Mafia II and GTA IV like games lags on my brand new PC

[Phobical]

Hi everybody!
I need help.
I have a brand new Acer Aspire and the problem is:
When I'm playing games like Mafia II or GTA IV i get something like 17-20FPS on lowest settings!
On highest the games are unplayable because of lag.
I have tested my PC with this benchmark: Can You RUN It | Can I run that game | Game system requirements and it says my PC meets RECOMMENDED requirements of both Mafia II and GTA IV
What's the problem?? Please help. My e-mail is: [email protected]
PC specs: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-2120 CPU @ 3.30GHz
4.1 GB RAM
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Edition Service Pack 1 (build 7601), 64-bit
AMD Radeon HD 7350
AMD High Definition Audio Device
500 GB Hard Drive

(sorry about my English)

 

[xant420]

Hi!
Unfortunately Laptops are not the best things for running those 2 games, both run on the same engine for starters.. I would Patch them both up to latest version and update all your drivers too! and run them at a lower resolution, i run both of them at 1280*1024 and still they lag a little in some places!
good luck with running the resource hogs!
Antz

 

[Phobical]

Hi!
Unfortunately Laptops are not the best things for running those 2 games, both run on the same engine for starters.. I would Patch them both up to latest version and update all your drivers too! and run them at a lower resolution, i run both of them at 1280*1024 and still they lag a little in some places!
good luck with running the resource hogs!
Antz

My PC is not a laptop and it's up to date with the drivers. The resolution I'm using is 1280x800. Anyway thanks for the reply.

 

[xant420]

Are the games patched up to the latest version? and what settings have you set the graphics to? shadows and water take a lot of resources.
Antz

 

[Phobical]

Are the games patched up to the latest version? and what settings have you set the graphics to? shadows and water take a lot of resources.
Antz

As I wrote in the first post I run the games at minimum settings and have something like 17-20 FPS. At maximum the games are unplayable. It's strange cause i have Burnout Paradise installed also and it runs completely smooth on max settings and resolution. All games are patched. WTF Microsoft? My goddamn PC is brand new! I didn't bought it to have lag and poor graphics!

 

[xant420]

GTA 4 is a lagger at best of times, and your gfx card aint that great. i get good frame rate on my ati 5670..check my sys specs

 

[Phobical]

GTA 4 is a lagger at best of times, and your gfx card aint that great. i get good frame rate on my ati 5670..check my sys specs

Your ati has the same amount of memory as my amd. And its above RECOMMENDED requirements of Mafia and gta so its kinda strange that these games lag even on 640x480 don't you think? Im afraid you cant help me...

 

[xant420]

No i cant help you, your card might be "up to spec" memory wise, its a gimmick, your card is meant for home theatre peecee's, not games like GTA 4, mafia 2 rthat are High demand games.. doesn't take a genius. look up the bandwith of your card etc.. i bet its pretty low.
Antz

Gpu-z is a great prog for looking up the specs of your video card!

 

[xant420]

For example my CORE clock speed is 800mhz while my MEMORY clock is 775Mhz, with a bandwith of 128 BIT. alot of factors come into play not just memory size, your card might have the RAM but it doesnt have the raw GRUNT.
Antz

 

[Phobical]

No i cant help you, your card might be "up to spec" memory wise, its a gimmick, your card is meant for home theatre peecee's, not games like GTA 4, mafia 2 rthat are High demand games.. doesn't take a genius. look up the bandwith of your card etc.. i bet its pretty low.
Antz

I think its more like OS issue cause other high demand games work great (Doom 3, Burnout Paradise, newest nfs, sims 3 - I played all of those) Check out spec of my card in google. (Cant tell it right now cause Im writing with my phone) It REALLY meets the requirements.

 

[xant420]

It's not an OS issue. the issue is you are using a low spec home theater card for high demand games IE GTA 4 and mafia 2 (both RAGE game engine btw) the games you listed are low demand by todays standards so of course they will run.

