[RESOLVED] PC Too Fast To Run Game - Dual Core Problem

Am running a Dell Dimension E521 with

AMD LIVE! Technology - AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+
Windows XP MCE
1GB (2x512) NECC Dual Channel DDR2 533Mhz SDRAM Memory
256MB PCIe x16 NVidia GeForce 7300LE TurboCache
16x DVDRW Drive.

When I install Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets the cinematics play to fast and the spoken dialog gets cut off mid sentence as the next cinematic starts displayed.

Once in the game itself Harry moves around to fast and looks like he is hopping and jumping around quickly.

I tried running in compatibility mode and it just wouldn't run.

I did get some level of succes with the cinematics by changing the minimum frame rate in one of the ini files to 90, but then in the game harry moved like a snail.

I tried it on my work PC also running XP but much lower specs and just onboard video and it works just fine at the right speed (well a decent one anyway).

So, I'm thinking it's because my home PC is too powerful, or maybe because it's dual core ?

Incidentally Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban both play install and run ok but only after setting their compatibility mode to Win98 \ Me.

Is there some way of temporarily disabling dual core or maybe I need to kick of some process to run in the background using one of the cores.

I googled a bit but just kept getting hits for the movie or game reviews or demos.

The game is under the Electronic Arts lable.

Could be your MCE operating system. All of these HP games came out quite a few years after win98/ME and although the games will run in either XP or win98/ME, it says nothing about them running in Media Center Edition. In fact the intructions for install are for either XP or Win98/ME, but no instructions for MCE install.

I have Prisoner of Azkaban and my granddaughter has Chamber of Secrets, both run on XP single core computers, under XP not win98/me.

I thought XP MCE was just a hyped up version of XP that's running an additional bit of software eg MC is sort of like WMP but has a nice GUI that is compatible with a remote ?

I didn't think it was a different kernel or anything like that ?

I'm still leaning to the dual core being the cause maybe.

I'll have to work out a way to disable one temporarily or something, or start up a few background processes.

Maybe I'll hit the Dell forums.

Seems my search was too specific.

A search for Game problems with dual core got me some more interesting results http://www.google.com.au/search?q=ga...&start=20&sa=N and many of them seem to be leading me here http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/..._13118,00.html

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/07...re_tweak_tool/
http://tgnforums.stardock.com/index.aspx?aid=102033&c=1

I am not aware that MCE is just a hyped up version of XP HE, but it may be.
Interesting that most of them say it's a motherboard's older driver causing this problem also. Problem is, you don't know for sure which option would fix the problem. Are you using the lastest Nvidia driver? Guess you could try all the fixes. :confused:

From this link http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/..._13118,00.html

Iused the CPU drivers - 2nd last link on page and then also the Optimizer - 1st link on page.

Tried HP COS again and it ran perfectly.

I then removed Win98 \ Me compatibility mode for HP POA and it also ran perfectly too.

So the dual core was te problem.