Do I need a new computer?

[Kerensky287]

Now, to preface this: I play a lot of games. I often play them online. I'm usually a good sport when I lose, but when I lose due to issues I feel are out of my control (imbalance, lag and performance issues, etc) I get a little pissed. I AM coming to post this after a 3-game losing streak on Starcraft 2 due entirely to my computer deciding to freeze during micro-heavy moments.

So my computer is around... I guess 4 or 5 years old now. At the time of purchase it was fairly top-of-the-line, and even now I don't think I've found a game that it can't at the very least start up. But lately I've been having a ton of issues with slowdown in ALL games, not just newer ones. Having no knowledge of computers, I'm curious - is the computer just aging poorly? Do I have some malware or something in my computer? Or is it just time I bought a new one?

My computer's specs (obviously it's had some parts updated since I bought it, but nothing huge):

Pentium 4 CPU 2.60GHz (single-core)
1 GB of RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS (256mb)
...Some kind of motherboard that I don't know how to check.

Any recommendations? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

[Azisien]

Yeeeeah I'd suggest upgrading soon, especially if you want to stay on top of framerates in newer games.

Video card at least ain't too bad.

Have you considered a clean reformat? It will most certainly improve performance. You need the OS disc.

[synkr0nized]

Originally Posted by Kerensky287

But lately I've been having a ton of issues with slowdown in ALL games, not just newer ones.

Could you describe this in more detail? For example:
- is it video-only slowdown [audio seems fine, controls seem fine]
- audio-only stuttering
- controls don't seem to be responding whereas audio and/or video do
- a whole system slowdown where not only is your input lagging behind what you think you are doing but also what you see and hear is getting choppy or lagged
- is it just the network connection/with online games
- is it really all games or just newer ones?

And how does it compare to how your computer previously performed?


In any case, 1 GB of RAM and a P4 with a 7000-gen card showing its age these days isn't surprising. Depending on your video card slot, a RAM upgrade and newer card might boost the machine for a while more rather than purchasing a whole new one. But that might be worth looking into, as well.

For now, though, depending on what you're noticing and all that, you may just be able to clean up your system (defrag, registry cleaning, checking for and getting rid of malware, etc.) and get back some performance you may have lost.

[Kerensky287]

Originally Posted by Azisien

Yeeeeah I'd suggest upgrading soon, especially if you want to stay on top of framerates in newer games.

Video card at least ain't too bad.

Have you considered a clean reformat? It will most certainly improve performance. You need the OS disc.

I don't have the OS disc, sadly, but I had a clear reformat done about 2 years ago. Unless that's something that needs to be done more often, I think I'm good.

Originally Posted by synkr0nized

Could you describe this in more detail? For example:
- is it video-only slowdown [audio seems fine, controls seem fine]
- audio-only stuttering
- controls don't seem to be responding whereas audio and/or video do
- a whole system slowdown where not only is your input lagging behind what you think you are doing but also what you see and hear is getting choppy or lagged
- is it just the network connection/with online games
- is it really all games or just newer ones?

And how does it compare to how your computer previously performed?

It's a general degradation of performance. Doesn't really matter the game, but I certainly notice it more in stuff like Team Fortress 2, Starcraft 2 and Red Alert 3 (all of which, coincidentally, require a more-or-less constant internet connection). I doubt that it's my internet, though - my housemate has SC2 on his laptop and after a game together, I happened to walk in and see its performance. He's running the same settings as I am (universally low) but whereas I would get lag issues every time there's a group onscreen at once, his was running perfectly smoothly.

It's definitely my computer. Based on the fact that my internet browsers will sometimes freeze in place the same way (Firefox stopped responding for ~10 seconds while writing this post), I suspect that it isn't the games either.

Something to note: the audio and controls never lag in the games. It's always either a framerate issue or stop-then-increase-speed-to-catch-up issue - usually the latter.

Originally Posted by synkr0nized

In any case, 1 GB of RAM and a P4 with a 7000-gen card showing its age these days isn't surprising. Depending on your video card slot, a RAM upgrade and newer card might boost the machine for a while more rather than purchasing a whole new one. But that might be worth looking into, as well.

For now, though, depending on what you're noticing and all that, you may just be able to clean up your system (defrag, registry cleaning, checking for and getting rid of malware, etc.) and get back some performance you may have lost.

