What is my bottleneck?

[Killer Carebear]

Hello everyone.

I built myself a cheap computer around the beginning of 2010, and it struggled a little on the only game I've tried, so I just wanted to know what I should replace/add more of first to improve my gameplay before I invest a lot on PC games. This was meant to be a budget machine, not an extreme gamer, so it has modest components.

Also, the game I tried, Shadowrun, got it for like $3 locally... Does it use a lot of resources? It is an older game, with crappy-ish graphics, so it does not seem like it would use a lot of resources, but it may have reasons...

My computer has the following components:

AMD Athlon II x2 2.8GHZ CPU.
2GB DDR3 1333
ATI XFX 5670 GPU
... That is pretty much all that is necessary to know isn't it? (Too lazy to type out all of my components)

Thanks in advance for any responses.

 

[pkw4]

the hd 5670 will be the limit, the 5770 would give much better preformance. other than that ur pc will run most games well, u may have to drop detail and not use aa/af in newer games.

 

[Killer Carebear]

Thanks for the answer. I am not looking for amazing fps, if I stay above 30 I am satisfied, but why did it run shadowrun so horribly? I had everything turned way down and it was still almost unplayable.

P.S. - You stole my thread title and got me confused for a minute

 

[rocky41]

Maybe a conflict with your ati drivers but don't prejudice anything earlier ...your system is good ,i will say ideal for cheap or moderate gaming ,try some other games with it and then tell us whether the same is happening with other games too.

 

[ScrewySqrl]

yah, an upgrade to the 5770 and maybe another 2GB of RAM should clear up your bottleneck

 

[gamerk316]

...ShadowRun shouldn't be causing problems on a 5670; I'd wager something else is the problem. Likewise, a 5770 would be a bit overpowered for an older Athlon X2...

Could use 2GB more RAM though...

 

[Killer Carebear]

Okay, thanks for the responses. My original thoughts were the RAM and CPU...

The thing is though, that when I built this computer I was not smart. I cannot simply install another 2GB of RAM, I have to replace my 2GB with 4GB because I used up all the memory slots instead of leaving room for improvement.

A couple of you said the 5670 was the problem. Really? This would have been my last guess, but I do not know, that is why I asked.

I recently bought oblivion off from newegg, and will try that out. I will also check out my drivers and see if I can find anything.

Do you think it is possible that my ethernet card (Not my internet connection, I have already upgraded that) could be a problem? It is just the integrated one that came on my [cheap] mobo.

Thanks for your answers and any future ones, and I am sure I will be back after messing with a few things.