why do my games suck in XP?

[allanon1965]

i was running win98se with this rig and had no probelms with my games at all, i switch to xp and now my games SUCK! choppy performance very bad....my rig is Asrock K7S8XE with SiS 748 chipset, athlon XP1800+ oc'ed to 2100+, 512MB pc2700 ddr by crucial(2X256)maxtor 30gig 7200rpm hdd,(new)i am using the onboard sound, 16X HP burner, 16X dvd rom, gigabyte 9200 128mb radeon video card. there has to be a reason for this, is it the XP drivers for the radeon card? I was( and still am) a diehard fan of win98se, I installed winxp pro due to a few customers wanting it for themselves, so i figured i better use it for awhile in case one of them has trouble with it, i could help them out...but this sucks! i kinda like some of the features of winxp, but the problems with my games is making me loathe this OS, btw the games are warbirds, ms combat flight sim 3, and starfleet command. i tried different settings on the open gl and direct 3d potions of the radeon settings to no avail...anybody got any ideas before i scrap this and put win98se back on?

Fat, Drunk, and Stupid is no way to go through life Son.

 

[kinetic_tw]

Did you do an upgrade of Win98 to XP, or a clean wipe/fresh install? There are _ALWAYS_ problems with upgrade installations. Secondly, if you only want to be familiar with XP for your customers, why not setup a dual boot, so you can use 98 for your own applications, and reboot to XP when you need to.

 

[allanon1965]

it was a clean install of winxp......i have an extra tower with almost identical parts, will probably just use it as my game rig.....otherwise its just sitting around, i had it for a backup, but i might as well use it

Fat, Drunk, and Stupid is no way to go through life Son.

 

[Wolfy]

i dont use xp (dont like its fluffiness) but as far as i know ram needs for games double using xp so a game needs 256 ram on other OS's then double it for XP. Are the games you are playing ram hungry? I would assume flight sim is (i dont play those games myself so i dont know).

now personally I use Win2k it doesnt arse/thrash about after a month like win98 does and its stability etc is great and it doesnt do strange things (like win98 eg i dont turn on my machine now to find it isnt working for absolutely no reason other than win98 went tits up).

What I cant do is verify that the ram requirements of Win2k (I have heard that it too increases ram requirements but I cant say for sure, also i dont play your type of game so i cant compare but i have the same ram amt as yourself and cant say ive ran into any probs and i play every game under the sun cept flight sims altho i have IL2 sturmovik and it runs like a dream.

hope that helps or gives u an idea of what to do

"Its only when you look at ants closely with a magnifying glass on a sunny day that you realise how often they burst into flames"

 

[allanon1965]

well i dont think the games are ram hungry so to speak, im running 512 and i popped in another 256 stick last night to see if it helped and it made no difference at all so i think i will just deep six xp and go back to win98se, i must be a glutton for punishment, i always do this, my rig was running perfect with win98se and i have to go and screw it up again by putting xp on it again! geeeeeesh you would think i would have learned by now

Fat, Drunk, and Stupid is no way to go through life Son.

 

[Wolfy]

have u tried win2k? get hold of a copy of a mate if u can.. i love it.



"Its only when you look at ants closely with a magnifying glass on a sunny day that you realise how often they burst into flames"

 

[bandikoot]

I'm not sure exactly what is going on, but you should have no problems running xp pro with that system. Besides, you can't quit now or you won't be able to answer the customer's questions. Which version of the cats are you using?

 

[allanon1965]

its only the games that are giving me fits, not the whole os....billy gates needs to be SHOT! freaking moron! he cant leave well enough alone, let alone fix his junk! microsoft wont even issue a fix for the ms forcefeedback pro joystick issue with xp.....hows that for supporting their own products! driver version 6.14.10.6343 driver date 4-28-2003

Fat, Drunk, and Stupid is no way to go through life Son.

 

[Nosferatu]

WindowsXP eats a LOT of memory IF you leave the system settings at the standard(and beautifull) settings. In the System properties you'll find a tab were you can select how windows should work. if you set it to best performance you'll gain a LOT of performance boost.

One example: a friend of mine has a duron 750MHz and 128MRam. My old rig was a K6-2 475MHz with 128MHz(we both had winXp). He had standard settings, I had the aformentioned settings and a few others and my rig actualy moved better than his...

Sory for the bad english

 

[allanon1965]

well that really sucked! set it to performance and now the games dont even play!what a piece of sh*t!OS.....

Fat, Drunk, and Stupid is no way to go through life Son.

 

[Nosferatu]

Windows Xp has a compatibility thing witch you can find in the properties of all your .exe files. try to set it to win98/ME. It helped me with a couple of games.