 

[xant420]

Did some lite research: your card clock @ 650MHZ mem clock 400/800 mhz and bandwith 64Bit. not meant for high demand gaming. will run modern games but not well.

 

[M1GU31]

Doom 3 and burnout is not that demanding and is pretty low spec game,your card is kind of slow for gta iv and mafia 2 . Then gta iv is very cpu intensive also and you only have a duo core and gta iv needs a quad at to run at good frame rates. Also keep in mind that gta iv is a bad optimized port and that stuff like physx will slow you down in mafia 2


Your 7350 compares to a 6350 in terms of power and performance which is prety low end and is designed as a video card for home theater and not gaming. Expect lag in new games, sorry to say but you need a stronger video card. That one is not for gaming and doesn't matter if your card has even 4gbs of ram on it,a stronger card with 1gb of ram would beat that card. Don't believe me take a read here Radeon HD 7350 1GB DDR2 PC Gaming Graphics Card Hardware For Game System Requirements

You just need to upgrade the video card,only thing really holding you back the most. Keep in mind that that card should only be able to do light gaming,is not meant for more graphic intensive games. Also that site is not very reliable,back in the day when i had my Pentium 4 with integrated intel graphics it said i could max gta sa but it could only run ok on all settings off or on low and 800x600. I wouldn't trust that site what so ever.

 

[Phobical]

Doom 3 and burnout is not that demanding and is pretty low spec game,your card is kind of slow for gta iv and mafia 2 . Then gta iv is very cpu intensive also and you only have a duo core and gta iv needs a quad at to run at good frame rates. Also keep in mind that gta iv is a bad optimized port and that stuff like physx will slow you down in mafia 2


Your 7350 compares to a 6350 in terms of power and performance which is prety low end and is designed as a video card for home theater and not gaming. Expect lag in new games, sorry to say but you need a stronger video card. That one is not for gaming and doesn't matter if your card has even 4gbs of ram on it,a stronger card with 1gb of ram would beat that card. Don't believe me take a read here Radeon HD 7350 1GB DDR2 PC Gaming Graphics Card Hardware For Game System Requirements

You just need to upgrade the video card,only thing really holding you back the most. Keep in mind that that card should only be able to do light gaming,is not meant for more graphic intensive games. Also that site is not very reliable,back in the day when i had my Pentium 4 with integrated intel graphics it said i could max gta sa but it could only run ok on all settings off or on low and 800x600. I wouldn't trust that site what so ever.

At last someone who's trying to help! Not just criticise my hardware.
So it means that benchmarks are useless... Hmmm. Ok.
I must stick with older games i guess... Damn it!
My PC was the strongest one in the local computer shop in my town.
So i guess i've been tricked... When i was buying it i thought it will kick ass.
Whatever... Thank you both for making me realise all that.
BTW. Here's a screenshot of the benchmark results. (Mafia II)

 

[M1GU31]

Yeah, anyways when ever you can just change the card to like to a 550ti or 6850 or anything higher,those two cards i mentioned should be able to play games ok at 1440resloution. The rest of your specs are fine. Just the video card. Same thing happen with me back in the day,i had a 5450 but my other specs were pretty good,i changed it to a 6870 and changed the power supply and i got no issues now.

 

[xant420]

No you just didn't want my help because i'm a new member. at no time did i crit you or your hardware, just stated the obvious, maybe you should learn a bit more about computers before your next buy? (now that's a criticism)
Antz

 

[Chalky Emultion]

GTA IV to work decently needs a quad core CPU and a mid-range GPU... A Core i3 could be fine for it beacuse it's a good dual core processor, but an AMD Radeon HD 7350 is a basic GPU, not really nice to run games...

My suggestion is to upgrade your GPU to a mid-range one (or to an high-end one, but a too powerful GPU will be "bottlenecked" by your CPU). A GeForce GTS 450 super OC edition/GTX 550 Ti/GTX 650/Radeon HD 5850/6770/7770 are good examples... If you tell me your budget, i can help you to choose a new GPU for you.