Yay! New computer!

[Diff-chan]

Do you have 3DMark? I think its a stupid program but you should run it just to see how your computer compares to other ones with similar specs.

Would forcing the hardware into quality mode using the Catalyst panel help?

Generally its speed vs. quality. But you know, Morrowind came out in 2002. A 2.8ghz computer with a modern videocard and 512 megs of RAM should be able to eat it for breakfast.

I dont want to freak you out but the fact that your comp cant handle that game is a SERIOUS problem.

[OmegaFlareX]

I exaggerated a little bit about that. Yeah, the framerate sometimes drops to 10-15 (in places like that first village and Balmora), but most of the time it's 25-30. I cap the FPS at 30. However, I do get the feeling that something's wrong. My 3Dmark03 scores are pretty dismal (3400). The airplane game runs great, but the others give me trouble. Running 3Dmark05 is an absolute joke. I didn't even finish the test because I couldn't stand looking at 5fps for more than a few minutes.

Here's my ideas on what might be the problem:
- Shitty video card
- Shitty motherboard
- IRQ issues (PCI-E root, USB controller, HD audio bus, and the Radeon display adapter all share IRQ 16)
- Heat (bios says 68C, that's on the hot side. detection utilities give me much better temp numbers)

I ended up putting a gig of RAM in here, btw. I guess that should make me worry more. All my applications run perfectly fine, it's just gaming that's giving me problems. New video card is coming soon, so at least I'll be able to cross one item off that list.

[OmegaFlareX]

Alright, something is definitely wrong here. My new vid card earned me over 4000 points on 3Dmark03, but when comparing results to other users with the relatively same setup, I found a disturbing discovery - my CPU tests are flopping. Big time. I get less than half the marks of most people I compared with, while it's virtually the same with other tests.

I'm gonna take this over to the Futuremark forums to see what they say. I figure either my mobo is messed up or the CPU is overheating under stress.

[OmegaFlareX]

my mobo is messed up

Proven. I just re-fitted my rig with an Abit AA8XE. I also bought a retail heatsink/fan and some of Arctic Silver's thermal paste and cleaning solution. Cleaned the CPU off, put a dab of paste on it, and now it's flying at 40C. I score 9100 points in 3Dmark03, and my CPU tests are no longer lagging behind. I just hope it stays that way.

So, the final tally:

Intel Pentium 4 Prescott @ 2.8ghz, 800fsb, 1MB L2 cache
Spire CoolWave II heatsink/fan
Abit AA8XE w/Intel 925XE/ICH6R
LeadTek GeForce 6600GT Extreme
1 GB Corsair Dual-channel DDR2533
80 GB Seagate Barracuda SATA150 HD
Sony DVD-ROM
Sony DVD-RW
Codegen Black Steel ATX mid-tower w/400W power supply
Some generic floppy drive I found at the local computer shop for 5 bucks

I think I'm ready to play World of Warcraft now.