Slowness and sound problems in many games with GA-7N400Pro2

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.gigabyte (More info?)

"Karl" <karlstodulski@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1112054755.329245.189690@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> Hi everyone (and sorry for the long post),
>
> For a short while now, after upgrading my computer (although perhaps
> it's more accurate to call it building a new one) I've experienced a
> general 'skipping' or 'stuttering' in many games, which is most
> noticeable in the sound, although I'm not too sure why it happens. My
> system is:
>
> AMD Athlon 2800XP
> 512MB RAM
> 1 x CD-ROM drive
> 1 x CD-RW drive
> 1 x 13GB HDD
> 1 x 80GB HDD, partitioned into 4 x 20GB
> GeForce FX5200, running Forceware driver version v56.64
> Soundblaster Live! 24-bit, using drivers from the supplied CD
> DirectX 9.0c
> Win98SE
>

98SE requires a fresh install of Windows after you change for example irq
settings in the bios.
Have u completely disabled the onboard sound in the bios?
Your HDs running in UDMA mode 5 or 6?
Your RAM is DDR400?
Your FSB is 333?
Soundblabla? install the very latest driver from Creative. Their drivers are
a well known stuttering mess for many systems. That's why I am on a Cmedia
based soundcard and never got any sound problems again. Make sure no irq
sharing with the sound or video irq. If you experience video/sound
stuttering in exact that monent the HD is working/loading u are low on RAM -
get another stick to get rid off swapfile activities while playing. For good
gaming experience I recommend 1gig ram.

my thoughts...








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Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.gigabyte (More info?)

You need to install the latest nForce drivers.

"Karl" <karlstodulski@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:1112054755.329245.189690@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> Hi everyone (and sorry for the long post),
>
> For a short while now, after upgrading my computer (although perhaps
> it's more accurate to call it building a new one) I've experienced a
> general 'skipping' or 'stuttering' in many games, which is most
> noticeable in the sound, although I'm not too sure why it happens. My
> system is:
>
> AMD Athlon 2800XP
> 512MB RAM
> 1 x CD-ROM drive
> 1 x CD-RW drive
> 1 x 13GB HDD
> 1 x 80GB HDD, partitioned into 4 x 20GB
> GeForce FX5200, running Forceware driver version v56.64
> Soundblaster Live! 24-bit, using drivers from the supplied CD
> DirectX 9.0c
> Win98SE
>
> It seems to be most 'modern' games, that wouldn't run or would have run
> very poorly on my old AMD K6-2 system, that cause the most problems.
> The Sims 2, for instance, suffers from choppy music, but almost only
> when loading families or lots. A similar thing happens in Anno 1503,
> when loading a saved game. When the progress bar is nearly full and I
> assume the game is then just setting things up, the music will start to
> 'skip' a touch.
>
> Football Manager 2005 used to have choppy sound during a match, which
> would also coincide with slightly jerky graphics. I have worked around
> this problem in a way by pre-caching all the sounds before a match
> begins which removes the problem, but if I have Winamp and an MP3 or CD
> playing in the background the music will break up and/or slow down
> fairly badly while this pre-caching occurs. Also, loading or saving a
> game causes choppy music while it occurs.
>
> And Morrowind runs fine- for about five minutes or so, at least when
> using the SB Live. After that the sound and music begin to 'break' up
> and become choppy, which gets worse the longer you play. This also
> leads to choppy graphics, and obviously gameplay, and eventually leads
> to a crash to the desktop. Also, I think it's been because of this
> problem occurring with this particular game that I've had to reinstall
> Windows twice since Christmas... ironically, the game seemed to be more
> stable using the on- board sound as mentioned later on, so I may change
> back to it at some point.
>
> Other minor problems include the graphic equaliser bars in Winamp not
> being accurate enough after playing a CD extensively- it seems the bars
> are slightly ahead of the music, but when it moves onto a new track
> this is 'reset'. Perhaps this is normal though and I just haven't
> noticed it before, as I was used to playing CDs by pressing play on the
> CD drive but this has stopped working for now (another bad mark against
> the Soundblaster!). MP3 files seem to be unaffected by this though.
> Occasionally browsing the Web can cause music to break up. And
> sometimes I get something like static when playing games, which I've
> especially noticed in Morrowind, or when using Winamp and playing games
> with sound/ music. This static will usually clear itself up, although
> it can take a short while. I'm not sure what causes it but it's
> annoying when it happens.
>
> I'm using the latest drivers for my motherboard I could find from
> NVIDIA's website. Drivers later than v56.64 for my graphics card have
> various problems, including problems booting back into Windows as I
> personally experienced so I'm staying with these ones for now. There
> don't seem to be any later drivers for the Soundblaster on Creative's
> website. For the on- board sound, Realtek's v3.62 drivers seem to
> perform well, later ones seem to introduce more problems of the type
> I'm experiencing. I don't know about earlier versions though.
>
> I'm not really sure what is causing this to happen. I thought possibly
> the on- board sound was stealing too many CPU cycles, hence I bought
> the Soundblaster but that doesn't seem to have helped, and especially
> with Morrowind may in fact have made things slightly worse- Morrowind
> was playable for at least a few hours with the on-board sound in most
> cases before crashing to the desktop or with a blue screen, but it's
> lucky if it lasts 15 minutes now.
>
> The only other things I can think of is that it may be something to do
> with disk access, or the processor. I've tried changing various
> settings in the BIOS, including changing interrupts, disabling devices
> to free up more resources, and even changing a few of the 'secret'
> options which are normally hidden from you when you first go into the
> BIOS to see if the graphics card is at fault, but to no avail. Enabling
> DMA for all drives does nothing either. Reinstalling Windows with just
> the motherbaord, graphics and sound drivers, and then trying any of the
> above games hasn't helped which makes me think it's possibly a hardware
> problem more than anything.
>
> Any help or advice would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> Karl
>

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.gigabyte (More info?)

