Running older games on a new computer - slower?

The game I'm trying to run is an old MMO called Ragnarok Online (about 8 years old) with 2d sprites and 3d environment. I used to be able to run it fine on my 4 year old computer (AMD dual core, Geforce 7600GT, 2 gb ram) but since I've upgraded my system (e7400, Sapphire 4850, 4 gb ram) the game runs terribly slow. I was able to get 100+ fps on my old system and now, barely 40 fps. Both systems are running Windows XP 32bit

I suspect the game isn't being recognized as a 3d app and all the work is being forced into the CPU. The CPU usage shoots up to 100% (on just one of the cores) and my video card doesn't seem to be doing any work at all (stays at the same idle temp of 38C)

Anyone have any ideas? Thanks

I am not sure if this is your problem but I have ran into something that gave the same results. I was trying to get Links 2003 to run in Win 7 and I kept getting an error saying that my video card did not meet the game requirements so it was instead switching to "Software acceleration mode". I found that quite interesting that 2 4870's would not be enough to run a game from 2002. It took a lot of research but I found out that that particular game has a file called "video cards" in the root folder. If your installed card is not listed in that file it figures your card will not run the game in hardware mode, so it switches to software mode instead. Once I put my 4870's in the list, all was well, except for the fact that links doesn't like Crossfire so I have to run just one card to play it. I am finding older games do not like dual cards, same trouble trying to play Max Payne. Don't know if this is your problem but it might be worth a look.

A long time ago I played this game called Infantry, it's about... I dunno, 11 years old now?

Anyway, I won an 8800gtx back like 3 years ago and when I went to play it the frames were terrible, like literally 13fps, it's a 2d isometric fighter like Subspace and obviously isn't too taxing.

Disable hardware acceleration in the troubleshoot bit of the graphics properties, my frames went right back up after I did that.

The game detects my video card and I select it in the setup. It still runs terribly slow though.

I tried disabling hardware acceleration but when I did the game doesn't start up at all.

Seinken said:

Anyway, I won an 8800gtx back like 3 years ago and when I went to play it the frames were terrible, like literally 13fps, it's a 2d isometric fighter like Subspace and obviously isn't too taxing.

Click to expand...

I read somewhere that the whole Geforce line simply sucks when it comes to 8-bit color palette handling, which Infantry uses a lot.

Seinken said:

A long time ago I played this game called Infantry, it's about... I dunno, 11 years old now?

Anyway, I won an 8800gtx back like 3 years ago and when I went to play it the frames were terrible, like literally 13fps, it's a 2d isometric fighter like Subspace and obviously isn't too taxing.

Disable hardware acceleration in the troubleshoot bit of the graphics properties, my frames went right back up after I did that.

Click to expand...

Dude! I used to play Infantry too back in the day, probably 10 years ago! I quit when they made it pay2play, but I was really into it. I played Twin Peaks and CTFPL. What game modes did you play?

CTF-X was my zone of choice, I played with the Lesbian Cabbage group, Kyoneko was one of my friends there.

I played under this same alias back then too, paid for an account for awhile but then got banned.