FormerHuman: No joy I'm afraid - I should have added, I'm using the same GPU as before my upgrade, which is an Nvidia 1060, and I didn't have these issues before - I don't think it's a renderer issue. This is why I'm thinking it's more CPU than anything else, as it's the main thing that has changed.
CharlesGrey: Off-topic, but how do you like your GTX 1060? Satisfied with the performance ( on modern games )? I don't really need an upgrade just yet, but I've been considering this particular GPU as a potential future replacement.
I've had it for several months, and I'm very happy with it, it made a big difference in pretty much everything. I only decided to upgrade the rest because I'm in a new job and can afford it now, and I'm increasingly finding support for Phenom CPU's is on the way out, so it seemed the time to get set up for the next (hopefully) several years.
FormerHuman: snip...
You're probably right that it's more Windows 10 than CPU. I'm also finding that Kodi crashes after starting playback, after a few seconds, as well, so something is amiss there (I also tried a previous version of that to no avail). Windows is apparently up to date, I've got the latest Nvidia drivers installed, and I've installed all the relevant motherboard drivers and the like as well. I am flummoxed!
BlackThorny: I'd say it's probably a Windows 10 issue, maybe in particular with regard to DirectX12 that don't act nice with most anything that predates (and includes) DirectX9 (that may be downloaded
hereand could fix your issues, worths a try).
The fact Intel gen-7 requires Windows 10 to operate properly makes me try to further that upgrade as long as possible (or at least until a working Windows 7 version will be hacked together to comply with gen-7).
You're going to have an increasingly hard time with new titles if you're choosing to stick to Windows 7. I can understand, I was a big fan of 7 and used it for years, but by and large my experience of 10 has been smoother and simpler. It's only this last week I've been having any particular issues with it.
It doesn't hurt that it takes considerably less time to install Windows 10 than it does any other version of Windows I've used in the past. I did two separate installs on two systems (put my old parts into a spare case, for my parents to use) last week and both were surprisingly simple affairs, even with the older gear only installing to an old 70 gig HDD. It's slower to boot than my SSD, but it runs fine.