Slight Pausing in Games HD related?

[Mister Dark]

In the last couple of days I've noticed that games which used to run very smoothly - Half Life 2 is a prime example - now pause slightly. This isNOT the sound stuttering bug as the audio doesn't stutter and I noticed it in Flatout too - while racing I can see the graphics pause for a split second repeatedly. It's not that the frame rate is bad - it just pauses every couple of seconds.
At the same time I think my hard drive has been a lot more audible - I mean I can hear it more than usual.
I have an IBM DTLA 307030. It's at least a couple of years old. Could my HD be the problem? If I got a SATA drive with 8 megs, would that improve gaming?

 

[Todd33]

Do you have 512MB RAM?

 

[Mister Dark]

Sorry Todd33, I should have included that info. I have a gig of PC 3200, running at 2700 (no 400 FSB).

 

[biostud]

It sounds like it's still the autosave, try writeprotecting the 4 autosavefiles in the savegame directory to see if the problem persists.

 

[Todd33]

Is this a 6800 series card? We need the full specs! 🙂

 

[Mister Dark]

Thanks for the suggestion, biostud. I actually don't HAVE any autosave files in that directory - I think because I turned off autosave via the autoexec file ... Also, I think it happens too often to be an autosave feature. I think autosave kicks in at the start of a new level or after a battle or something like that, and this is something that happens when I'm just walking around in the very first level ...

 

[jim1976]

Any program running in the background? (antivirus,spyware,firewall?)
If you think the problem is the HD then why don't you defrag it and see for yourself?
About HL2 I got problems with audio too as many ppl. It was weird though. Audio didn't stutter but was causing the game to pause from time to time.

 

[Mister Dark]

Originally posted by: Todd33
Is this a 6800 series card? We need the full specs! 🙂

It's the BFG 6800 OC, pipes unlocked. I tried overclocking core and memory but it never seems to make a difference in the counter strike stress test so I must be CPU limited (xp 2600).

Originally posted by: jim1976
Any program running in the background? (antivirus,spyware,firewall?)
If you think the problem is the HD then why don't you defrag it and see for yourself?
About HL2 I got problems with audio too as many ppl. It was weird though. Audio didn't stutter but was causing the game to pause from time to time.

I have Zone Labs (free version) running all the time, but nothing else.

I tried defragging the HD and that may have helped as the problem seems less noticable now.

 

[Todd33]

I'd try several other drivers. I've read many many complaits (probably due to so many new owners) about stutters from the 6800 series. The benchmarks will ahve good numbers, but some games are inconsistant and have small hiccups.