Why isn't this game running smoothly?

Hi, the problem is that this game I have: Juiced 2, keeps loading and lagging everytime in-game. It lags becasue it loads, so lag is dependent on the loading of the game. In the game menu, no lag or load, but when actually racing in the game, yeah, it loads so much that it feels like your PC is too weak to be able to play this game.

My specs are:
OS - XP (64-bit and/or 32-bit, I tried both...)
RAM - 4GB
GPU - Asus ENGTS250
CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo E6300
HDD - 500GB

...anything else that I miss out that may help you to answer this question?

I am quite sure it meets and slightly exceeds the minimum requirements for the game. But why, the load and lag in-game? Do I really need a buffed up gaming PC to play this, like on my friends PC who has these stats:

OS - 7 U 64-bit
RAM - 12GB
GPU - GTX 275
CPU - Intel Core i7 Extreme

?

RAM and GPU should be good enough to handle the game quite well.
I'M no expert, but I think the CPU slows it down.

I suggest you..
.. install the newest Juiced 2 patch if you haven't already (quick googling tells me it includes a fix for RAM problems).
.. try to reduce the game graphic settings. Reducing the screen resolution might help.
.. update your GPU drivers.

That's pretty standard suggestions, but in most cases there isn't much else you can do apart from buying new components.

open up task manager, run the game, then pause and minimize and go to task manager - look and see your CPU usage history and your ram usage history, if either is consistently above 80-90%, consider upgrading them - also look for other tasks besides the game that are using large amounts of cpu/memory (don't stop them from running yet - find out what they are first!)

thanks for the replies...

I've updated my GPU drivers and already got all my graphics settings at minimum as possible inculing resolution size how ever I wasn't sure about the post processing thingy at the bottom...picture is in the attachment to explain....and I can't find an official patch for Juiced 2 HIN by THQ unless they already have discontinued support for it...

CPU usage is not very defined, as it has a lot of jumping downs and ups. For example; for a few seconds it was around 50 - 80% usage, then dropped down to about 0% for about 1 second and then up to 100% for about another few seconds and then repeats the process at about the same timing as before. I did trial this about 4 times and the reading is not quite constant. Sometimes it's just bouncing around the 60 - 80% mark and others it isn't and can start from 100% and down to 0% the next and keeps going. But I guess my overal average estimation is probably above 50% and maybe no more than 90%... Oh and RAM usuage is no more than 1.26 GB overall...

Still, after doing doing all of that, there was no improvments, but rather slightly more loading than usual...hmmm, perhaps this was because I update my GPU drivers to the latest....

Updating drivers should usually not degrade performance :3
Set post processing to minimum. It's probably things like motion blur and other stuff.

s3rius said:

Updating drivers should usually not degrade performance :3

Click to expand...

Shouldn't it? That's interesting...

s3rius said:

Set post processing to minimum. It's probably things like motion blur and other stuff.

Click to expand...

Okay, I slide the slider to minimum and I still feel the load and lag after... Looks like this computer isn't built to run this game smoothly...

Anymore other suggestions?

no? does this mean I get a new system? or just upgrade something?

You probably have a bottleneck somewhere. Considering you experience it while loading, chances are it is your CPU or your HD/RAM. If you have a swap file, try to deactivate it. That might not change anything at all, or might be the core of the problem. Maybe you have another program that blocks execution of your game. Since your initial post is rather cryptic I can't say more.

...a bottleneck somewhere??? where, where??? Paging file is completely disabled and just running from pure RAM... My AV and malware programs might block execution of some codes...but they'd tell me this, right?

What do you mean my initial post was cryptic?

Just to come back on this, I found out what was causing the issue(and the lag was more like full on microstutter, something like this youtube video I posted up) - apparently it didn't like the onboard Intel sound chip at full acceleration, so turned that off and game runs silky smooth, or smooth at least.