Baffled, performance problems

[NeoFeaR]

Hello hello,

I got Painkiller today since i played the demo last year and finally got round to actually wanting to buy it... I have serious performance issues though...

The game runs at 12fps max when i have all the options turned off, the resolution down to 640x480 and all the details down to very low... my machine specs are as follows...

Via KT600 motherboard 400 FSB
AMD Athlon XP 3200 (400FSB)
1GB DDR RAM (FSB 400)
Geforce FX 5200 128mb
Hercules Muse XL sound card
DirectX 9c

I have the latest drivers for everything, the only thing i have not done is patched Painkiller, ive even made sure setmaxfps is 0 .... I cant seem to work it out, can you please help me ? its really annoying :(

[BloodBuster]

Crikey! Sounds like your system needs looking at.

I know it's a bind but I would try uninstalling your card's drivers, removing the card physically, then reinstalling it as if it were new. I would also try reinstalling DirectX9.0c. Also, check your RAM. Finally, run a registry checker to make sure Windows is running as it should be.

You should apply the latest patches to PK, but even without them, your system should not be this slow.

Does this happen on all your games??

[NeoFeaR]

Can you recommend any good mem/registry checkers?

I'm thinking about formatting soon anyway, so maybe a system rebuild wouldnt be such a bad idea, ive got 2 days off from work now so i think its fate haha...

This is the only game that the performance is this bad on, all the other games i have run well for the graphics card that i have ... Counter-Strike: Source runs at about 70 fps, and even Doom 3 runs at about 50fps, and afaik its a more dependant engine than the Pain engine... I forgot to mention i had defragmented my hard drive recently aswell... although a clean rebuild and install sounds like a good idea in the meantime, I think its time for a gfx card upgrade, but 300 quid seems a bit steep for a top of the range card personally :rolleyes:

[BloodBuster]

Well, it all depends on how long it's been since your system was installed. If you use your system a lot, then many would recommend reinstalling about once a year.

As for good registry checkers try Registry Mechanic. But, look around. You may also want to try a clean boot where you disable all startup items and disable all non-Microsoft services. If the game runs fine after that....

[NeoFeaR]

Thanks mate, ill have a look into it - im gonna reinstall my system over the next couple of days so hopefully my prayers will be answered

[Bjossi]

Your video card is the bottleneck, but it shouldn´t be as slow as you mention.

Spyware, viruses, registry errors/unneccesary entries, background tasks, drivers, fragmentation etc. etc.

All these can affect performance. :)

[T'krau]

I have the latest drivers for everything...
What about motherboard drivers? Or, for that matter, BIOS updates?