Strange stutterings in games

Lo all

Ive got a constant stutter in like 60-70% of the games I tried- its not a RAM loading data stutter nor cpu bound, and the fps is good and steady.
Its like there's a gap in the frames, as if the gpu is skipping some.
It only shows on objects within the frame and not the background or mid-far objects. Its specially noticable when I strafe near objects or move towards em.

Games it shows: Oblivion, HL2:2, M:TW, Prey and prolly more I cant remeber right now.
Stutter free games: CoJ (maybe cos of the image tearing- no vsync in this game, RO (sometime it does, but maybe its a net lag).

The worst is in Oblivion- I tried tweaking the game to no avail. Tried to lower the settings- tex size, res, turning off HDR, shadows , in short everything- and nada.

Also tried- defraging, Dual core optimiser and MS hotfix, every driver available clean installing it with drivercleaner.pro, my brother's LCD monitor, spyware-adware-virus cleaning...and thats all I can remember right now.

I dont know what to do, this is the third forum Im subscibing to just to try to get it fixed- it really drives me nuts, it's a brand new rig.

Plz help.

sys spec:
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 4200+
GPU: LEADTEK PCI-E PX 8800GTS 320M
RAM: Corsair DDR2 2GB 533MHz
MOBO: ASUS M2N F-Nforce 570 ultra 6 X sat
HDD: Western Digital 24/7 raid edition 3
SC: Nvidia N-Force 8 Channel
PSU: ZM600-HP

XP: SP2
current driver- 158.22

As a hunch have a look at your paging file settings in my computer properties. See if its windows managed or user managed? Turn the paging file off, then reset it as windows managed. Try playing and see if you notice an improvement. Then try turning the paging file off the resetting to to a custom size, even try setting it as the maximum size. See if that makes anymore of a distance and try a reboot. Having a larger paging file will increase performance but affect initial system boot times a bit.

The only other things i can think of is a bottleneck, which doesnt look like its the case with your specs or possibly a hardware problem.

Try checking for a ram error with memtest (type in to google and burn the image to a disc, leave running for 4 hours to check all your 2gb of ram). That should come back with no errors at all and a few passes. Only other hardware problem it could be is a faulty gpu (perhaps the memory chips on it) or the psu not kicking out enough juice on one of the rails. You could try a different gpu card and testing the psu with a psu tester.

chip set drivers installed? how much stuff is getting loaded? have you done a clean boot and seen how the games do?

Mem test shows the ram is fine.
different settings of page file- no improvement.
Clean boot-ram usage got down to 120-130M but no improvement.

An expert friend did a fresh install of windows with all the latest drivers installed in an orderly fashion and by the book- nothin'.

Maybe Ill try Vista but I dont see how that would help.
How do I test the PSU? Is there a freeware for it?

Thnx for the input, guys, it is much appreciated.

There is one tweak Im desperate to try before I use an extreme measure such as returning the card, but I cant seem to make it work.
Im talking about the max frames to render ahead twak as described here: http://www.tweakguides.com/Oblivion_13.html

I followed the instructions step by step but no matter what, I dont get the option listed in the control panel.
Any ideas?

Yeah, I had the same problems in Oblivion until I got a 10k RPM hard drive. :p

Thnx Liquid- this is very helpful in trying to diagnose the culprit. :)
Did you get it in other games too before the buy?
How do I find how fast is my current HD? (Directly from my sys, not from manufactur site)

Most likely you have a 7200RPM drive. I think the only 10k RPM drives that WD makes is the Raptor series.

And yes, I had the stutterings in other games too. I'm not saying YOUR problem is the hard drive but I know once I upgraded mine it went from stuttering every few seconds to smooth gameplay. Not sure if it was a coincedence or anything, but who knows.

Well, everything could be, maybe your new HD is covering for another hardware where the problem resides.
Nevertheless, your case shows me a direction to investigate, so thnx again for your postings.