Have you tried installing Win XP pro? I have found that 98 does not like a
lot of the newer hardware.

"Karl" <karlstodulski@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1112054755.329245.189690@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> Hi everyone (and sorry for the long post),
>
> For a short while now, after upgrading my computer (although perhaps
> it's more accurate to call it building a new one) I've experienced a
> general 'skipping' or 'stuttering' in many games, which is most
> noticeable in the sound, although I'm not too sure why it happens. My
> system is:
>
> AMD Athlon 2800XP
> 512MB RAM
> 1 x CD-ROM drive
> 1 x CD-RW drive
> 1 x 13GB HDD
> 1 x 80GB HDD, partitioned into 4 x 20GB
> GeForce FX5200, running Forceware driver version v56.64
> Soundblaster Live! 24-bit, using drivers from the supplied CD
> DirectX 9.0c
> Win98SE
>
> It seems to be most 'modern' games, that wouldn't run or would have run
> very poorly on my old AMD K6-2 system, that cause the most problems.
> The Sims 2, for instance, suffers from choppy music, but almost only
> when loading families or lots. A similar thing happens in Anno 1503,
> when loading a saved game. When the progress bar is nearly full and I
> assume the game is then just setting things up, the music will start to
> 'skip' a touch.
>
> Football Manager 2005 used to have choppy sound during a match, which
> would also coincide with slightly jerky graphics. I have worked around
> this problem in a way by pre-caching all the sounds before a match
> begins which removes the problem, but if I have Winamp and an MP3 or CD
> playing in the background the music will break up and/or slow down
> fairly badly while this pre-caching occurs. Also, loading or saving a
> game causes choppy music while it occurs.
>
> And Morrowind runs fine- for about five minutes or so, at least when
> using the SB Live. After that the sound and music begin to 'break' up
> and become choppy, which gets worse the longer you play. This also
> leads to choppy graphics, and obviously gameplay, and eventually leads
> to a crash to the desktop. Also, I think it's been because of this
> problem occurring with this particular game that I've had to reinstall
> Windows twice since Christmas... ironically, the game seemed to be more
> stable using the on- board sound as mentioned later on, so I may change
> back to it at some point.
>
> Other minor problems include the graphic equaliser bars in Winamp not
> being accurate enough after playing a CD extensively- it seems the bars
> are slightly ahead of the music, but when it moves onto a new track
> this is 'reset'. Perhaps this is normal though and I just haven't
> noticed it before, as I was used to playing CDs by pressing play on the
> CD drive but this has stopped working for now (another bad mark against
> the Soundblaster!). MP3 files seem to be unaffected by this though.
> Occasionally browsing the Web can cause music to break up. And
> sometimes I get something like static when playing games, which I've
> especially noticed in Morrowind, or when using Winamp and playing games
> with sound/ music. This static will usually clear itself up, although
> it can take a short while. I'm not sure what causes it but it's
> annoying when it happens.
>
> I'm using the latest drivers for my motherboard I could find from
> NVIDIA's website. Drivers later than v56.64 for my graphics card have
> various problems, including problems booting back into Windows as I
> personally experienced so I'm staying with these ones for now. There
> don't seem to be any later drivers for the Soundblaster on Creative's
> website. For the on- board sound, Realtek's v3.62 drivers seem to
> perform well, later ones seem to introduce more problems of the type
> I'm experiencing. I don't know about earlier versions though.
>
> I'm not really sure what is causing this to happen. I thought possibly
> the on- board sound was stealing too many CPU cycles, hence I bought
> the Soundblaster but that doesn't seem to have helped, and especially
> with Morrowind may in fact have made things slightly worse- Morrowind
> was playable for at least a few hours with the on-board sound in most
> cases before crashing to the desktop or with a blue screen, but it's
> lucky if it lasts 15 minutes now.
>
> The only other things I can think of is that it may be something to do
> with disk access, or the processor. I've tried changing various
> settings in the BIOS, including changing interrupts, disabling devices
> to free up more resources, and even changing a few of the 'secret'
> options which are normally hidden from you when you first go into the
> BIOS to see if the graphics card is at fault, but to no avail. Enabling
> DMA for all drives does nothing either. Reinstalling Windows with just
> the motherbaord, graphics and sound drivers, and then trying any of the
> above games hasn't helped which makes me think it's possibly a hardware
> problem more than anything.
>
> Any help or advice would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> Karl
>