Need help with games being choppy

hello everyone,

i am scratching my head as to why my games are getting choppy. for example i am playing postal 3 and it is using the source engine from HL2 here. according to the specs for the game my system more than matches the max requirements but it doesn't run smooth. i am running the game at high detail on a 23" monitor at a resolution of 1920x1080 are the system specs for it:

POSTAL 3 System Requirements:

Minimum

Supported OS: Windows® 7 / Vista / Vista64 / XP
Processor: Pentium 4 3.0GHz
Memory: 2 GB for XP / 4GB for Vista – Win 7
Graphics: DirectX 9 compatible video card with 128 MB, Shader model ATI X800, NVidia 6600 or better
Hard Drive: At least 16 GB of free space
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card, keyboard, mouse

Recommended

Supported OS: Windows® 7 / Vista / Vista64 / XP
Processor: core 2 duo 2.4GHz
Memory: 2 GB for XP / 4GB for Vista – Win 7
Graphics: DirectX 9 compatible video card with Shader model 3.0. NVidia 7600, ATI X1600 or better
Hard Drive: At least 16 GB of free space
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card, keyboard, mouse

here are my specs:

Windows 7 pro SP1
Asus P5N-E SLI mobo
intel Q6600 @ 2.4ghz
4GB DDR2 800mhz ram
XFX nvidia 8800GTS 512MB
Samsung 23" LED monitor @ 1920x1080
HT omega Striker 7.1 sound card

the only thing i can think of ids the resolution is too much for my GPU to handle but even at low settings it is still not smooth

any suggestions would be appreciated

 

monsta

Splendid
Basically you are limited by your gpus vram being 512MB playing at 1920x1080 with high detail, when your vram gets eaten it starts to feed on your system ram and causes choppy/laggy game play.
You can add more ram which may help somewhat , overclock your cpu,but in all honesty you would be better off upgrading your graphics card to the current generation of cards with at least 1GB of vram.
 

farrengottu

Distinguished
Aug 28, 2011
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i disagree, im sure your system is plenty good to run that game fine. you vram isnt an issue, i used to play that game on a 256MB card at 1920x1200 and it was smooth. you probably have some crapware slowing down your computer, or just bitrot.

open up task manager and close all the programs that aren't needed to run windows. then run the game again if it fixes it then you need to do a process of elimination and see which program/programs are the problem.

now if this doesnt fix it, its easiest to just backup your data, which should always be backed up anyways, and reinstall windows. this may sound drastic but to track down the specific problem could take several hours. reinstalling windows takes like 2. unless you have slow internet. this almost always fixes the problem of games being slower than they should be.
 

monsta

Splendid
Vram matters at higher resolutions and higher detail , you can always play around with the detail/graphics settings to find a sweet spot.
Overclocking your cpu would make a nice difference, its always something worth considering.
 



game manufacturers routinely give poor recommendations inre to what is actually needed to run their games adequately. nobody should ever follow "recommended" hardware evaluations.

the 512bit ram probably does hold the machine back to some extent at that res.

OP can shut down all programs that aren't needed while running games. IOBIT has a game related software that will enable gaming mode and then allow you to turn apps back on when finished. You can also enable more virtual ram. Clean up your hard drive and do a defragg. run anti spyware apps and check for viruses. Turn off auto updates from Microsoft ( do manually on Tuesdays ) and shut down open programs like instant messaging, etc.
 

Postal 3.... isnt that the new one that came out? how did you play it on a 256 card? did you install one just to play that game then re-install your other cards?