Choppy gameplay/sloooooow response help?

Ok, so I've been having this problem lately that I haven't had before.

I just got a new video card and have been playing the games pretty much to the max potential and loving it. However, lately even at the lowest levels(I mean like 800x600 low detail etc) my games have been really choppy. I will try now my best to explain what goes on. I will use NBA Live 2006 as my example.  Though, it's the same for all games, MOH, FIFA 2007, Need for Speed Most Wanted, Madden etc.  

So I will start up the game and it will go through all the beginning things fine. The EA Sports guy does his thing and I get to the main menu. I go to my season and play a game and usually even this starts out ok. Over a little bit of time, things get kind of choppy, but ok. however, as I go on in the game, it gets worse and I cannot even see myself run down the floor really. Like I will somehow get from one side to the other without seeing me move. Very detrimental to playing defense.   The thing is, sometimes I can play an entire game with no problems.  However, if I try to play another, no way. 

Ok, that's just part of it. Now I will use all games. In most games, there are menus to choose and click right? So for say my Medal of Honor game I want to load a game. It takes about 3-5 seconds to recognize that it's on the menu button to click, then clicks and slowly that screen fades away and the new one comes very slowly. Honestly like this: very light...a little lighter, and finally there. But again, I move the mouse to click on the next thing...and same thing.  In games where I will simulate days, this really bogs down everything.  When I have to go from one day to the next, the computer will run so slow, I have to exit to windows or it will almost freeze.  Like I said before, I just got the new vid. card, but I also tested this out with my old card which ran all these games perfectly before, though at lower display settings. Same thing...no difference at all b/t the two so I really do not think it's the cards.

Any thoughts? Here's the computer specs:
Vid Card: ATI Radeon x1950 pro agp
Intel Celeron CPU 2.80 GHz
512 MB of RAM
80 GB of Hard Drive space...22.9 used.

Any help or ideas are soooo much appreciated!  

hmm...dang. 

 But then why did these games work fine for 2-3 years and only now start acting up?  

Thanks for the quick reply! 

hmm...dang.

 

But then why did these games work fine for 2-3 years and only now start acting up?

 

Thanks for the quick reply!

got_philk

2-3 years hmm? Well have you installed any software recently? If so list then, you also could try a system restore but I don't know when this problem started so that could be a big sytstem restore. If you need to use it go to start run type msconfig then click system restore.  

wait did you download new drivers for the card and updates/patchs for the gamesLucifer007

Reading other peoples replies is good yes? :P I already linked him to the drivers, and if he said it happens in more than 1 game patching will most likely not solve the problem.

yeah, sorry. I'm in the middle of like three things. And cleaning up my clothes to try to appease my wife. ;) Sorry, I didn't get your message till now.

I have downloaded all the drivers and updated all the games. I did a check disk last week which found nothing, and I actually reformatted my hard drive a little over a week ago so any other possible problems(viruses/spyware) are not there. It's actually a much longer story than just that...but these games that worked before used to work on a much crappier computer than what I have now.

 I should clarify.  I had troubles a little over a week ago, so at that point, I found and updated my video card.  that didn't help, so I did a check disk.  That actually really screwed up things...but all the problems I'm writing about were well before I did all this stuff.  And now even with a clean computer, fresh downloading of games/updates...problem persists.  

yeah, sorry. I'm in the middle of like three things. And cleaning up my clothes to try to appease my wife. ;) Sorry, I didn't get your message till now.

 

I have downloaded all the drivers and updated all the games. I did a check disk last week which found nothing, and I actually reformatted my hard drive a little over a week ago so any other possible problems(viruses/spyware) are not there. It's actually a much longer story than just that...but these games that worked before used to work on a much crappier computer than what I have now.

 

I should clarify. I had troubles a little over a week ago, so at that point, I found and updated my video card. that didn't help, so I did a check disk. That actually really screwed up things...but all the problems I'm writing about were well before I did all this stuff. And now even with a clean computer, fresh downloading of games/updates...problem persists.

got_philk

So its a hardware issue, hmm download memtest86 run it it may tell you if your ram or harddrive is bad. But I would also reccomend to check those temps. 

Processor 60 degrees C

Mainboard 33 degrees C

Power/Aux Temp 6 degrees C

Hard Disk 37 degrees C

Uh, you don't know what you're messing with here. Computer...dumb. :? But anyway, do those look ok?

And now, how do I run that memtest86. I downloaded it. Clicked on the executable box thing in winrar, and that black box wants me to type stuff in it.