bjc3000

ok. sorry for the title. maybe a bit extreme.

story as follows.
I'm and aussie who is in Germany. My girlfriend has a computer here and i'm trying to run war 3 tft on it.

Comp specs.
cpu: Amd athlon 800mhz
Ram: SDRam 256mb 100 mhz
HDD: 80gb maxtor 7200rpm
Graphics card: Ati Radeon Hd2400pro 256mb AGP (running at 4x due to mainboard restraints.)

i have the following problem. computer is old. i bought the agp version of the hd2400pro so she could play the most dated games and some new ones at low settings.

I have issues already known to me with the AGP version of the hd2400pro. i.e. drivers that do not work. no support from ATI WHATSOEVER for the agp version. am running the newest omega drivers with the agp hotfix.

The computer can run Call of Duty 2. a more labour intensive game with no problems. (despite some random artifacts from driver issues.) and the odd lag spike from the dodgy processor and lack of ram in this computer. the gpu handles the load ok.

when i installed warcraft 3 tft though, the computer easily meets minimum system requirements it has nothing to do with upgrading system. plz do not post to upgrade. i'm fully aware of system resources, ram allocation etc.
on the initial menu. i can run full spec 1024 x 768 x 32 full high settings the menu runs fine. i try to actually play the game and the fps dies. 4 - 6 fps on any setting. everything maxed out to basic 640 x 480 x 16 with everything on minimal. has anyone ever experienced this kind of thing before? and plz respond. i believe it's a driver issue and the graphics card is to blame (waste of money untill Ati pull there heads in and start supporting their products) but if anyone has any other ideas. plz feel free to respond.

thx in advance. SoulesS

bjc3000

as an additional note. am running dx9.0c and have all of the newest updates for chipsets drivers and the newest available driver update for current P.o.S. gfx card hd2400pro Agp. ~ Cheers

Omnicyde

ATI's video cards don't really impress me... but that's a debatable topic not really important to your problem. (Next time, though, try nVidia.)

Out of curiosity, what OS are you running? Your specs sound a lot like mine did back when I used Windows ME <shudder>.

Your rig has the bare amount of RAM suggested to run W3TFT. ME takes at least another 32 Mbs on it's own, running your machine in the background. If you're running XP, it takes up even more (64Mbs at least). I hope to GOD you're not trying to run Vista on that rig.

I had this exact problem back in the glory times of Diablo 2; the menu ran fine, but the game ran like <expletive>. Consider adding another stick of RAM, or getting a bigger stick if necessary.

And I wouldn't be honest if I didn't tell you to beg your girlfriend to buy a better rig.

bjc3000

lol thanx for the reply.
yeah it's only while we are here on holidayz visiting her folks.
she has a laptop (i made her buy it) with 4gb ddr2 800mhz on-board 9600 mobility 512mb card and intel core2 duo processor 2.0 gig.

it's mostly for lan purposes, just to have fun on while we are here. it works fine on the laptop lol go figure.

She's running xp pro. i have thought over the problem for days now. and i figured i'd get some other Pov on the matter.

I have also got this problem that after installing the card, the entire computer as a whole became much slower. as in to be correct. after installing the drivers to open up the full power of the gfx card. everything loads slower especially loading times for xp itself. The requirement on the box for the hd2400 pro agp is 512mb ram min. i think. but i'm unsure why it requires so much or if that is affecting the computer's load times. maybe over stressing the computers ram itself. the other problem i have noted is that on the box a 300 watt power supply is required.. this computer is pretty minimal to say the least and the psu for this system is only 230 watts. i havn't yet had any problems relating to the psu. i.e random system restarts. failure to boot etc. i've checked sensorview and motherboard monitor and the voltages seem to read correctly when playing games. still buying a 400w antec might improve things a little. i was thinking of getting another 512mb of ram to boost it a little. but i'm hoping there is a driver work around before i spend more money. lol.

like i said though. CoD2 runs good on this same computer but fails at life when it attempts to run Warcraft 3 tft. the menu runs perfect but the game is terrible 4-6 fps on minimalist settings.

i used to have (back in the years past) a 1.3 ghz athlon with 256mb ram and a fx5200 128mb graphics card that handled war 3 on some of the higher settings with ease.. so maybe driver problem.. may there is another who has experienced this same kind of lag and worked it out? i've searched google for hours... getting desperate

thx in adv.