Ok, here's the deal, before I started frequently updating my windows and my norton antivirus, I could play games and videos fine, no hitches or anthing whatsoever. But either because of the all the background programs running (which I've turned off before using msconfig and tested my games and videos and the problem still crops up) or because of something I haven't thought of, my games and my videos even (some off of cd, some on hardisk) just don't run smoothly. The motion clips, and the music and voices jump. The computer complains about a lack of virtual memory from time to time as well. I tried bumping up the minimum for the virtual memory as well to up to 2 times my ram size, and still nothing. I could run some more tests if someone figures something out. Thanks for your time and here are my specs if you need them.
Pentium IV
1.6 Ghz
256 RAM
16 MB ATI Radeon 7500 (I'm pretty sure its 16 MB, definetly sure its a 7500)
SoundMax card i think

(I don't think my specs mean much though because I had the same specs before and my games ran fine then, I think its a software problem, but I don't know what it is)

I`ll try to help you but does your comp specs meet the minimal requirements of the game? (Its always better to have more than the minimal). Are you running a lot of programs in the background hogging up the memory? Do you have the correct DirectX version? I think the latest is like 9.1 or something. And i strongly suggest you upgrade that video card to atleast 64.

My computer does meet the specs for the games, and my games and movies did run before, like 6 months prior. But now, I'm not sure why, they get clipped and the sound gets broken up. I know for sure there are background programs running because I have windows xp pro running, and just so nobody complains, I'll do another test run -I'll shut down the background programs I don't need and try out my games and movies. Thanks for the input and I'll appreciate anyone else's help if they can give it.

Sirnightw,

Use Ctrl-Alt-Del to start Task Manager. Go to the Performance tab and you'll see a graph and figures for processor usage (as a percentage ... up to 100% meaning the processor is flat out) and for memory usage (measured in kilobytes and expressed as total physical memory and total memory in use).

Do this as soon as Windows loads up and see how much memory it's using compared to the 256Mb (262,000Kb) that is installed. When it runs out of physical memory (RAM), it will use virtual memory, a temporary cache on the hard disk. You've increased the minimum so it is very unlikely that there isn't enough virtual memory but the problem with it is that it's much slower. When you get an error saying there isn't enough virtual memory, that's often not the case.

Anyway, I'm starting to ramble. Run Task Manager and note the CPU and memory figures (don't close down any background apps, just run it as it would normally run). Bit by bit, start loading up more apps and see how the performance figures are affected. Load up as much as you normally would and try to re-create the problem. When it all gets a bit jumpy, note the performance figures again.

You could compare the performance to what you had 6 months ago but, if you want to get back to that state, you can't remove all the Windows Updates and things that slow you down a bit so you'd have to format and re-install. My gut feeling is that it's time for more RAM.

Let us know your Task Manager findings and we'll give you a hand diagnosing it.

Sorry for the delay peeps, here's what you've all been waiting for:
I didn't know what you wanted to I copied down mostly everything that seemed important.

Looking under system->advanced->virtual memory

Paging file for all systems is at 384MB

(I heard that this should be set at 1.5 times the RAM in the comp
so I guess this is a tad high)

----------------------------------------------------
At startup:
Available: 8874K
System cache 12840K

Processes 36
Pf usage: 125 MB
Cpu usage between 4-14%
-----------------------------------------------------------
With a small download (6 MB at 56K)
internet explorer open
america online up
and wordpad
out of my 261040K
93024K available
system cache 130052K

processes 38
the cpu usage jumps between 6-20%
pf usage: 139MB
-----------------------------------------------------------------
With an emulator running (meaning the only program I turned on):
Available: 87060K
System cache 129492K

Processes 39
Pf usage: 176 MB
Cpu usage 100%
Commit charge: 142304K/641300K
------------------------------------------------------------------
With a 3- year old game running

Available: 20800K
System cache: 24612K

Commit charge:
Total: 297500K
Limit: 641300K
Peak: 298360K

Processes: 38
Cpu usage: 100%
Pf usage: 291 MB

Here you go, thanks in advance and I appreciate the help.