Bro, please try playing the games @ "Highest" and "Lowest" setting with Windows DreamScene turned off and Windows Basic theme activated (don't use Aero). I'll probably be going to sleep soon so I'll reply you tomorrow. Best if you PM me your answer and I'll answer tomorrow morning or ASAP.

I had a problem similar same problem, average of 12 fps on COD4 and 28+ for far cry2, both tested at high and low setting.

However, Dead Space, fallout 3, left 4 dead, Optimal Setting smooth to the max. Just recently bought this rig when study aboard..

The only solution i came up with is, don play COD4 n farcry 2 .

Well, at least you can live with that solution but I doubt TS and I can live with that solution.

Well, sometime u just have to let it go... far cry 2 isn't that good btw, so i can live with that... but cod4, it a good multiplayer game.. miss it alot.. but just have to live with the fact.

Don't forget, TS paid a lot for his graphics card. Why should he pay for something that should work and end-up not being able to enjoy it?

driver problem???

btw, Aero will disable itself when u launch a full screen program...

Can't be driver problem as the TS has mentioned numerous amounts of times that he has updated graphics card driver. Thanks for telling me that Aero will disable itself. Honestly speaking, I never knew that.

No it's not. At least not for me.

Guys, I'm quite confuse now. Does Aero disable itself when a full-screen program is launched? Hey "Astria", did you get Aero mixed up with "Windows DreamScene" because as far as I know, "Windows Dreamscene" disables itself on my PC in Vista when I launch full-screen programs.

no i did not...

everytime when i launch a game, i would see Aero switch to Basic first...

and when i alt-tab out, i would see Basic as well, need to wait a while before it switches to Aero...

Windows dreamscene will pauses for me, but not Aero glass. It still turned on while I run fullscreen program. How did I know? Vista take some times (around 2-5 seconds) to switch from Aero glass to Aero basic, but ALT+TAB from game to desktop is less than 1 second...

Hmm, I don't know why but I never see my theme changing, same goes for "FarCry3r" (He also never experience themes changing).

Me too, Windows DreamScene will pause for me.

Maybe it all depends on the graphic hardware itself.

haha, maybe it's becuz i ve lousy hardware...

Can't be just because of lousy hardware. I've got a "testing" rig with:
Intel P4 3.0GHz, 2 X 2GB KVR DDR1, 2X 320GB HDD, ASUS P4P800 Deluxe, ASUS nVidia GeForce FX5600XT 256MB. That's what I call lousy hardware compared to my gaming rig but it still doesn't automatically switch my Aero interface to Basic interface.

Then what did caused Vista to switch over from glass to basic?

or maybe did u update ur drivers.... nvidia launched forceware 180.** so dat driver pretty boosts up my gpu

Most of us have updated drivers.

i encounter before lagging when gaming on vista.
if play FPS game like CoD, Fallout3, it will lag if i press certain button for a long time. (in this case "w" button to move forward)
then after look at keyboard character repeat rate, it was set to slow. then i set it to fast and problem solved

Very good advice, I learnt a new trick for you.
PS: I'm not being sarcastic.