Computer Is slow (Hardware specs are low)

[Fb!N!nJa]

Well, my computer these past few weeks has been not functioning correctly, I do have my computer specs and what it is running most of the times :

 

2 GB of Ram

500 GB of hard drive space (7200 RPM)

1.80 GHz Single Core CPU processor (Really low)

64 MB video card chip (ATI Raedon xpress 200) (Really low)

Windows XP Pro. SP3

 

Antivirus - avast! home edition

Firewall - Comodo Firewall (free)

Antispyware - avast, malwarebytes, and spywareblaster

Extra - CCleaner, System onecare, auslogics disk defrag

 

Well those are all the information on my computer. I was thinking about installing Ubuntu (But it does not recognize my video chip and last time E.T. did not work on it) So i had to reinstall windows back. But i just spent a lot of money on ram and hard drive space but now i realize that the money i spent on ram and hard drive could have been used on a new and better computer but Now my parents will not let me to spend more money.

 

 

So are there any free choices and ways to help me speed my computer up? Because my computer freezes constantly.

[!Chuck4Abuck]

most def need a vid card and new cpu core 2 duo and a 4870 should get u up nice

[WaRnInJa]

dude i dont know why your pc is slow when u have better pc than mine and mine is running the games i play smoothly even tho ppl told me i wasnt gonna be able to play them... one thing i always do is defragment the pc few times like at least 2 times a week and delete un wanted cookies and crap internet saves in your pc that makes it slow tho.... i also stop useless programs to start when the pc starts on startup program settings and i also desable programs that im not gonna be using at the moment in my case thats what makes my pc run slow....... i play on a lap top with 3.00 GB of RAM, 32-bit OS, inter core2 duo CPU T5450 @ 1.66GHz 1.667 GHz on wndows vista home premium....... u should go to windows xp home page where they have a lot of tips on to improve your pc performance...... hope any of this help ya

 

ohhh i run BF2, ET at the same time and still dont get my pc slow and/or ingame lag, i also run my anti virus, xfire, ventrillo and msn messenger... so you might wanna teawk you pc a lil maybe that would help you without sending too much money tho... later

[PHANTASM]

Warninja has a better CPU than you do.

 

When you do ctrl-alt-delete how many programs are running? If you have more than say, thirty, programs, you might want to uninstall some of them or prevent them from running when you start your computer. Use start/run/msconfig/startup tab/disable all to turn everything off the next time you reboot your computer. It will free up CPU time and some RAM to speed up ET. You may need to keep your graphics card driver running if it uses a program listed in the startup list. ATI cards usually have their own programs that you will want to keep running.

 

You don't need all those antivirus programs running at the same time. They will all try to update themselves and lock up your computer. Also you should turn off Automatic Updates for Windows when you are playing ET so it doesn't start downloading the latest update while you are playing ET.

 

Another thing that helps is to run ETMinimizer, minimize ET once you have the game running, go into Task Manager (ctl-alt-del), right click on ET under processes, and set priority to "Real-Time". This gives it priority over all the other stuff running on your computer.

 

Since your graphics card is so low you may want to use low graphics settings in ET: use r_lodbias 2, r_mode 4, disable shadows, flares, muzzleflash, etc. Set your graphics as bad as you can stand without giving yourself a headache. Be sure your monitor refresh rate is high (75Hz is good) to compensate for the eye strain of using bad graphics.

 

Also you should set your com_hunkmegs to at least 128 if you haven't done that too.

[PHANTASM]

Oh almost forgot, use ATI Tool to overclock that prehistoric graphics card. You can find it for free online, just watch out for third party crapware that might be attached to it.

[Bi0s]

run a virus scan a spyware scan turn off any programs your are not useing. run cc cleaner run disk clean up defrag hdd.. and tweak it some and it will be alright..