OK, I'm going to commit to new hardware.

[turbografx16]

Ok, the low FPS are really getting me down.

My specs are:

AMD64 3200+ 2.0ghz
XFX 7900GTX 512mb
2GB RAM
Nvidia Nforce onboard soundcard
Asus A8NE Motherboard
Antec Phantom 500W

Im currently getting between 20-50 fps


So, how should I improve my FPS? Would I be better off buying a new soundcard: Creative XFI or a new processor: AMD64 X2 4200+ ?

 

[AlphaNut]

Have you tried different drivers for your video card?
I have a similar setup with a AMD64 3700, and a 7800GT. And I rarely get drops under 59fps. (I have Vsync on)
At what resolution are you playing the game, and what options have you enabled/disabled in the nvidia control panel?

If you are using regular nvidia drivers (91.xx series) I would strongly suggest getting some modified forceware drivers from guru3d.com. I would also recommend not installing 91.xx series as mentioned before as I had very bad experiences performance-wise with those.
I am currently using 84.56 drivers, and have had very good success with those.

Hope this helps a bit.

PS: An XFi wouldn't hurt at all if you can afford it. I currently have the Xtreme Music version installed (I think they renamed it to Xtreme Gamer) and have never experienced such great sound with a PC soundcard. Plus it doesn't drain processing time from your CPU which is a big plus during games. Also AMD are known to not be very good at balancing out processing power to different tasks. So an onboard soundcard might just be the root of all evil - you never know

 

[turbografx16]

Haha, I have the latest drivers and all my settings are on normal, no HDR, no AA, no AS, res=1024x768.

 

[Zetsumei]

processor will give you the most but if you want a new one anyway and you're not scared of the old one dying. Just overclock the old one ^^

 

[AlphaNut]

Haha, I have the latest drivers and all my settings are on normal, no HDR, no AA, no AS, res=1024x768.

I didn't ask you if you had the latest drivers. You might want to read again...

And please, crank your settings up. I know that my card runs a lot better at high settings. Turn up AA, AF, HDR etc.

 

[turbografx16]

I didn't ask you if you had the latest drivers. You might want to read again...

And please, crank your settings up. I know that my card runs a lot better at high settings. Turn up AA, AF, HDR etc.

Wow, thanks for putting that so politely. Yes, I 've tried 3 different drivers so far and no, i'm not going to crank my settings up, that only makes it worse. If it could run fine on higher settings, I'd do that but the problem is it doesnt even run fine on normal settings.

 

[Raitapaita]

So, how should I improve my FPS? Would I be better off buying a new soundcard: Creative XFI or a new processor: AMD64 X2 4200+ ?

I didn't notice any change to fps with of without XFI. Waste of money, if you ask it from me.

 

[melipone]

The CPU is probably the bottleneck, especially since you have on-board sound (this will use some of the cpu resources). I would get a cheap PCI sound card. You can get a decent Soundblaster for about

 

[AlphaNut]

Wow, thanks for putting that so politely. Yes, I 've tried 3 different drivers so far and no, i'm not going to crank my settings up, that only makes it worse. If it could run fine on higher settings, I'd do that but the problem is it doesnt even run fine on normal settings.

Hi Dick (that's your name right?), I didn't mean to sound harsh - just trying to be as straight forward as possible.

I am sorry I can not help you as I am at the end of my latin.