Wow ! From what you state, I should be asking you for video question help with answers ! You seem informed, and competent to me... First, you should check the computer bios for the right/optimal video settings. One thing I've learned over the years when working with graphics intensive programs, is that the hard drive and it's interfaces will often cause many playback issues, too ! While you are checking the bios video settings, make sure the drives are properly ordered, configured, and running multiword dma, or at least dma ! (PIO mode won't get it here, you know !) You should also investigate all of the bios caching options: make sure the video ram and aperture are sufficiently set for the card's access, and that the writeback cache for the processor is enabled. If your bios setting for the video gives you the choice of (auto) , (onboard) or (agp/pci), don't use the auto setting if you know what the card is ! This is because the bios will routinely poll the interrupt and accesses to see if everything is still where it should be, and the act of polling could result in choppy video at high frame rates ! I CANNOT STRESS THE IMPORTANCE OF THE TWO FOLLOWING ITEMS HERE ENOUGH !!! #1) DEFRAGMENT often, especially if windows says its not needed. Trust me here on this, it is necessary !!! Defragment, defragment, defragment...make this your mantra, and do it both BEFORE and AFTER any GAME INSTALLS ! This is THE ONLY WAY TO EVEN OBTAIN THE FAINT HOPE OF SMOOTH GAMING ...(and do not let defragmenter run in the background while you work with other apps or use windows, because the opened files will not ever be defragged, either !)
#2) Regularly schedule a full disk surface scan for errors (bi-weekly is preferrable, but once monthly will do !) I know, it takes forever, but this is the only time windows will perform actual read and write tests of the disk's integrity !!! THESE Two items are the single most important things a user can do to help their computer's performance stay at or near it's peak...(AND ALMOST NOBODY DOES THEM !) NOT DOING these two simple things on a regular schedule has been at the root of almost every users problems in some form or another...Once-blazingly fast systems will slow to a crawl...And as this is happening, file and folder corruption, as well as driver file problems, sometimes even registry errors, will manifest and proliferate in a nonstop downward spiral, which eventually will take the op system too ! You've got my email addr, Ditto for me too, so Look for an email today where I will reveal a few things most users don't realize they can do to maximize windows gaming performance ! (it goes beyond the scope and range of the common user's windows knowledge-we'll investigate the task manager settings, processor settings for memory and programs, disk caching settings, and a few other (smoke-and mirrors seeming ) nuts and bolts of the op system... So defrag it, then do it again, then check your email !!!