Stuttoring after playing for a while

Hey everyone, I'm enjoying GW a lot, but unfortunately I'm having a very odd issue.. First of all, here are my specs:

Pentium 4 3.0e
1GHz PC3200
Radeon 8500 64mb

My Radeon 9800 Pro died 2 weeks ago, its in for repairs Anyway, the problem only happens in certain situations(I think). Namely I've had it start up after having some kind of particles on screen, or portals. The game gets really choppy, if I scroll around my character I can really see it stuttoring.

I've been messing around with some pvp characters and noticed this doesn't seem to kick in in that area.. It very well could be my card overheating, or something similar. I've updated my drivers, scanned for viruses and spyware and defragged. I changed my AGP aperture size to 64 to see what would happen, and for a while it didn't happen. But eventually it started up again.

Its strange, I play other games with no problems. World of Warcraft(don't hate me), Counter-Strike: Source and other similar games. I ran Everest and noticed this "DirectX Hardware Support DirectX v8.1" So I wonder if that has something to do with it..

The fact that it starts to happen over time really makes me think its an overheating issue, but if anyone has any suggestions I'd be quite happy to try them out. Thanks!

P.S. I forgot to mention, if I alt tab out of the game the problem seems to go away for a while.

Your CPU looks great, but you're right about possible graphics card problems.

Have you had this trouble anywhere but GW? If it's specific to GW, then I'd say there may be some inconsistencies with the 8600. Possibly a driver upgrade could help, but I've also heard tell the GW is as compatible as some game are...

Nope, haven't had it happen anywhere else. I upgraded to a new catalyst driver yesterday, still no good

Sounds like something to ask customer service about.

If GW just isn't 100% slick with the 8600 series, they could let you know. Then, if they say it should be okay, start playing with settings to figure out the issue.

Besides, once that 9800 comes back you'll have zero problems, so maybe you should just bear with it for a week or two.

Youare not alone in this "stutter" problem

8500 is DX 8.1 only. That's probably the issue.

I find it odd that they specifically mention the 8500 in the system requirements. Oh well, the waiting game begins.