frame rate drops greatly every 10 seconds

[OTWarrior via HWKB.com]

I have just installed windows 64 and all of the drivers (motherboard, sound
card, directx, windows updates, graphics card, keyboard utility) however when
i try to play any 3d game, the frame rate keeps dropping every 10 seconds,
for example, when I was in the main menu of the TF2 beta, the frame rate was
300 (as I had yet to cahnge the resolution) and every few second it would
shoot down to 70.

I have tried disabling all background processes that I do not need, but it
makes no difference.

Any ideas?

 

[Mike Ruskai]

I have just installed windows 64 and all of the drivers (motherboard, sound
card, directx, windows updates, graphics card, keyboard utility) however when
i try to play any 3d game, the frame rate keeps dropping every 10 seconds,
for example, when I was in the main menu of the TF2 beta, the frame rate was
300 (as I had yet to cahnge the resolution) and every few second it would
shoot down to 70.

I have tried disabling all background processes that I do not need, but it
makes no difference.

Any ideas?

Sounds like a typical timing problem that some games have with
dual-core processors. Try changing the processor affinity to just
one. You can do that while it's running via Task Manager.

 

[OTWarrior via HWKB.com]

the games worked fine on my old dual core processor. Does changing the
affinity mean I will be only using one processor? therefore lowering my
performance?

I have just installed windows 64 and all of the drivers (motherboard, sound
card, directx, windows updates, graphics card, keyboard utility) however when

[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]

Any ideas?

Sounds like a typical timing problem that some games have with
dual-core processors. Try changing the processor affinity to just
one. You can do that while it's running via Task Manager.

 

[Mike Ruskai]

I have just installed windows 64 and all of the drivers (motherboard, sound
card, directx, windows updates, graphics card, keyboard utility) however when

[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]

Any ideas?

Sounds like a typical timing problem that some games have with
dual-core processors. Try changing the processor affinity to just
one. You can do that while it's running via Task Manager.

the games worked fine on my old dual core processor. Does changing the
affinity mean I will be only using one processor? therefore lowering my
performance?

1) Yes
2) No

I'm not aware of any game that actually uses more than one thread for
calculations. It's only using one core at a time anyway, but by
forcing it to use the same one (which should be core 1, since the OS
can only use core 0 for some things), you're avoiding potential
problems in different timer values between the cores.

 

[OTWarrior via HWKB.com]

I have just installed windows 64 and all of the drivers (motherboard, sound
card, directx, windows updates, graphics card, keyboard utility) however when [quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
dual-core processors. Try changing the processor affinity to just
one. You can do that while it's running via Task Manager.

the games worked fine on my old dual core processor. Does changing the
affinity mean I will be only using one processor? therefore lowering my
performance?

1) Yes
2) No

I'm not aware of any game that actually uses more than one thread for
calculations. It's only using one core at a time anyway, but by
forcing it to use the same one (which should be core 1, since the OS
can only use core 0 for some things), you're avoiding potential
problems in different timer values between the cores.

unfortunately that did not work would i have to change the affinity on all
currently running prgrams, or just the game exe?

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I have just installed windows 64 and all of the drivers (motherboard, sound
card, directx, windows updates, graphics card, keyboard utility) however when
i try to play any 3d game, the frame rate keeps dropping every 10 seconds,
for example, when I was in the main menu of the TF2 beta, the frame rate was
300 (as I had yet to cahnge the resolution) and every few second it would
shoot down to 70.

I have tried disabling all background processes that I do not need, but it
makes no difference.

You're using Windows XP x64 or Vista x64? Give us a little background on
your current hardware.

Yousuf Khan

 

[OTWarrior via HWKB.com]

xp 64 bit, and its on a p6n sli motherboard, with an intel E6850 processor,
an ATi radeon x800 XT.

I have just installed windows 64 and all of the drivers (motherboard, sound
card, directx, windows updates, graphics card, keyboard utility) however when

[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]

I have tried disabling all background processes that I do not need, but it
makes no difference.

You're using Windows XP x64 or Vista x64? Give us a little background on
your current hardware.

Yousuf Khan

 

[YKhan]

xp 64 bit, and its on a p6n sli motherboard, with an intel E6850 processor,
an ATi radeon x800 XT.

Okay, so you're using an ATI video card on an Nvidia SLI motherboard?
I'd be most inclined to believe that there is a problem there with the
XP x64 drivers. XP64 wasn't that popular, most of the driver
development went into the Vista 64 drivers in the end. I'm not sure if
they're even supporting XP 64 that well.

 

[OTWarrior via HWKB.com]

Okay, so you're using an ATI video card on an Nvidia SLI motherboard?
I'd be most inclined to believe that there is a problem there with the
XP x64 drivers. XP64 wasn't that popular, most of the driver
development went into the Vista 64 drivers in the end. I'm not sure if
they're even supporting XP 64 that well.

I have just done some debugging, and when the performance drop happens, the
second processor gets hit (but only about 40%). I even tried changing the
affinity of EVERYTHING to CPU1, and there is still something which spikes.

NB: I heard that xp 64 is the OS to go for if you want the best 64 bit OS for
gaming, as vista is bad for performance? and I know of quite a few people who
use xp 64 and never have problems (i only had issues with it when it first
came out, and now this issue, otherwise it has been smoother running than all
other OS's I have used)

 

[YKhan]

I have just done some debugging, and when the performance drop happens, the
second processor gets hit (but only about 40%). I even tried changing the
affinity of EVERYTHING to CPU1, and there is still something which spikes.

NB: I heard that xp 64 is the OS to go for if you want the best 64 bit OS for
gaming, as vista is bad for performance? and I know of quite a few people who
use xp 64 and never have problems (i only had issues with it when it first
came out, and now this issue, otherwise it has been smoother running than all
other OS's I have used)

Well, go to the Black Viper (Google it) website and see if you can't
get rid of some services for a properly running gaming system.

 

[OTWarrior via HWKB.com]

[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]

came out, and now this issue, otherwise it has been smoother running than all
other OS's I have used)

Well, go to the Black Viper (Google it) website and see if you can't
get rid of some services for a properly running gaming system.

looks like a good site, thank you very much

 

[YKhan]

looks like a good site, thank you very much

Here's another thing you might want to take a look at:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/909944/