Speeding Up My Computer?

[Raistlin1040]

So, today I bought The Sims 3 for my (Vista-Powered) PC, and was unpleasantly suprised to find that I could barely run the game. The Sims 2 was never the fastest game for me, but the delay and lag certainly wasn't crippling. I'm not really sure what information would be useful, or where to find it (though I'm sure a bunch of specifics are necessary). I have enough Hard Drive space and my video card is fairly decent, I think, so I'm confused as to the problem. Any help is greatly appreciated, and I'll find out anything necessary to help, if pointed in the right direction.

Yes, I'm aware this could be in Gaming (Other) but whatever.

[BizzaroStormy]

One problem I had when trying to get a game to run was processor speed. Now, you can find instructions via google on overclocking your processor.

This will make it run faster than intended. I only raised it by .3 GHz, enough to get TF2 to run. However, severe overclocking is going to require some serious cooling for your system. Perhaps even keeping your comp in a mini-fridge, but it should help speed your system up...that or just buying some faster hardware.

[Zeb The Troll]

The most likely culprit, it sounds like, is your RAM and there not being enough of it. If you right click on My Computer and click on Properties, it'll tell you how much you have installed. If you have less than 4GB, you should add more.

[Raistlin1040]

*Makes an O.o face*

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that having 503 MB of RAM is a bad thing.

[Zeb The Troll]

*Makes an O.o face*

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that having 503 MB of RAM is a bad thing.That is very bad. Especially for a system running Vista.

My favorite place to buy RAM on the cheap is www.crucial.com (http://www.crucial.com).

Not only is the RAM very reasonably priced, but there's an app you can run straight from their website that will inspect your system and tell you how much you can hold and what type of RAM it needs to be. Very handy.

I'm curious how you've got 503MB, though. Usually it's noted in powers of 2. So you'll see like 512MB. Is your video card borrowing from your RAM as well?

[Fri]

lucky for you, ram is the cheapest thing to add now, compared to say graphic card or processor.

Just upgrade your ram. It's not only useful for gaming, so you can ask for your parents for help :smallwink:

[Muz]

One thing about that Crucial scanner, it doesn't take into account your operating system. I'm running 3GB RAM on XP Home, it suggested upgrading to 8GB, but XP Home can't handle more than...is it 4? (It's 3 or 4, in any case.)

[Raistlin1040]

I'm curious how you've got 503MB, though. Usually it's noted in powers of 2. So you'll see like 512MB. Is your video card borrowing from your RAM as well?

I believe so.


lucky for you, ram is the cheapest thing to add now, compared to say graphic card or processor.

Just upgrade your ram. It's not only useful for gaming, so you can ask for your parents for help

Yeah, I mentioned it to my dad, he said he'd take a look at it, add some RAM when he got the chance.

[Collin152]

One thing about that Crucial scanner, it doesn't take into account your operating system. I'm running 3GB RAM on XP Home, it suggested upgrading to 8GB, but XP Home can't handle more than...is it 4? (It's 3 or 4, in any case.)

It can't? This is interesting to me, who does not know much about Hardware, but would like to.

[Don Julio Anejo]

One thing about that Crucial scanner, it doesn't take into account your operating system. I'm running 3GB RAM on XP Home, it suggested upgrading to 8GB, but XP Home can't handle more than...is it 4? (It's 3 or 4, in any case.)
The limit is around 3 GB for any 32-bit system.

To the OP: it would help us if you gave us your computer's specifications. The most important ones are how much RAM you have (503 MB?), your processor (both the model, the clock speed and how many CPU's you have) and your video card.

[Raistlin1040]

1 CPU, for sure, would need to check for other things, and unfortunately, I cannot right now. My dad is a computer kind of guy though, and he seems to agree with Zeb, so we'll try that.

[Zeb The Troll]

{table]Windows Version*|32-bit|64-bit
Windows XP1|4GB|128GB
Windows Vista Home Basic|4GB|8GB
Windows Vista Home Premium|4GB|16GB
Windows Vista Ultimate|4GB|128GB[/table]

All of this is assuming that your motherboard can manage that much RAM and that is dependant on a) how many slots you have, and b) how much each slot can hold.

1Some of this may require a registry setting to be adjusted.
*source data (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778.aspx)