Gaming Issues

[Just_tweak_it]

Hi everyone! Well I finally got the cheap motherboard that I was looking for. I purchased it from Surplus Computers a couple of months ago. My new mobo is a Jetway model J625EMP800. It has an integrated VIA C3 800mhz processor and the VIA CLE266 chipset. I'm very pleased with it except for one thing. My only problem is playing TWO games. I have two simple games that I love, and they are Midtown Madness 1 and Midtown Madness 2. This motherboard has the S3 Unichrome video card integrated in it. So I made sure to get the latest video driver, and the latest fixes or patches for the games. Even after all this, the games still won't play properly. It takes about 10 minutes to just load, then it will lock the machine up. I'm running Windows XP Home SP2, 256MB DDR Ram, and the video card is setup to share anywhere from 16-64 MB Ram. (I've tried all three settings.) Why am I getting extremely poor game performance? These games aren't extremely high tech games.

I play these same games fine with my AMD K6-2 machines with only 8MB integrated video memory. I also play them perfectly with my other machine that has an ATi 16MB PCI video card. What gives???? Any help with this would be appreciated.

Carl

[cloasters]

When ones budget is strictly controlled, it makes for less than great performance. If you can, double the 256 Mb of RAM that's on this new mainboard. WinXP is very greedy for RAM. If that doesn't help, maybe it's better to play these games on one of your K6-2 machines, or the one with the ATi Vidcard. Hopefully, a Member with better knowledge of your hardware will post a different way to improve performance.

[QSDT]

Where u using Win XP on the AMD K6-2?

[dsio]

Your problem is your CPU. The C3 is the Cyrix 3, or 3rd generation cyrix made VIA CPU. The first one sucked, the second one sucked, and guess what? The third one followed tradition.

A Pentium III 500Mhz is around 3-4 times faster in gaming on a bad day, and around 10 times faster on a good day, than the C3 800Mhz.

The base model K6-2, is a superior CPU to a C3 800Mhz. If you have a 333 or even the big 500/550Mhz K6-2, then it will belt your C3 all over the place. Mhz means nothing in the land of VIA.

The chips since the C3 in the Epia world are quite nice, but that C3 is not worth the silicone its made from, sorry mate.

They are designed to suck, but to use no power while sucking. That is the only point of them, so you can play Mp3s or watch DVDs on a C3 HTPC. Games just are not possible. Windows XP is far too overspecced for that machine, Windows 2000 should do.

Putting more ram in it will do diddly squat performance wise also.

Have a read about your C3 here: http://www.dansdata.com/c3.htm

Once again, sorry mate.

[saquib]

well, the simplest solution if u love ure C3 (which i dont kno y anyone ever shud!) u can add extra ram. but theres no point spending money after dat pc wen u dont plan to change atleast the CPU. just run simple win 9X on dat machne if u want games. i wud say stick on with ms office works, listening music and watching video if u plan to keep the cpu.

[Just_tweak_it]

Originally Posted by QSDT

Where u using Win XP on the AMD K6-2?

Yes I ran Windows XP Home SP2 on my K6-2 500mhz with 256MB ram and the games played. Don't get me wrong, they weren't as good as the machine with the 1.3ghz Intel Celeron, and 16MB ATi Expert 128 video card. But THEY WERE much better and playable when compared to the C3!!!! (now with 512MB DDR)

[Just_tweak_it]

My understanding was that this board and chip combo would be great because it has the "unichrome CLE266 chipset". So I thought it should work fine for my relatively low tech games. However it does not work well at all for these games. Furthermore some of you have suggested that I play Mp3 files with it, but that doesn't work too well either. Whenever I try to play an Mp3 file in Windows Media Player 10, it screws the whole system up. The music becomes jerky, and the system virtually locks up because it slows way down. When I hit ctrl, alt, and del the "task manager" showed that the C3 was being 100% utilized by Windows media. However I've run into the same problem trying to use Windows Media 10 on a K6-2 machine. I don't know but apparently those processors are just too slow or low tech for MP10. That being said, the only player I use on my VIA C3 is Winamp. Winamp seems to run fine and not get the C3 too upset. Any ideas or suggestions? As for other tasks, such as email, internet, other common programs and word processing I have no problems. All seems to work well.

[dsio]

The visualisation in WMP10 is the killer. That and the fact that its a clunky, bloated turd of a media player. It is not high tech, I promise you that.

And yea, doing something like MP3 playing will favour the C3, but Video will favour the K6-2. The K6-2 is still just a far superior chip than the C3.

[noob]

WMP10 is around 70MB of RAM killing, CPU destroying, Underprogrammed, bloatware. If it didn't come pre installed with Windows, it would be malware. It is about the same size as Open Office 2.0!!

Winamp is far smaller, uses less RAM, and takes up less CPU cycles.

Also, sound output quality - Almost EVERYTHING is better than WMP. If you are able to find a program that shows the streaming data from CD in analogue, and that which is going to the speakers, check the difference between the different players. Winamp, and Quicktime are some of the best!

CPU wise, You C3 is basically a big MP3 playing email box. The best thing is the huge capacity of HDD's for storing those MP3's on, and you should be able to get the sound directly from either a sound card, or onboard, to your stereo

[robbie]

Originally Posted by cloasters

When ones budget is strictly controlled, it makes for less than great performance. If you can, double the 256 Mb of RAM that's on this new mainboard. WinXP is very greedy for RAM. If that doesn't help, maybe it's better to play these games on one of your K6-2 machines, or the one with the ATi Vidcard. Hopefully, a Member with better knowledge of your hardware will post a different way to improve performance.

I'm with cloasters on this one, you'll need MORE mem my friend.