Bad performance with Dragon Age

[Jamesqin]

Hi guys, I'm no that much into computing and stuff like that but I know things or two.. I recently gain acces to another computer I decided to try Dragon Age: Origins on it. The computer certaily isnt new, but it shouldn't be "that" bad either.. here are the most important specs:
- AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5600+ 2,91 GHz
- 1,75 GB RAM
- ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics

the thing is I installed Dragon Age, launched it and played on minimal graphics settings, no Anti-antilising, and maxed texture quality (or so to speak). But than I decided that maybe if I install new graphic drivers I could gain some performance. So I install new 9,12 Catalyst and well not right after that but around that time (I also tried to install TOSHIBA Dynadock to gain something) it startet to gain more and more creepy. I mean, even if I lower everything in game and in catalyst as well the game is lagging - it is playable somehow but...

so my question is, is this computer really that bad (in terms of playing this game) ? Or is there anything I did wrong/can do better to improve the performance to at least be able to play it (turn off shadows, anything...)
any help is greatly appreciated !

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

The game has some kind of memory leak that also maxes out both cores of my E8400. It starts lagging after some time of play, and the lag gradually gets worse. A restart of the game usually fixes this, but the 100% CPU usage still remains, so I have to manually set the affinity to 1 core to prevent my CPU from getting too hot.

The only thing you can do is play at a very low resolution and turn most, if not all, of the graphics settings to their lowest levels.

 

[Jamesqin]

The game has some kind of memory leak that also maxes out both cores of my E8400. It starts lagging after some time of play, and the lag gradually gets worse. A restart of the game usually fixes this, but the 100% CPU usage still remains, so I have to manually set the affinity to 1 core to prevent my CPU from getting too hot.

The only thing you can do is play at a very low resolution and turn most, if not all, of the graphics settings to their lowest levels.

I know, I was just wondering if there is anything else I could improve or if, for example, new Catalyst doesn't work well with it.. I mean its strange that it runs worse than on my other computer that has only 1,8ghz proc and 1gb ram..

 

[KyBrewer]

I installed the updated ATI drivers for my 5870 and my fps in WoW went to crap. I rolled back and have had no issues since. I know it isn't exactly the same so it may or may not be related, but I thought I would throw that in.

 

[Jamesqin]

I installed the updated ATI drivers for my 5870 and my fps in WoW went to crap. I rolled back and have had no issues since. I know it isn't exactly the same so it may or may not be related, but I thought I would throw that in.

so what version do you curently use ?

 

[KyBrewer]

I'm at work right now without access to my home computer, but I think it was a version that came out in November 2009. The December 2009 drivers were the ones that seemed to cause me trouble.

 

[Jamesqin]

I'm at work right now without access to my home computer, but I think it was a version that came out in November 2009. The December 2009 drivers were the ones that seemed to cause me trouble.

If you had a look at it I would really appreciate that, I can't seem to find the right version, google is ful of .... pages with no links.