Graphics card not getting the most out of it

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JZA80 Supra

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Aug 18, 2013
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So here's the problem.
My little brothers PC needed a small upgrade so i bought a Club3D HD3450 [AGP]
And it looks like its not getting the most out of it.
It has the latest drivers, its supposed to play the games he plays fine [Test drive unlimited 1, shift 1] but Shift 1 runs terrible [10~ fps on lowest] And test drive unlimited at about 15 on 1280x1024 with every other setting on low
The specs:
Pentium 4 @ 3GHZ
2GB DDR Ram
HD3450 [He had a 6600GT before]
 
Solution
MC_K7


No it's not. Pentium-4 are single core processors. Don't be fooled by hyper-threading, this is something else. It will trick Windows to see two processors, but threads aren't like physical cores. Hyper-threading can give a 10% to 20% performance boost at best in some applications sometimes (compared to 100% gain on a dual-core that is running well optimized applications for parallelism). For other applications hyper-threading will have zero impact, and in some rare situations it can even have a negative impact on performance. And note that games rarely take advantage of hyper-threading, or at best the...
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MC_K7

MC_K7

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Aug 31, 2008
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I checked the requirements for Test Drive Unlimited and it seems like you meet them:

http://gamesystemrequirements.com/games.php?id=284

However, this could be a software problem. Since this is very old hardware, did you ever reinstall Windows on that system? Over time Windows tend to slow down with all the updates and software you install, there could be drivers corruption, etc... I would recommend a "clean" Windows install (reformat) if this hasn't been done in a while.
 
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H

HEXiT

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Mar 13, 2011
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shift 1 requires a dual core cpu and is likely the reason your system is crumpling when its running.
even though the 3450 is a very low end card its still a little bit to grunty for that cpu with games that require more than 1 thread.
sorry to say you bro's system just doesnt meet minimum requirements for todays hardware and games.
 
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MC_K7

MC_K7

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No it's not. Pentium-4 are single core processors. Don't be fooled by hyper-threading, this is something else. It will trick Windows to see two processors, but threads aren't like physical cores. Hyper-threading can give a 10% to 20% performance boost at best in some applications sometimes (compared to 100% gain on a dual-core that is running well optimized applications for parallelism). For other applications hyper-threading will have zero impact, and in some rare situations it can even have a negative impact on performance. And note that games rarely take advantage of hyper-threading, or at best the impact on game performance will be negligible.

Previously, I only checked the requirements for Test Drive Unlimited 1, and the minimum requirement was a Pentium-4, so you just respect the bare minimum... So I guess bare minimum should give you around 30 FPS or a little more.

Now I just looked at the requirements for "Shift 1" and minimum requirement is a "Core2 Duo" which is much faster than a Pentium-4 and a "real" dual-core. Sorry, but you do not meet minimum requirement for this game, see for yourself:

http://gamesystemrequirements.com/games.php?id=879

Since Core2 Duo is the bare minimum and that a Pentium-4 is a lot slower, then I guess this is normal that you only get 10 FPS. And there's no way to get more out of it, the hardware is simply not powerful enough. Sorry to say, but Pentium-4 are really, really old now. It's probably time to get a new PC.
 
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