Performance problems

OK guys, ive been having horrible problems with stuttering.
Wasnt sure where to post, but since its a graphics issue, here it is.

Heres the story -

Rig:
C2D E6600 @ 2.4Ghz
Asus 4870 1GB
2GB DDR2 RAM
Asus P5B mobo
320GB 7200rpm SATAII
Windows 32-Bit SP2

Everything stock, nothing fancy.

I had previously owned an Inno3D 8800 GTS 320MB, and had stuttering issues with Oblivion, CoD 2, Crysis, but mainly Oblivion.
Tried a few things, but no dice.

Decided to upgrade because a mate offered to buy the 8800 GTS for a really good price.
Chose the HD 4870 1GB to upgrade to. Fast, and surely enough VRAM to handle the crazy texture mods i planned to install for Oblivion.

Expected the stuttering to disappear with the upgrade to such a lovely card, as i thought it must be related to the GTS, but it did not.
Tried a defrag, tried Dual Core hotfix, no luck.

FPS has skyrocketed - between 50%-100% FPS increase (Crysis, 1680x1050 all settings on high @ ~32 FPS was yummy ).
Stuttering has remained, however.

Really really frustrating.

So.
Got an IDE drive that i had laying around, fresh install of windows, newest (8.11) ATI video drivers and oblivion.
That was ALL i installed.

Opened up Oblivion, stuttering is still there. A bit better, mind you, but still obviously there.

AAARGH!

Ran orthos for 8 hours overnight, CPU stress test - 0 errors, 0 warnings.
Reduced reolution to 800x600, still there.
So im guessing its not the CPU.

With a defrag, and the page file increased in size, problems still there.
So im guessing its not the HDD either.

Tested this with an old CRT monitor, still there.

Could it be dodgy RAM?
Going to run memtest tonight.

Otherwise, i am TOTALLY stumped. NO idea about what else it could be.

I really need some help to fix this, any and all advice is very much appreciated.

Thanks for reading!

You havent mentioned drivers at all .


I'd uninstall the current driver and then try the latest versions . If they wont uninstall then roll them back to the earliest version you can . and then install the latest versions

I

That was my first thought too, but he did the right thing actually. See, he says "Got an IDE drive that i had laying around, fresh install of windows, newest (8.11) ATI video drivers and oblivion. That was ALL i installed."

Wow, thankyou all so much for your quick replies!

When i got the new card, i installed the drivers from the CD (just wanted to see it in action) after uninstalling the NVIDIA drivers first.

I downloaded the newest ATI drivers when i continued to have this trouble - i thought it best to start afresh, instead of dealing with bits of old NVIDIA drivers as well as two versions of ATI drivers hanging around.
Just so i could be sure it wasnt a driver issue i did that fresh install on an old drive.

Could the IDE drive be adding to the problem? Its reasonably old - its a WD200 (either 5400 or 7200 RPM, the WD website doesnt have my exact model)

So maybe there's something amiss with my main drive setup, and when i tested it on this older IDE drive, it wasnt fast enough, so appeared with the same symptoms?
(Which, as i mentioned, were SLIGHTLY less noticable. Unless that was just me being optimistic...)

I dont have a spare SATA to test with, unfortunately.
Should I try reformatting my SATA? (I DO have an external HDD to backup to, but i dont want to go through the process if the HDD is not at fault.)

So it SEEMS that my PSU is the only culprit left.
Just from the specs, does it seem like it could pump out enough current/power?

Specs say 600W max output,
~ +3.3V : 25A
~ +5V : 30A
~ +12V(1) : 18A
~ +12V(2) : 18A
(http://www.coolermaster.com/products/product.php?language=en&act=detail&tbcate=22&id=51)

Thanks for your help!

The RAM speed doesn't matter that much on an Intel platform. I would try adding one or two more GB. You'd see only 3 GB or so, with that 32-bit OS, but it's still better than 2.

Try googling "oblivion stuttering". I found some interesting threads on the subject. For example some people fixed the problem, at least in part, by buying a sound card or removing some texture pack or disabling some sound options or defragmenting the hard drive or stopping some Windows services, etc.

This might help a bit:
http://www.tweakguides.com/Oblivion_1.html

With Crysis demo on old IDE drive, stuttering is there.

It DOES get better when i lower the settings, but its still present.

*Bump*

No idea whats going on here.