For instance: iTunesHelp you can uncheck, vptray.exe, which is currently running on my work computer, should not be unchecked. (It’s a virus checker. That’s the kind of thing you SHOULD always be running.) etc.

#7

Also, restart your computer at least once per day, don’t leave it running for days (or more) at a time. As you open and close more programs, Windows doesn’t always “release” the memory efficiently. Restarting resets the scale and gives you a fresh start.

[size=2] :psst: Jan, that was Christine. :psst:[/size]

#8

Sue,

What type of computer do you have? How old is it? Sometimes, updating the computer’s BIOS will fix a lot of these kinds of problems.

I’m at work right now, and our network blocks some of the sites I found in Google. Try this and see if there’s an helpful info: www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewthread&threadid=74087.

#9

All computer geeks will tell you to start small then work to big. I would suggest run an adware/spyware program. If you don’t have one, you can get one free online, I would go into my tools, internet options and history and clear my temporary internet files. You would be surprised how much gunk gets stored in a very short time these days. My sil, who is a super IT geek for FedEx, says defragging is ok, but it doesn’t help much with the slow problem. If after doing all these things, you still are sluggish, I would suggest going to the new graphics card, etc.

Hope you figure out what is slowing you down.

Faye

#10

The fact that they recommend a 6200 video card is your biggest clue. The software was obviously written with that card’s specs in mind and anything less will cause degraded performance, which is why they put the recommended specs on the package.

#11

Thanks guys for all the tips.

I’ll try them out and then if all else fails I’ll get the new graphics card. I tried to look on the Nvidia website to see what the 6200 has that the 5200 doesn’t but it was pretty unitelligible to me!!! I just wanted someone to confirm that the 6200 card will probably make a big difference! I wasn’t sure if the numbers necessarily meant that the 6200 was newer (and therefore better presumably) than the 5200 or if they just did different things!

I’ll price up a 6200 and see if I can sweet talk my husband into fitting it for me - I followed the Nvidia website instructions to the letter when updating my drivers - “before installing the new drivers make sure that you uninstall the old ones” - which of course meant that having uninstalled the drivers using the add/remove programs facility (as instructed by Nvidia) my computer then wanted to restart and my poor husband spent the next 6 hours trying to sort it out! He did say to me “why did you do that? Didn’t you realise that without graphics drivers you wouldn’t be able to see anything!” - to which I replied “that’s precisely what I thought which is why I read the instruction through several times and then printed it out!”

In the end he removed the entire graphics hardware from the computer and refitted and reinstalled it twice - still didn’t work - ended up having to do a system restore twice before we could get the computer to boot up in anything other than safe mode! Still not sure what happened - or why Nvidia have such a stupid “top tip” on their site! Surely I’m not the only dumbo out there!

Anyway - incidentally for anyone who has not come across the Broken Sword games - I can highly recommend them! (When the mouse is not jerking that is!)