You confused me by posting this in the SH4 forum. In your first post, you didn't even mention SH3. Maybe you will get the help you need in that forum.
-Pv-

If it's the lights that are giving you trouble, I'd say it's purely because of GFX hardware or drivers. Could try different driver packs, maybe third party (Omega, DNA, etc).

Played SH3 with a AMD Duron (:cry:) @2Ghz in the past. When running the game, CPU usage was always at 100%. An Athlon or P4 @2Ghz should be enough though.

1GB RAM should be enough for SH3, unless you're running Vista... :roll:

I run SH4 on my laptop. Turion TL-60, 3GB DDR2 RAM, GF 8600M GS with it's own memory of 512MB.

And in the native resolution of the laptop (1440x900) I have to turn some of the eye candy off like volumetric fog, post-proc filtering etc to attain acceptable FPS levels (+25 fps). When I turn down the resolution to 1280x800 I can have all the others on except the volumetric fog which seems to be a complete FPS killer for Geforce cards.

Compared to SH3, SH4 needs a whole lotta more horsepower. I'd suggest a new(er) motherboard. I've banged my head on frustration so many times because I've had my old desktop machine bottlenecked by a crappy cheap ass mobo. Buying a good quality mobo WILL save you from a lot of flak and hair tearing in the future. After that I'd get a good graphics card if you have 2GB of RAM. If not upgrade the RAM 1st.

1. I would like to talk to you about your system since it appears ours are at somewhat similar.

2.How do you check CPU usage while you are running the game? How can I check the overall processor usage (both processors) on an Intel Xeon E3110 Wolfdale 3.0GHz dual core processor. Is there a real time utility that can show me what's going on? I am unhappy with the game performance and feel I should be able to max out everything and cruise. My system: DFI lANPARTY P35 T2RS MB with an Intel Xeon E3110 CPU@3GHz
( FSB 1333MHz), 2 gigs Corsair XMS2 DDR2SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400), DIAMOND Viper Radeon HD 3850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 (Built-in HDMI with Multi-channel 5.1 surround audio) the onboard sound could be a drag on my system(?), 2 sata HDs 10,000rpm, and 7200rpm and a Corsair 650W PSU. I feel SH4 should ROCK on this system! I've read reviews on newegg where people are saying that this card runs Crysis maxxed out and my understanding is that game is very graphics intensive. I built this system after researching the components with this game in mind(while trying to balance performance and cost. I spent $7-800 on this system). For what it's worth, I scored 8647 on 3DMark06. Maybe there are some tweaks that would help, maybe I'm just a whinin' boy. I see maerean_m runs this video card? If you are out there I would like to talk to you or anyone else who has this card. I'm crying in my beer here and I don't want to turn down the settings but right now they are. If I go over 4000 in TC my FPS drops until at max TC I'm getting 9-10 FPS.The mouse is not responsive like it should be kinda floaty, on ice or sludgy or however you want to describe it. I can get hesitation upon clicking buttons or even outright insubordination and refusal to do anything!!(court martial that button for silent contempt.) I'm running SH4 v.1.4 with only minor mods. I have volumetric fog, environmental effects and vertical sync not checked. my sliders are maxxed except for gamma, and the 2 terrain sliders. 1024x768 resolution 60hz. Long post, my problem if anyone wants to weigh in I appreciate the effort. Thanks

My FSB is 400 as well. I can not change it. It reboots the computer. However, I was able to flash my BIOS with a modded BIOS. I can now do a number of things. Mostly, optimizing my CPU and opening the video card appeture to 256mb. The vid card is 256MB. Anything lower and I get artifacts. Windows should detect a dual channel on you RAM if I'm not mistaken. I have DDR 400 for my 400 FSB motherboard. I also run the AGP set up on the vid card. System is old but I get 25+ FPS in SH4 with all the mod goodies. BTW, I have a 7800GS Nvidia card.