I already tried defragging and my computer doesn't seem to want to do it. There's a minute amount of progress and then it'll give me a message about how it couldn't defrag some files... and then it gives off a huge list. Most of the items in the list are in game folders, so I might just start uninstalling stuff I don't use.

I run an antivirus and spyware checker pretty frequently (no results in weeks, even if I check after a new update) but I also noticed the instructions for removing malware in this forum, so I'll try that too.

[01d55]

If you want an incremental upgrade, another gig of RAM and whatever dual-core chip will fit on your motherboard (the relevant part is the socket - find out what kind of socket you've got and you'll know what you can put there) are the two things to look at.

I can run SC2 with some settings turned up, on a dual core with a slightly lower clock rate than your single core and an NVIDIA 7800 gtx. I'm not familiar enough to nvidia cards to know if 76 to 78 is a huge leap but my impression is that first extra core is a big deal, and also you really need 2gb ram.

That said, I moved from a 1.8ghz single core to my current dual core on the same socket a few years ago and the socket I'm on (AMD) had already been obsolete long enough that scarcity was driving the prices back up. It's likely that you'll need a new motherboard and at that point you're doomed to get a whole new system.

[synkr0nized]

Interesting. I'd start with a RAM upgrade first, as it's definitely the easiest and probably the cheapest. Then maybe look into what cards (check if you need AGP or can do PCIe) you could throw in there as well. It's possible that the "catching up" after a drop in framerate is a side effect of swapping in the page file due to needing more RAM and/or the video card struggling with the newer games [note that this doesn't explain why you have issues in things like Firefox, however, and that there may be another issue entirely; the RAM may help here, though, as well].

01d55 -- Wait, you were able to pop a dual-core chip in on a single-core motherboard? Oh, was it an AMD single-core to one of their earlier dual-cores [like the 939 has chips of both types that can fit on it]? I don't think P4 boards can handle any of the Intel dual-core chips (unless some of the earlier Pentium-D's used the same socket?).

[01d55]

Originally Posted by synkr0nized

Interesting. I'd start with a RAM upgrade first, as it's definitely the easiest and probably the cheapest. Then maybe look into what cards (check if you need AGP or can do PCIe) you could throw in there as well. It's possible that the "catching up" after a drop in framerate is a side effect of swapping in the page file due to needing more RAM and/or the video card struggling with the newer games [note that this doesn't explain why you have issues in things like Firefox, however, and that there may be another issue entirely; the RAM may help here, though, as well].

Firefox is very RAM hungry, and he's having trouble with defragmentation, so it's probable the page file is fragmented. If page file swapping is his problem, that's why it seems to him that the problem is getting worse over time.

01d55 -- Wait, you were able to pop a dual-core chip in on a single-core motherboard? Oh, was it an AMD single-core to one of their earlier dual-cores [like the 939 has chips of both types that can fit on it]? I don't think P4 boards can handle any of the Intel dual-core chips (unless some of the earlier Pentium-D's used the same socket?).

It is indeed a 939 socket. I switched from an Athlon to an Opteron. Figuring out how to get a dual-core chip was how I learned about sockets.

[synkr0nized]

If the page file is an issue, one can set the machine to use no paging file to delete it, reboot, and then set it back to normal. That could help in the case of it having fragmentation by providing a new page file. Additionally, there's a registry key you can modify to set Windows to clear the file whenever you shut down.

A RAM upgrade would be great to alleviate virtual memory issues and performance related to this, definitely.

[Kerensky287]

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE SAYING

But yeah, my motherboard doesn't allow for dual-core (I checked that on a friend's recommendation) which is why I didn't just go for a new CPU right away.

I'm gonna look into the page file thing... are you suggesting that I delete the paging file, defragment it, and then see how it goes?

I think that I'll want to get a new computer soon anyway so I can run some of these games at top settings, or at least higher ones. But until I can afford one, I'll try the recommendations in this thread. Thanks for all the help, even if I had to go on Wikipedia to understand half of it!

EDIT: According to a website I saw, deleting the page file should give you "an extra few hundred MB free." My page file was 1.5GB. Is that a bad thing?

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

It's better than mine at least. Last "newish" game I bought was Prey, and I couldn't even run that. If you can't run that, then yes, an upgrade is probably needed, depending on what new pc games you might want to buy.