Whats my bottleneck?

[eijmaster1]

Most of my games are not limited by my cpu nor my gpu. Usage for both doesn't go over 75% but frame rates are still low. Im thinking it could be my ram but don't know for sure. Heres my specs:

XP pro sp2 + Vista ultimate 32bit
intel board
P4 3GHz HT
1.5 PC3200
3850 AGP 512Mb
430W Antec Dual 12v
4 HDD's: 1 Sata, 3 Pata All 7200rpm

Im planning on getting a pair of 1Gb sticks soon. What do you guys think it is?

 

[Tmagic650]

Vista will tell you in it's rating system what your "bottleneck" is. Just go into the Control Panel and select System. The lowest rated item is your problem area. My lowest rating is 4.8. This is also my systems score. This lowest rating is my video card/driver...

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

The CPU might be a possible bottleneck, but most of this can be removed by increasing the resolution. What settings do you use and what games do you play that you feel you're getting low FPS in?

 

[tifc8lraz]

I would say either the CPU or the Memory

 

[Tmagic650]

Yes,
that P4 is getting a bit old... The Intel Core 2's and more, faster memory will help greatly

 

[eijmaster1]

"Vista will tell you in it's rating system what your "bottleneck" is. Just go into the Control Panel and select System. The lowest rated item is your problem area. My lowest rating is 4.8. This is also my systems score. This lowest rating is my video card/driver..."

I believe it was my memory that got the lowest rating. Somthing like 4.2.

"The CPU might be a possible bottleneck, but most of this can be removed by increasing the resolution. What settings do you use and what games do you play that you feel you're getting low FPS in?"

Increasing the res will put more load on the gpu? I play Crysis, Bioshock, COD4, STALKER, GOW. COD, Bioshock and GOW are maxed out. Crysis on Medium with 4xAA and shader on High. I get average 23 FPS. I get decent, playable frame rates but something is definitely holding me back. Also my res is 1280x720 on my 32" LCD.

Yeah this P4 is the best my mobo gets. So getting more ram, faster HDD, and striping them is realy all I can do besides upgrading. Also my card is OC'd to 720Mhz core and 950Mhz Mem. Like I said, most of those games aren't even using 90% of my card. Some not even 50%.

 

[Tmagic650]

You are not running too bad... A lot better than I would expect. Your motherboard in addition to memory could be slowing you down, but there is not much more you can do, other than upgrading major hardware components. I just upgraded my system. Game play is much faster and smoother for me

 

[eijmaster1]

yea I figured its the overall speed of my of my motherboard.

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

Increasing the resolution will shift most of the processing load onto the GPU, which will free the CPU of most of the bottleneck. Try it and see if it helps. Also, OCing the CPU will help, if it's possible in your case.