FPS assistance requested

[Smurrf]

Hoyas!

Alright...here's the deal. Started two-boxing a couple of weeks ago on a single monitor, and had decent (30ish) FPS while twinking an alt. About a week after that, my wife and I received new 19" widescreens, and we proceeded to set both of our computers up with two monitors. Problem? Now my FPS is down to about 25-ish on a single client, and running two clients hovers anywhere from 5-15 FPS, and usually runs on the lower end of that spectrum. This occurs even with no programs running in the background.

Here's the system specs...

Dell Dimension DM051 (yes...I *know*...but it's what we could afford a year ago)
Pentium 4 CPU 3.00GHz
2.00 GB RAM
ATI Radeon X600 256MB video card
Windows XP

One monitor is a standard Dell 17" flatscreen, the other is a 19" widescreen (both flat panel). I only really need one monitor to be used for the purposes of playing WoW; I don't really mind tabbing back and forth between the clients, since this lets me use the second monitor for looking up quests, viewing the vent window, IM's, etc. The desktop is extended across both monitors, but it doesn't matter where the second client is located; FPS is shot all to hell and gone.

All other equipment is stock, I haven't made much in the way of upgrades other than the increase in RAM to 2GBs.

Can someone who is way more knowledgeable than I help me out?
If any more info is needed, please let me know.

Thanks!

[marvein]

make sure you are using 'horizontal span' for the displays, there is an issue with rendering in XP otherwise and FPS suffers horribly.

[Smurrf]

Okay...my card is being a right pain here. I found the option for ''horizontal stretch' (closest to horizontal span I can find), but the card's control center does not want to recognize the fact that I'm running two monitors, even though they're both plugged into the same card.

BTW, desktop settings does recognize both monitors, and both are up and running.

It's things like this that make me want to utterly destroy companies' websites...no troubleshooting help on their site for this =/

[marvein]

Okay...my card is being a right pain here. I found the option for ''horizontal stretch' (closest to horizontal span I can find), but the card's control center does not want to recognize the fact that I'm running two monitors, even though they're both plugged into the same card.

BTW, desktop settings does recognize both monitors, and both are up and running.

It's things like this that make me want to utterly destroy companies' websites...no troubleshooting help on their site for this =/

make sure you have the most up to date version of the ATI control panel ad video drivers.

PS- I freaking hate the ATI control panel too.

[Smurrf]

That was downloaded earlier.

[marvein]

as silly as it may sound was there a driver disc for the monitor? while monitors are all plug and play these days most ship with a driver CD that helps finicky systems recognize them properly. If your system doesnt see them both at once go into device manager and choose 'update driver' and point it to the CD. Or simply uninstall the display device from device manager, uninstall your video card drivers and control panel and start again.

[Smurrf]

checking the disc now...brb

[Smurrf]

Okay...disc has been checked, it's only a user's manual, with a link to download the driver for Vista users only. And nothing in the user's manual shows any information about updating the driver.

FYI, I'm also going through ATI's support...hopefully they'll be able to tell me why their own equipment is malfunctioning.

[Smurrf]

Alrighty...here's the update.

After much cussing and swearing, i finally got ATI Control Center to recognize both monitors.

Selecting horizontal stretch across both monitors, however, does not seem to be the solution.

A) Two different size monitors (coupled with one widescreen and one regular) make for very odd stretching.

B) In game, FPS still sat around 12-15 while running two players around IF.

I'm going to continue fiddling with it, see if I can't make it at least more tolerable.

[Smurrf]

Reverted back to original settings, since it made my mind explode less...I'm thinking I just need either a better video card, more ram, or both. Damn this whole needing money thing...


Anyways, thanks for the help. I do appreciate it =D

[Wilbur]

Its because your computer is fairly old, more likely than not.

[Vos]

best bang for the buck upgrade option would be your video card, it's also the weakest part of your current system.

What resolution are you running in? the drops you are describing could be attributed to the switch from the 17 to the 19