Computer Performance Issues: Gaming

[Kurokami6]

Windows 10
Processor:AMD Athlon II X2 270 Processor 3.40 GHz
Installed memory(RAM) 4.00 GB DDR3
System type: 64-bit Operating system, x64-based processor
GPU: GeForce 9800 GTX+
Hard drive space: 500 GB

I am currently having issues running games and i am not sure what the cause is. When i load the games it will start to stutter and lag, making it literally unplayable. I thought the issue may be graphics related, so i went and bought the GeForce 9800 GTX+ graphics card, but to no avail. I no longer believe it is graphics related at this point, because even lowering all setting on the game to the lowest does not improve how it handles.

Hopefully someone will know more about fixing this issue than me.

[camerongray]

What sort of games are you trying to play?  The 9800 GTX+ is an 8 year old card, not really up to the job of running modern games.

[Kurokami6]

Games similar to Space Engineers, or Fallout. I do not really want to play that many, nor do they have to be played on the best settings.

[Kurokami6]

Given the way it acts, it doesnt seem like a graphics issue though. it seems to be more of a processing issue. but im not 100% sure. Everything in the computer slows down and begins to lag. The game itself is literally unplayable (Space Engineers) basically not even moving once it gets passed the loading screen.

[DaveLembke]

If you bring up task manager and it shows the core activity graph. Start the game and run it and then hit the windows key and exit the game and look at the graph when the game lags out bad. Look at the graph track record of core activity. If its 90% or greater average for both cores, then the CPU is pretty busy for the game.

I have retired my dual-core systems for gaming. And the slowest older gaming system I run anymore is a Athlon II x4 620 2.6Ghz. I had a Athlon II x2 215 2.7Ghz and its of the same Regor core design and its weak and games are lagged. The Regor core CPU felt crippled. I got the CPU for free from a guy at work who bought a Phenom II x3 720 2.8Ghz CPU off ebay to replace it in his HP Desktop because he was feeling lagged. The Phenom II x3 is far better, but I told him why didnt he just go with a Phenom II x4 quadcore instead, but he was looking to save some money and get a low cost upgrade so the triple core is better and Phenom has the extra cache and he is happy with it.

The 9800GTX is an older video card as you already heard. But with Windows 10 I would make sure your running nvidia drivers and not the generic microsoft video drivers with it or else you will have a crippled 9800GTX.

If your interested in stretching life of this computer and want some more performance from it, I'd suggest as Athlon II or a Phenom II Quadcore for it. Ebay is a good source for used processors. Athlon is the cheaper CPU and Phenom you pay a premium for the extra L3 cache etc.

Other factors to consider with a lagging computer is hard drive health. I'd scan the drive with crystaldiskinfo and make sure its healthy. Additionally if your hard drive is filled up and very little free space it will cause degraded performance.

Also check the temp of the CPU and GPU by use of speedfan to make sure the CPU or GPU are not cooking to death.

[Kurokami6]

It would appear it is not the processor that is the issue, while one is running around 90% the other core isnt excessively high. And this computer was given to me, im more or less just trying to get it working better than how it was given to me and be able to play games, and by far it is running better. I myself would like to have a quad core, and i agree that would probably improve performance.

I have also checked and manually installed all drivers for the GPU, each one is running the correct version. I appreciate your input and i have found it pretty helpful. You have given me a couple idea, and im going to try and tinker with it.

I have checked the hard drive and it is almost completely empty, save for a few game files and system files. otherwise no other personal affects are on  it and nothing is corrupt. I will be putting in another 4 GB of RAM, and also putting in another 500 GB hard drive as slave. I am thinking of changing the processor out as well. Thank you.