Halo 2 and the new Microsoft LIVE which killed it?

[MakerOfGames]

I am very upset with Microsoft now. I recently reinstalled my copy of Halo 2 and my computer cannot play it like it used to. I used to play high detail with full screen highest resolution(1440x900) no lag. Now, low detail, 800x600 with slight lag, anything higher is unplayable. The only thing to have changed since the last time I played, was I added 2 GB of memory to my pc(4GB total). So why is it that my pc(Core 2 Duo 2.13GHz, 4GB of RAM, 256MB GDDR3 Geforce 8600GT OC(company overclocked) with latest stable driver) lags with any video setting above low detail, with 800x600 screen resolution?!!!! It seems the new live update killed Halo 2 on my machine! It used to run at max settings a year ago, before the update and an added 2GB of RAM. How is it possible that M$ could completely destroy a game's rendering speed with a networking service update?

Has anyone else had this experience with Games For Windows titles?

[Matte]

One thing: even if you love Halo, don't use Games for Windows Live.
Not that that's gonna help you, but it's my opinion.

[Agentarrow]

The problem occured with Halo 2 and Crysis. Not sure of any other problems with it. I've taken to playing more Need For Speed anyway

[Allanon]

Adding memory to your computer can slow it down, watch this Tekzilla video at time position 14:15.

http://revision3.com/tekzilla/badram/

[MakerOfGames]

Thanks for the link. I have a 64bit system and the strange thing is that I have 4 exact pairs of the same ram. Possibly a bios update may help. Either way, I haven't had any other RAM issues, only problem with my PC(other than that it runs Windows ) is that Halo 2 runs slow. I have had no issues with Counter Strike: Source, Day of Defeat:Source, HL2, Hl2:Deathmatch, Team Fortress 2, and even the Crysis Single Player Demo. Boot time is normal and Vista takes use of 1700MB of RAM with the extra 2GB instead of 900MB it used before the extra RAM. Well, I got my $50 dollars worth of multiplayer out of it so I think I will retire the game and let it reside in my computer desk drawer as part of my game collection.