choppyness/crashing due to bad GFX card or just bugs?

[Indo]

while playing Command and Conquer Generals (expansion pack and no expansion pack), often times when a big combat scence is going down the game will become choppy and slow. is this because my graphics card isn't very powerful? no way it has to do with the processor and RAM, does it?

i've applied the update to Zero Hour.

sometimes i find a particular save game file will crash the game when loaded in command and conquer (both versions). that save game file is pretty much no longer usable. does this happen to anyone else? this hasn't happened for a while, and i think some update must have fixed this, but randomly during a generals game it will crash.

some other RTS games like Clone Wars crash randomly for no reason, happening after opening up the itself game or starting an actual game.

TIA

note my graphics card is a ATi 9600 with 64MB of VRAM. i plan to upgrade the graphics card soon to an ATi 9800 Pro SE (sort of OT but anyone think i should get an X800 XT over a 9800 Pro SE and why).

-Indo

 

[Benjamin]

Zero Hour is a resource intense game since I believe that RTS logic is that a new unit becomes a new item to track aka more resources needed. Your gfx card probably can't handle those battles even if the card is above the "getting by" specs. You could try to turn down the graphic detail, I know not everyone wants to do that but having less particles and textures to deal with should in theory create a smoother game. Your new gfx should help a lot imo since you have enough ram and a 1.8Ghz cpu should be alright (zero hour i doubt takes account of your dual).