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Half computer help-needed, half rant. Bear with me

Why must I get utterly shitty performance from my comp? Seriously. DoW runs like fucking shit (20 frames per second with 4 squds on screen? )
even at low settings. UT2004 runs ok, 40-70fps on average (high settings and 2xAA, 4xAF), Rome Total war is good up until 1,000 soldiers, GCII gets framerate problems during heated battles...bleh. I *should* be getting better performance than this with my comp setup. (Note: I ran a ton of benches after a clean XP reinstall, latest drivers on everything, AGP aperture set correctly, etc etc.)

System specs:
AMD Athlon XP 2600+ with a barton core, currently running at 1950mhz (non oc'd.)
MSI KT4AV motherboard
Jaton 3dforce 6600GT with 128 of onboard ram. Factory clock speed: 500/900, my oc'd settings: 550/1000 (benches done on both factory and oc'd settings, gpu remained very very stable on the oc'd settings, no artifacts or instability whatsoever.)
1024mb of DDR-SDRAM, PC2700 with a 166mhz clock frequency
350w power supply
19" CRT monitor

So, I can think of several things that *might* be causing this.

1). My crappy RAM clock speed. I'm going to order some much better Corsair ram soon, although I don't know how much a difference it'll make.
2). Not enough power from the supply unit. Nuff said.
3). Bad card, always a possibility. It's quite improbable that this was caused by me oc'ing it, as I've only overclocked it in the last 2 days or so. This problem existed much longer than that.

As for CPU stability, even during strenous stress tests temps rarely rose above 45c, so thats out there.
Okay, time for benchmarks. All benches were taken when I first entered battle. (recorded using fraps, each level/area was run through 3 times, recording only the final time. All benches are using medium/high settings and 2xAA and 4xAF at 1024x res.)

UT2004: 42.62 average on DMInferno, 6 bots
UT2004: 25.42 average on ONSPrimieval, 12 bots.

Dawn of War: Fallen city, 1v1 scenario: 21.34 average
Dawn of War: Saint Mathias bridge 2v2 scenario, 15.12 average

Rome Total War: British grassland (completely flat, no trees), 1,000v1,000 man battle: 23.56 average
Rome Total War: Siege of Rome (big-ass city, huge walls, etc) 1,000v1,000 men, 19.54 fps average.

Guild Wars: Ruins of Surmia, me and 4 other players, latency was incredibly low: 42.56 fps (4xAA here)
Guild Wars: Ascalon city (dozens of players running around, huge structures, etc, no combat, again, 4xAA): 53.21 fps

Ground Control 2: Dust City, 1v1: 30.14 fps average

So, wtf is going on here? Not enough power? Bad card? Are these framerates normal for this setup? Am I just imagining things? Stupidly slow ram? You decide.

Fuck, can a mod move this to G&C, please?

Er. Time for a new computer maybe?

Seriously, I don't see that there's much else you can do with it, considering your history of trouble with your current compy, even with your 6600...

Elheru Aran wrote:Er. Time for a new computer maybe?

Seriously, I don't see that there's much else you can do with it, considering your history of trouble with your current compy, even with your 6600...

Actually, my comp does fine...except for games. And windows rot.

Also, I might mention, this comp is still under warranty, so if I can prove a part is fucked up, I can get a new one free.
EDIT: Er, new part free, not new comp.

Captain tycho wrote:UT2004: 42.62 average on DMInferno, 6 bots
UT2004: 25.42 average on ONSPrimieval, 12 bots.

Might be your CPU which is the limitation here.

Try on the same map with a different number of bots, and then look at the floor or something.

If the FPS varies when you arent looking at anything special but have more bots, your CPU is the problem.

ggs wrote:

Captain tycho wrote:UT2004: 42.62 average on DMInferno, 6 bots
UT2004: 25.42 average on ONSPrimieval, 12 bots.

Might be your CPU which is the limitation here.

Try on the same map with a different number of bots, and then look at the floor or something.

If the FPS varies when you arent looking at anything special but have more bots, your CPU is the problem.

Yup, I think it is the cpu. UT2004 runs pretty damn nice on larger maps with only 4 or 5 bots. Could also explain why I have more trouble with RTS's. Would overclocking help, and would getting that new DDR-400 ram alleviate this problem?

Have you tried running without AA and AF? With lower graphics settings?

Uraniun235 wrote:Have you tried running without AA and AF? With lower graphics settings?

Indeed. Not much difference at all.
Oh, aquamark score: 42,050, no AA/4xAF, 550/1000. Highest I've gotten.

I play DoW with a 2100xp and a (I think) 5500, and it runs fine. I don't have wankRAM either, and the PSU is garbage. You've got some sort of problem in your setup somewhere. None of my machines have problems either, but this is the weakest one, and it's fine.

Captain tycho wrote:Yup, I think it is the cpu. UT2004 runs pretty damn nice on larger maps with only 4 or 5 bots. Could also explain why I have more trouble with RTS's. Would overclocking help, and would getting that new DDR-400 ram alleviate this problem?

New ram isnt going to make a difference.

But do the test I gave you. Load a load of bots(1 bot on the other side and the rest on your side) into an UT2004 CTF game, and go face a wall and watch the fps counter. Then call all your bots to your location, and look at the bots when you order them to go elsewere.

Repeat with keeping looking at the wall whie telling the bots to bugger off.

Repeat with considerably less bots.

The RAM is hurting you some, but it should be *that* bad.

Okay, results of the bot test ggs suggested:
Staring at the wall, DM-Inferno, 32 bots, clipping along pretty well at 70fps. All 32 were on my team. When I ordered them to all gather round, framerate still stayed steady (again staring at the wall). Turning around, my framerate dropped to around fifty. Then all the bots came into view, dropping it hard and fast to the low thirties, and then even lower.