thebends,

Try this and report back the results.

* Click Start- Turn Off Computer- Restart
* When the DELL logo appears, press F2 immediately to enter the system setup program
* When the system setup program screen appears, highlight CPU Information or Processor Info [press the ENTER key]
* When the CPU Information or Processor Info screen appears, highlight Hyper-Threading or Multiple Core Capable and press the spacebar on the keyboard to select Disable
* Press ESC to save the changes and exit the screen
* Press ESC to Save and exit the system setup program
* When you see the message Save changes and exit now [press the ENTER key]
* Your computer will restart

Now, once back into Windows -
* Press the Windows + Pause/Break keys
* Click the Hardware tab and/or the Device Manager button
* In the Device Manager window, click the plus (+) sign next to the processor type. If Hyper-Threading or Multiple Core Capable is disabled, the processor is listed once

Try the game.

Thank you to you both for your input. Chris, I did exactly as you suggested; unfortunately, I did not notice any improvement in the game's performance (I confirmed in the Device Manager window that the CPU was in fact running on only one processor). Getting back to my original question, in the experience of either of you, should the x600 SE be sufficieint to run a video game like Madden 2006 (which only requires a 64MB video card)? Or the video card most likely the problem? Again, I am running a Pentium D 3.0 GHz with 2GB of RAM. Thanks.

You can also just set the game to run on a single CPU by using task manager while the game is running and uncheck one of the CPUs.

Assuming that was even the problem you're having (my guess is it's not, but you didn't list any other info).

99% of programs aren't going to care if there are multiple CPUs in the system.

It probably can-what kind of problem are you having? (And I'd turn your second CPU back on-don't want to lose out on all that extra performance!)

tigerwolf, Thanks for the reply. When you write "it probably can," do you mean that the X600 SE probably can run Madden 2006? Anyway, right now, the game seems to stutter, or slow down, as the players move up to the line before the snap. It's really very noticeable. In addition, the textures and player models don't seem that sharp; as I mentioned before, Madden 2004 looked much better on my old Dimension computer. Any ideas?

Yes, I am running the newest drivers from ATI and have dowloaded the latest patches for the game. However, I am running the game on 6x anti-aliasing. Without it, the graphics look extremely blurry. Do you think that this is what is causing the game to slow down?

Are you running the newest drivers from ATi.com? Is the game patched up? It looks like your system should meet the minimum requirements for Madden '06. Make sure you don't have anti aliasing on (and you didn't force it on in the drivers). You may have to lower the resolution and settings to get it to run well. Ie try it out at 800x600 and see how it runs, that sort of thing.

Wow. I had no idea. If you don't mind me asking one last question, what exactly is the purpose of the anti-aliasing feature on a video card, then? I thought it was too smooth out rough edges. Incidentally, I would assume that just turning the AA down from 6x to 4x or 2x would also improve performance, right?

YES! An x600 shouldn't be running anti-aliasing at all. (Well, personally I don't use AA anyway, but the x600 is nowhwere near powerful enough to be using it.)

Make sure that's switched off and then play around the settings until it looks as good as it can. I have no idea how well Madden runs, but just in general for that card on that game I'd guess the resolution would work somewhere between 800x600 to 1280x1024, with most settings around medium.

Anti aliasing shouldn't make graphics look less blurry. Resolution settings and texture quality settings would be most likely to effect that.

Yeah, anti aliasing basically just helps get rid of jagged edges. Personally I think it's near worthless on PC games as we're already running at such high resolutions, and it's always the last thing I'd turn on (if I have power left over from raising the resolution to as high as my monitor can allow, turning on special effects, etc.).

Lowering the AA setting would help too, but that card really wouldn't have the power to use AA at all in most modern games (it dosen't even have the power to run many modern games period). Plus if you force AA in the drivers, that can cause problems or worse performance with some games. Better to set it within the game if available.