Minor CPU Cycles Problem

[[Tarkus]]

I've been comparing something on my two systems, the one I use at the office and the one I have at home.

Office system:
Epox 8RDA+
XP 2100+
1G of PC2100 Ram
WD 40GB HD
CD-ROM and RW drives
Win 2K Pro w/ SP4

Home system
Soltek 75DRV5
XP 2400+
512M of PC2700 Ram
WD 40GB HD
CD-ROM and RW drives
Win 2k Pro w/ SP4

The problem is with a simple game: MS's Spider Solitaire. It deals the cards a bit slow on the home system. I have played the game with task manager's performance graph open to observe the CPU usage. On the office system, usage peaks at about 10% when the game is dealing cards. On the home system, usage peaks at around 50% when the game is dealing cards. Other than that the game runs fine. All other programs I have run on the home system work fine. Just this minor problem with Spider.

I figure there is something about the OS setup that is not quite right. The home system was running XP Home for the last year. Last week I dumped it in favor of 2K Pro. Spider did not have this problem when it was running XP Home.

Suggestion anyone?

[N715DP]

My guess is that it has to do with the DirectX support in W2K... which is horrible. While it may not seem like it, dealing cards in Spider (or the end of a solitare hand) is pretty graphic-stressing (not in terms of todays games, just in general). I doubt there is anything wrong with your system as I have seen the same thing happen after winning a hand of solitare on Windows 2000. It's unfortunately one of those things you will have to live with if you want to stay with Windows 2000.

[[Tarkus]]

I understand what you're saying, but why does it work ok on my office pc and not so good on my home pc? Both are running Win 2K and Dx9. It's not that big of a deal, I can live with it. It's just that little things like this bug me.

[Elroy]

Have you updated to your latest video driver on your home PC?

What graphic card do you have at home?

-El

[[Tarkus]]

Video Cards -

Home: Radeon 8500 - updated.

Office: GeForce4 MX440 - updated.

[N715DP]

Originally posted by Talyn on 02-09-2004 at 11:59 AM
I understand what you're saying, but why does it work ok on my office pc and not so good on my home pc? Both are running Win 2K and Dx9. It's not that big of a deal, I can live with it. It's just that little things like this bug me.

It could very well be the difference in video cards between the two. It's possible that the drivers are written for win2k a little better on one and not the other.