ATTN: I.T. Dep. (questions inside)

[MiddleFinger]

I just upgraded my pc a little bit thanks to the misfortune of my roommate. His CPU died so he built a new rig and I got his "hand me downs".

Here's what I had and upgraded to:

Mobo: Soyo SY-KT600 Dragon Plus v2.0
CPU: AMD Sempron 2800 (Socket A) @2.0 GHz
RAM: 1024 MB Centon PC3300 (upgraded from 1024 MB Centon PC2100)
GPU: BFG Tech Geforce FX 6800GT (upgraded from BFG Tech Geforce
FX 5600 ultra)
Audio: Soundblaster Live (for gaming) / onboard C-Media Xear 3D (for
music production) Both cards enabled/disabled through windows
respectively for their uses w/no apparent conflicts
NIC: Linksys NC100 Fast Ethernet Adapter
HDD: Maxtor 40 Gig 7200 rpm IDE (I know I know, it's tiny. But it's ok,
I have really big balls).

All drivers and software are up to date.


Here's my situation: Before the upgrade, in Counter-Strike (the most resources using software I have installed) I was getting an average of 94 Frames/sec in the video test, and roughly 15-70+/- in game. After the upgrade the frames went up, but not as much as expected. After the upgrade, and 24 hrs of non-stop tweaking/testing I was only able to get the FPS up to an average of 104 in the stress test, and in game 20-100+/-.

After seeing some of the systems you guys have used, and reporting higher FPS on a comparable system, I've come to determine that there is something wrong with my PC.

A couple questions I have:
Would having a RAID controller installed, and not using any RAID config, cause any problems?
The same with SATA vs. IDE. I have SATA drivers installed but use an IDE hard drive. Any possible problems there?

Here's the list from Windows Sys. Info from the Conflicts/Sharing tab

I/O Port 0x00000000-0x00000CF7 PCI bus
I/O Port 0x00000000-0x00000CF7 Direct memory access controller

I/O Port 0x000003C0-0x000003DF VIA CPU to AGP2.0/AGP3.0 Controller
I/O Port 0x000003C0-0x000003DF NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT [DHzer0point]

IRQ 21 VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller
IRQ 21 VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller
IRQ 21 VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller
IRQ 21 VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller
IRQ 21 Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller

IRQ 9 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System
IRQ 9 SCSI/RAID Host Controller

Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF PCI bus
Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF VIA CPU to AGP2.0/AGP3.0 Controller
Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT [DHzer0point]

I/O Port 0x000003B0-0x000003BB VIA CPU to AGP2.0/AGP3.0 Controller
I/O Port 0x000003B0-0x000003BB NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT [DHzer0point]

The question here is: Why is my Video listed three times? Is that some sort of conflict/sharing issue?

Finally, am I being realistic in the fact that I think my PC should be running better than it does?

[Animal]

I am not sure what you're struggling with here. Why do you think your sytem is not performing as well as it should? Have you read something that says otherwise? It looks like the only change you made in your computer was the memory and the graphics card. If that's the case, then I would say that the FPS jump you saw is probably on par with the changes you made.

I just ran the stress test for you and my system is as follows:

CPU: AMD Athlon64 90nm 3500+ 2200MHz
Motherboard: MSI Neo4 Platinum
Memory: 1024 MB of Mushkin PC3200
Video Card: BFG 6800 GT OC
Sound Card: SoundBlaster Audigy 2

With this system and a default Counter-Strike installation my FPS were 74.27 on the average. This is with most video settings maxed and AA at 2x. Let me know what your video settings are and I will run a stress test with the same settings.

A couple questions I have:
Would having a RAID controller installed, and not using any RAID config, cause any problems?
The same with SATA vs. IDE. I have SATA drivers installed but use an IDE hard drive. Any possible problems there?
That should not cause any conflicts for you. If you look in device manager and Windows doesn't say you have a conflict then you don't. On the other hand, why do you even have that stuff enabled? I'm assuming it's built in to your motherboard so go in the BIOS and disable it. If you ever need it in the future, you can always re-enable it. As a rule of thumb, I disable any all features I am not using. My Serial, Parallel Port, Floppy Connector, and IDE Connectors are all DISABLED. My motherboard also has 2 NICs built in. I use one and they other is DISABLED!

The question here is: Why is my Video listed three times? Is that some sort of conflict/sharing issue?
If device manager doesn't list it as a conflict then it isn't a problem. That's just showing the resources assigned to your hardware. It's not that your video card is showing up 3 times, its that those 3 resources are assigned to your video card.

Finally, am I being realistic in the fact that I think my PC should be running better than it does?
I don't think you are being very realistic. It's quite possible that you might be able to get out a little more performance from that rig. The truth of the matter is that you are pretty much maxed out with that system. In fact, I am not sure that your processor is even powerful enough to drive that video card. You are severely hindered by your CPU. What I don't understand is how you can score so well on the stress test but you say the game is unplayable? With my meager 74fps stress test, the game plays just fine most of the time.

[Animal]

Update:

Stress Test with all settings at the lowest possible setting:
122.45fps.

You aren't going to attain those numbers with your system. My CPU and Video card are better than yours and that's why my score is a little better. If you over clock, you might be able to squeeze out another 5-10fps if your lucky.

Seems to me like your system is fine.

[MiddleFinger]

I've tried everything short of reformating. I was really reaching there I guess. The fact of the matter is, it's better than what I had, and I should be satisfied with what I've been able to squeeze out of this rig. At least I can run Source so it doesn't look like 1.6 anymore. Before the minor upgrade, I had ALL graphics and effects turned off, and a .cfg file a mile long while running in DX 7. At least now I get the same frames with it looking a ton better. (it seems the .cfg made it run a little slower)