i have a intel core 2 duo t9300 2.50GHz with 3.00 GB of ram, and im running windows vista home premium. i have a NVIDIA quadro nvs 140m video card with 1399MB available graphics memory.

i was running the performance information and tools on vista, and my lowest score is with my desktop performance for windows aero(graphics) score, wihch is at 4.1.  if my gaming graphics score is 4.8, can anybody explain why my graphics score for running the operating SYSTEM is so low? 

is there a way to improve this score without shutting off aero?  i am hypothesizing i might need to tweak a setting with my video card to boost this up a notch.The score itself isn't really all that important... the important THING is "Does your computer run properly?"

If it isn't broken, don't try to fix it.Cooling is a factor here. If you have a very good graphics card but it's overheated, it will run worse than an old graphics card.
Also, if you have many running background processes, this will slow down the game performance whether or not you have a good graphics card or not.thank you both for your replies!

my brother always tells me not to screw with the settings.. if its running fine, i DEFINITELY shouldnt mess with it.  i still do though, and thats why i always get myself into trouble!

in response to quaxo, i downloaded this program called 'vista optimizer'.  its not the greatest program in the world, and i only had it for a few hours before i ended up restoring my computer to its original settings, but it had some compelling features that i had no idea were even POSSIBLE.

one setting allowed my computer to run my full l2 cache to capacity, because vista defaults to a lower setting.  im not the most computer savviest, but i definitely bumped this up to the max for my system. 

i dont know if the performance test tests this setting, but if i spent all this money on my computer and im not getting the maximum performance, i would do anything to max things out (without breaking anything of course)

while the scores arent that important, would you say that the graphics capabilities of my hardware are maximized to its fullest potential? 

in response to carbon dudeoxide; i purchsaed my computer from the lenovo website, and configured it based on what things i could afford/would like on my computer.  are there such instances where computer manufacturers provide options for computers knowing that there may be possible heat issues?

i also used windows defender (thank you vista! =P ) to put hamper some of my background processes, and i don't think that that has an effect on my vista aero score.


thanks again for all of your replies!  i want to maximize the potential of my machine, and i think i have done that so far.  what kills me is that lenovo offers a computer maximization service, as if to say, it can only max out its capabilities if somebody with know how needed to do it!