I have a great computer configuration but games run slow as molasses!! Help!!

[highlanderfil]

This is my comp:
CPU: AMD Athlon 1700MHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte 7DX+
Memory: 512 MB of Mushkin DDR2100 + 512 MB of Crucial DDR2100
Video Card: Gainward Ultra TV/650 Golden Sample (Geforce4 Ti4200)
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 80.0 GB @ 7200 RPMS
Monitor: Dell Trinitron P991
DVD Manufacturer & Model: LG 8160
CDR/CDRW Manufacturer & Model: TDK Velocd 52x
Storage Interface: IDE
Sound Card: SB Audigy2 Platinum
Internet Connection: Local college intranet T3 @ T3 LAN
Operating System: Windows XP Pro
Other Components: Antec Hard Drive Cooling System
Microsoft Sidewinder USB Gamepad
Logitech Cordless Freedom Keyboard and MX700 Mouse
3Com network card
Antec SX1040 server case (black)
Klipsch ProMedia 4.1 THX speakers
Fuji FinePix 2650 digital camera


Sorry, there's a bunch of useless info here, Ijust posted from MyRig...but here's my problem, anyways. I have tried playing RalliSport Challenge and High Heat Baseball 2004 and while everything looks great and loads well, the games play in slow motion! What can be wrong? I close every single program before playing and it still happens! I used to have this problem with RalliSport when I had a SB Live soundcard (VIA MoBo chipset problem) and they seemed to disappear when I bought the Audigy2 Platinum. Now it's back:-( Help please! I am running Windows XP pro

 

[Rkonster]

Did you install the appropriate chipset drivers?

 

[highlanderfil]

for what exactly? my sound and video cards are good

 

[highlanderfil]

just updated the chipset drivers, no luck

 

[TheCorm]

Have you also downloaded latest motherboard drivers, I notice it's a hybird AMD/VIA chipset model that has now been discontinued.

Have you tried running the games without the Audigy in to see if there is a visible difference in performence?

Corm

 

[highlanderfil]

actually, I did...nothing changed

 

[lobadobadingdong]

have you checked to make sure your bios is being cached and not running off the cmos?

 

[foofoo]

hi,
what else do you have running in the background? any chat or antivirus software?
also, is dma enabled on your hds and cds?
any problems shoen in device manager or event viewer?
good luck

 

[highlanderfil]

hmm...DMA should be enabled, but how do I check? also, nope, nothing running in the background at all when I tried the games...it didnt make a difference either way before

 

[highlanderfil]

bump help!

 

[Richdog]

The only way to truly be satisfied is do a clean install and do it step-by-step, using the latest drivers for each piece of hardware.

 

[highlanderfil]

yeah, i will format it today

 

[screw3d]

have you checked to make sure your bios is being cached and not running off the cmos?

I had the impression that it's safer to not let the BIOS get cached (and also for the video BIOS) ?

 

[highlanderfil]

formatted...still scanning my old files that i backed up for Nimda...hopefully i will install the drivers and it will work alright...hopefully...if it doesnt, i am totally lost

 

[Bacinator]

DMA - windows xp.
start -> control panel -> system -> hardware tab -> Device Manager -> IDE/ATAPI Controllers - expand the branch -> select Primary IDE Channel, right click on it, select properties -> Go to Advance Settings Tab

Here you should see Device 0 & Device 1 as applicable.
Make sure that both have transfer modes set to "DMA if availible"

 

[highlanderfil]

reformatted, works fine...now starting to think it may have been Windows Media Player 9 or DirectX 9 that messed it up, so I will stay with version 8 on both counts