A great program for gamers!

[usil]

If you are a gamer, and your computer is not always up to the task when playing graphically advanced games, here is the solution.
Game XP is a program that will optimize you computer for playing games. I tried it, and got amazing results. I went from getting a very choppy 7 frames per second (Americas Army) to a terrific 15 FPS with my Geforce 4 MX 64MB card. Its a small freeware program thats worth trying.
Here it is.

[AlaricD]

Looks like that may come in handy-- however, it seems to me that 15FPS is a bit low for that card-- especially considering that our eyes don't see things as "full motion" until you get at least 24 frames per second. What are your other system specs, and what resolution and other video settings are you using for the game?

Trying some of the suggestions here may help you glean a few more frames per second out of the game.
http://www.americasarmy.com/support/faq_win.php?p=1&t=8

[usil]

Well, actually, even 12 fps was looking ok with only the rare video lag. The reason that the fps is not so good is because I am not willing to compromise on anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering. I have them both at maximum. I can't stand boxy graphics. When speaking to others, they said they had around 20 fps, and that was considered good. So, until I buy my next computer, I'll have to live with around 15 fps.
BTW, my specs are listed on the bottom

[Carenza]

I have found that 15fps is about the min needed to look smooth.
Not sure about actual games but in a fly-through benchmark below 15 looks jerky, 17-18 just smooth enough.

[AlaricD]

Originally posted by usil

BTW, my specs are listed on the bottom :)

D'oh-- missed that :)

The GeForce4 MX cards offer the advanced features of the GF4, but at reduced performance, which could explain a bit of the framerate. 256MB is pretty decent... any chance you could overclock that P3-800? The P3 is a very capable chip, but America's Army (like most modern first-person shooters) is pretty demanding.

I usually get 50-60fps in BF: 1942 (Celeron 1.2GHz, 64MB GeForce 2Ti, 512MB), but if I turn on light maps and vertex shading, it drops down to about 25fps-- and I can "feel" the drop in performance. I almost get carsick. It's been a while since I've played AA, though... maybe it's just somehow more smooth and pleasing at a lower FPS than BF: 1942 is...

I think the big problem is the disparity in what you think should happen when you use your controls and what actually does. On a demo, it's not so apparent, but in a game, you have that hand-eye feedback loop going, and a lower framerate does become noticeable.

[usil]

Alaric, I think BF is more demanding than AA in terms of graphics. I did get more choppy graphics in BF than I do in AA. So that can explain it.

any chance you could overclock that P3-800?

I read somewhere that its capable of being over-clocked to about 1 Ghz. Sounds great! Thing is, I'm afraid to do it cause I wouldn't want to screw up the computer.
I have never tried over-clocking and would love to learn how, but I think I'll wait until I buy a new system to take the chance.

[AlaricD]

It could give you that excuse to buy a new system :)

I try to get my systems to last at least 3 years. Then, I finally break down and get a new one (after 2 years I can feel their limitations, but I'm not made of money), but I keep the old one around. Building quite the collection.

Overclocking does carry its risks, though, so you wouldn't want to do it on your only machine unless you had the money to replace what you broke.

It looks like we're going beyond the particular scope of the original post (my fault, really) -- your post was for that software to help tweak your system. Hopefully, more people can take advantage of it-- it seemed to work for you if you doubled your framerate.