Sory for the bad english

 

[allanon1965]

yep, i already tried that and sfc would only play in online mode after i did that....dont make no sense...

Fat, Drunk, and Stupid is no way to go through life Son.

 

[Zoron]

Update all drivers to the latest possible... including (and especially) chipset drivers for your mobo. Flash your BIOS to the latest revision. Uninstall / reinstall the affected games. Have you done all the Windows updates? If not, do those as well. There is no reason that game performance should suffer that much with WinXP... I've been using it since RC 2 and I've had no issues.

<font color=red> If you design software that is fool-proof, only a fool will want to use it. </font color=red>

 

[allanon1965]

i have tried all those suggestions and more with no luck,even if i got them resolved, i still cant use my msforce feedback pro joystick in winxp , billy gates can shove this winxp pro up his a$$, i set up a dual boot for win98se to play my games on, screw xp.

Fat, Drunk, and Stupid is no way to go through life Son.

 

[Rob423]

sorry if this was answerd somewhere uptop didn't feel like readying everything but, are you running anything while this is going on? like kazaa... Direct connect.... alsoooooooooooo WHAT THEME ARE YOU USING!! STYLES XP AND certain themes WILL MESS UP GAMES....... it has for me... counterstrike is one of them..

Asus A7N8X Deluxe
80gb Maxtor
200gb WD 8mb cache..
Lian-Li PC-60
Lite-On 52X
AMD XP2800+
LeadTek GeForce 4 Ti4200 w/vivo 128mb 8x
Hitachi CML174
1 GB Corsair XMS PC3200 Cas2

 

[allanon1965]

i dont use kazaa or anything like it, no direct whatever it is, just using the winxp setup native theme, the one it sets up with.

Fat, Drunk, and Stupid is no way to go through life Son.

 

[Wolfy]

maybe im missing the post but what exactly ARE the problems you are experiencing with the games as you havent said.

next, which version of directx have u got installed, u did install directx didnt you cos once i reinstalled win2k and sat scratching my head for 30mins over why games wouldnt run until i realised id forgotten directx. so if u have the patience to resinstall do so and start with the lowest dx7 i guess and run game see if it works, if not go with next dx (reason being it tough to uninstall directx so its easier to up than down versions)

next, u mentioned customers... so work in computers, have u got spare parts? perhaps yur gfx card has had a hiccup, swap it out for another and see what happens.

finally check yur gfx driver versions.... try an old driver... u never know it might work.

but basically can ya tell us what is wrong with the games oh and is it JUST games that arent working everything else with the new system works fine?



"Its only when you look at ants closely with a magnifying glass on a sunny day that you realise how often they burst into flames"

 

[allanon1965]

the damn things are choppy, i said in my very first post, and the ms force feedback pro joystick wont work properly, ms replied to my emails saying they were aware of the problem but werent going to issue a fix since the joystick is a discontinued model..i have tried 1 gig of crucial memory and it makes no difference, and also have tried every suggestion posted with no difference...i have resolved that is is an issue with the games and XP, so i set up a dual boot and run my games on win98se, which functions perfectly in the games....i hate xp, plain and simple, if they cant or wont address issues such as these and issues with hardware that they make, then screw them, i only ran xp to get familiar with it to help with systems i build that want xp, i try to steer them away from xp, but if they want to use it, i will put it on and try to help them out when it screws up or wont work with their favorite games or programs.

Fat, Drunk, and Stupid is no way to go through life Son.

 

[Zoron]

I had nothing but problems with CFS 3... didn't seem to like ATi cards back when I tried it. Never tried SFC, but I did play Bridge Commander and had absolutely no issues with it. I'm at a bit of a loss to explain your problems, as I haven't had any... all games run nice and smooth at 1600 x 1200.

The joystick issue you have is old... it's been well-known for a long time now that MS wasn't going to fix the problem with that joystick. I have a Saitek Cyborg Gold 3D that works great with XP, though.

Just trying to sort out the issue here... because if it were truly a problem with XP, wouldn't everyone be having the same problems? What version of DirectX and Cat drivers are you running on your 98 rig? Have you also tried patching the games?

<font color=red> If you design software that is fool-proof, only a fool will want to use it. </font color=red>

 

[ytoledano]

I havn' read all the replies but think about what what kind of slow-downs you have during games, if it's an all-the-time low FPS then I have not a clue but if it's a momentery screen freeze or dramatic drop of FPS for a second or if it happens in equal intervals than there might be something in the background.

POST is way overrated, the black screen and beeps should be enough for most people.