Win 7 gaming performance

[sprandel17]

I have two computers that I regularly play games on. Both have just been upgraded recently from XP. One computer, we will call Kitchen, never preformed very well on any 3D games. Basement, the other computer, never had an trouble running 3D games that were a few years old.

Here are the specs and WEI scores for each computer:

Kitchen:
Base Score: 3.1
Windows 7 Professional 32-bit
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 240 Processor (6.1)
Memory (RAM): 4.00GB (6.1)
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 7050 PV / NVIDIA nForce 630a (3.2)
Gaming Graphics: 527 MB Total Available graphics memory (3.1)
Primary Hard Disk: 55GB Free (149GB Total) (5.9)

Basement:
Base Score: 3.4
Windows 7 Professional 32-bit
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2700+ (3.4)
Memory (RAM): 1.50 GB (3.4)
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS (4.1)
Gaming Graphics: 559 MB Total Available graphics memory (4.1)
Primary Hard Disk: 38GB Free (190GB Total) (5.9)

So that's that. I think there is no question that Kitchen should run games better than Basement, but that was never the case on XP. Now while running a game (WoW, for example) Kitchen gets 25fps while Basement stays in the neighborhood of 8fps at the same settings.

Basement has a better WEI base score than Kitchen, but Kitchen has more RAM and just onboard video, which is holding it back.

My question is, finally, why does Kitchen perform so much better than Basement? My instinct is to say CPU and RAM, obviously, but it was never like that before. What can I do to make Basement run faster, and at least get these games up to 25fps. My board can only take up to 2GB of RAM down there, and theprocessor will not be upgraded any time soon.

Thanks for any insight you can provide.

 

[sprandel17]

*cough cough*

 

[EXCellR8]

The kitchen computer is the better setup as the processor is more powerful and it has more physical memory. Single core Athlon XP's aren't very powerful and I can relate because I'm using a 3200+ in my shop computer as I type this. Having said that, I'm not sure Windows 7 would run games very well on that setup, at least with only a gig and a half RAM. The dual core Athlon is better because Windows 7 has been optimized to run on systems with multiple cores, as opposed to the single core Athlon XP (which is practically an antique) is designed for Win2000 and XP. There's obviously something wrong with the kitchen computer because it looks better on paper aside from the graphics processor. Windows 7 may be a bit quirky on the older hardware thus providing lower performance.

 

[Relic]

I agree with EXCellR8, your basement PC's hardware is just not great for Windows 7 and I'd say go back to XP if you can. That would likely be the best way to improve your overall peformance with XP and a dedicated card.

Your kitchens PC is overall the better system though and if you could get some mainstream card into it you'd be set regarding gaming for at least older games. If you game more on the basement computer, I'd recommend switching them.