Very Low FPS in all Games/Benchmarks

I truely can't decide if this is a gpu issue or if this is what I'm to expect.

The system is a Dell Optiplex 320,
3.2ghz P4 (641)
ATI 4550 (700/900mhz -Stock is 600/800)
2gb PC4200

3dmark 06 score looks like what I was expecting, 3,500. however in day of defeat source, counterstrike source, tf2... essentiall all the games I own- run at extremely low FPS. in DOD i get about 29 fps (maximum settings 4x 16x 1440x900) and 30 fps (minimum settings 0x 0x 800x600) that is what totally amazes me. the GPU doesn't even seem like it's taxed.

Any ideas?

Source engine is very CPU dependent...that P4 just doesn't have the power to push it along like you want.

Yeah, i realize that, but I have a friend with a p4 2.4ghz northwood from back in the day along with a geforce fx 5900... and that thing pushes through dod just fine. (at 1024x768 that is... [40fps]) and when she cranks the res down to 640x480 she's getting around 90fps... it just doesn't add up.

maybe your windows is corrupted or something, refortmating might help if you havent done it in a while

hajalie24 said:

maybe your windows is corrupted or something, refortmating might help if you havent done it in a while

Click to expand...

it's a brand new fresh install, just built it. This is my second reformat in a day haha. I don't know. Oh well its not a gaming gpu. I guess i'll just deal with it.

your scores seem around correct - before i upgraded my entire rig i had a P4 550 H, clocked at 3.4Ghz, and 2.5GB DDR ram. game performance wasn't mind boggling, for example i was only getting 14 to 30 FPS in race driver grid, and with only 2xMSAA, with those specs and a 9800GT.

.tried playing devil may cry at a relatively low screen res (widescreen on a 4:3 aspect screen), and the built in benchmarker gave me a B. upgraded to a quad core and that score went up to an S.

posting my old screens - they're pretty big, though

LOL@Fart, did you get that from the pc model on source engine? Yeah definately cpu+ram bottleneck there. P4's just werent too good.

p4 is killin ya.