System performance problem(this question is not for new computer users)?

Question

I have AMD athlon 3000+, 1GB 400mhz ram which works on dual channel(actually 800 Mhz), onboard NVIDIA 6100 256 MB, The board is a performance board from gigabite-800 fsb, i run Win XP 64 bit. I have problems playing Splinter cell(all versions), Hitman blood money, Half-life episode 1, all good graphx games....u name it even demo's wont work. Though the miniumum system requirements are compleat(My system specks are quiet high than the minimum and sometimes exeed recomended) the system wont extract good FPS even is all settings are set to low and in lowest resolution. Auto detect setings set all seting set to high details(generally). Overall the system is performing 1/10th its performence 3D MARK scores are only 660.

Answer 1

I fully agree with the first answer, onboard video... and for that matter, onboard sound cards draw alot of computing power from your processor, which looks like it runs anywhere from 1.2 to 1.5 Ghz. Also note that windows alone draws alot of your RAM just to keep the desktop available. My suggestion would be to downgrade your 64-bit windows down to 32 to free up some resources and (or if you can't do that) end the processes that you're not using (just make sure that you are the user that started the process) such as quicktime, instant messengers, widgets, etc.

Answer 2

May be the OS is the culprit, it is a 64 bit one whereas the games are of 32 bit. Better try a XP 32 bit version because one of my friend has the same configuration except 512 mb ram that too on a single slot, he can play fifa road to world cup 06, fall of max payne, quite smoothly. Yes splinter cell pandora is a resource hungry game as well as hitman blood money you can settle for a gforce 7 series PCI Express for better playing.

Answer 3

I would guess the onboard video is your culprit - they don't perform nearly as well as you'd think. That being said - does anything run well? And of course the obvious - have you updated video drivers to the latest version?