Hey guys, I have a problem with the games on my computer. They all seem to be running slower than they should based on my setup. Here are some examples: Quake III (All features on highest): 162fps Max Payne: 70-100 fps Halo: 10-40 fps I know that my computer should be running games faster than this. I mean, I have no problem with 70 or above fps, but when they should be going faster it bothers me. And with Halo only running 10-40 when comparable systems I've read about have it at 50-80 at 1024x768 than I know there is a problem. I don't have any viruses on my computer, no hardware errors of any kind and I defrag my computer on a weekly basis. What could the problem be? My specs are below: MSI 745 Ultra MB Athlon XP 2400+ CPU 266fsb 512mb DDR PC-2700 Ram 40.0gb Western Digital Hard Drive (20.5gb free) 16x DVD-Rom Drive 52x/48x/52x CD-RW Drive Soundblaster Live! 5.1 56k Modem 10/100 Linksys Lan Geforce FX 5200 AGP with latest drivers Thanks for any help! Also, on a side note, I have a weird problem as well. It seems that my frame rate will improve if I use a different monitor than my current one. Like in Sandra 2004 I will get a score of 6950 in the cpu benchmark with my current monitor, but when i switch to a newer one than I get a cpu score of about 7500. What's up with that?

Halo @ 50-70fps with Geforce FX 5200!? I think your video card may be the problem, The FX 5200 is a cheap video card, im not saying its a bad card but its performance is nothing compared to one of the best video cards out there, such as Geforce 5950 Ultra, Radeon 9800 XT, and etc... And for the monitor problem, Its probably because of the resolution & refresh rate.

Agree about the FX5200. My dad has just bought a 256mb FX5200 and it's useless. I have an older generation Geforce4 Ti4200 128mb which is far more competent at running DirectX 9.0 games like Call of Duty than the DX9 compatible FX5200 even though my card isn't fully DX9 compliant. Just because the FX5200 is a really slow card. It's a shame that you can't buy Ti's any more. You can still buy the Gf4 MX's but Nvidia seem to have halted the Ti's just as the FX's were launched. In theory, an 'old generation' Ti should fall roughly into the FX5200 price bracket. Hmmm! I agree about the Radeon 9800 and FX5950 being much faster, but lets be honest, Who has £400 odd to spend on a graphics card every time a new version of DirectX comes out? I'd reccomend a mid-range Radeon for a compromise between value and performance. Perhaps a 9600XT 128mb??

Thanks for those tips, guys. I just wish I had known this a couple of months ago when I bought the card for building my computer. I get everything as close to top of the line as I can and then I buy this. And the only reason I bought it was because I had a Geforce 4 MX440 and the graphics on Halo sucked so I figured I needed to have a new DX9 compliant video card. So I went with the 5200 instead of the TI. Very stupid. Oh well, that's life I suppose. Anyway, thanks again for the help. At least now I know it's not a hardware or software problem! :) ~willyslice

How is your system clocked? I see you have PC2700 (DDR333) & you mentioned your CPU as 266FSB...they should both be running at the same FSB for best performance. Since your RAM runs at 166mhz/333FSB, why not set your CPU up to 166mhz/333FSB as well? (if you haven't already done so). The 2400+ default settings are 15.0 x 133mhz/266FSB (2000mhz), try clocking at 12.0 x 166mhz/333FSB...

For future reference (at least until the next one comes out) http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031229/index.html

In regards to that fsb cpu multiplier tip, how can I accomplish this? I have read much on overclocking the athlon xp and such, but it all comes down to one problem. I don't want to manually mess with my cpu! I just had problems with my old 2400+ and bought a new one and I'm not too anxious to screw it up. Is there a way I can do this in the bios or another way to change the multiplier? Thanks for any tips! Oh, and by the way my ram is running at 266mhz even though it's 2700 because I have read it's better that way, but thanks for the tip. ~willyslice