Making Games Faster?

[tommobs]

I have noticed that a few of the newer games cannot run or my system or are really slow, i think its my video card that is the problem but im not sure, anyone got any ideas?

Specs:

CPU
You Have: 2 processors running - Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 2.80GHz

CPU Speed
You Have: 2.80 GHz Performance Rated at 5.04 GHz

System RAM
You Have: 2.0 GB

Operating System
You Have: Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)

Video Card
You Have: NVIDIA GeForce 7300 LE (GeForce 7300 LE)
Video RAM: You have - 256.0 MB
Video Card 3D Acceleration: You have - Yes
Video HW Transform & Lighting: You have - Yes
Vertex Shader Ver.: You have - 3.0
Pixel Shader Ver.: You have - 3.0

Video Card Driver Version (DirectX)
Your driver version number is: 6.14.11.6371

DirectX Version
You Have: 9.0c

Sound Card
You Have: Realtek High Definition Audio

Sound Card Driver Version
Your driver version number is: 5.10.0.5229

Free Disk Space
You Have: 36.2 GB
You Have: HL-DT-ST DVDRRW GSA-H20L

[montpics]

You'd never mentioned what emulator or game that you tend to play.....

[Jale]

If it's PlayStation 2, Xbox or GameCube emulation, then yes, your system is slow for them. Also, your video card is mainstream (not too powerful for current games).

[tommobs]

You'd never mentioned what emulator or game that you tend to play.....

oops sorry, well ive been trying to emulate final fantasy x on pcsx2 and am getting speeds of about 15-25fps, and game wise i have tried to play bioshock and spiderman 3 which are pretty slow on medium graphics settings. So would upgrading my video card make these smoother and faster?

[ulaoulao]

Yes I would certainly start there. It is certainly the bottle neck for your pc games. The CPU will help emulation more so. Most not all emulators rely more so on the CPU (with a decent Vid-card).

[tommobs]

Well the CPU i have now isnt to bad i should think, but yeah i will need to get a new video card. Is there any way that i can test my computer to see what cards are compatible? Sorry im kind of a noob when it comes to hardware, but everyone has to start somewhere