sluggish gui and unusual behaviour in games

Matfinn

can anyone here help me with a small problem im having with my computer ? basically whenever i launch a game ( any game ) the mouse cursor behaves strangely as if its slipping all over the place on ice across the screen. in game when im playing games, the character moves unusually, like he keeps moving after i have stopped pressing the walk key, and his gun is pointing all over the place.

the computer also hangs at random intervals and then most of the time its ok again, but the windows gui can become sluggish.

i have updated all my drivers for this computer and i have the latest version of direct x (9.0c ).

i havent added any new hardware either or installed any new software. infact i recently put a new modem into the computer and i got hit with the blaster worm, trying to shutdown my computer within 60 seconds, but i got the fix and patch for it.

i have the following

amd athlon xp 2800+
512 mb ddr400
nvidia geforce 5200 128mb ddr
nforce 2 motherboard abit nf7-s 2.0
windows xp professional xp service pack one

any ideas guys ? thanks

aidan_walsh

It may sound obvious but did you remember to disable your anti-virus program before you started playing? Having it check all the files before loading them puts a hit on the game performance...

Matfinn

i dont have any anti virus software installed

annyone know any good software on that note for free ?

Champ

Well some basics:
Do you notice any harddrive activity? (when you think it should be quiet)

Does the task manager indicate anything overly eating into CPU time?

I presume you've got the other critical updates; apart from the ones included in SP1? (i would hold off SP2 myself for now)

As for your antivirus:
http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_index.php

Col_Loki

Your system spec looks pretty good TBH. Mabye a stuck key on the keyboard? Mouse messing up? Have you tried changing the mouse / keyb settings in the game options?

It wouldnt have to do with CPU/RAM/GFX/MOBO IMO ........