So, I'm home and I was able to run some more tests.

The HD I had it installed on was slow, so I pulled it out and reinstalled on a faster one. When that didn't work, I ran a memory checker for a while (180% on each 1 gig increment) and it all checked out fine. I inserted an Audigy 2 instead of using onboard sound. I made sure the Asus mobo drivers were the same as the nvidia latest. I increased the virtual memory and let windows have it's way with my hd for it. The problem still happens. I have noticed a single 'unknown device' in my device manager and am endeavouring to find out what it is. Thanks for all the help so far.

Thanks for the quick answer.

I've cleared out my running processes, everything's connected and I'm working on a clean XP install... I haven't even put on a virus scanner yet... just the drivers, windows updates and the game.

I'll try running in a higher resolution when I get home. Thanks again.

Also, I'll check dxdiag when I get off work. Though I've tried Asus' latest video drivers, Nvidia's latest video drivers and EVGA (as suggested on a forum somewhere)'s latest video drivers.

Hello, I just upgraded and I've been having a bit of trouble. Here are the specs:

Asus p5n-t WS motherboard, Intel q6600 quad-core, 4 gigs Crucial Ballistix ram, Asus en8800gt video card, running XP Pro SP2

So, here's the problem: Everything works fine, some games (such as WoW) desktop apps and I even get a respectable 11865 on 3dmark 06. However, Portal and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. stutter and don't crack about 5fps, even on lowest graphical settings. I've tried: clean install of XP, latest drivers for everything, new BIOS, downclocking video RAM and nothing seems to work.

Anyone have any ideas?