Video Card / Power Supply Question

[Methais]

I'm about to upgrade my video card and am looking at getting a Radeon x1950 256 MB, which is supposedly the fastest AGP card on the market right now (no PCI-E on my motherboard).

I've read that it needs a pretty hefty power supply to run it, but nothing I've read has said just how many watts. My current power supply is 430w. Anyone happen to know how much I'd need for this video card? Thanks.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814131035

[Sean of the Thread]

430w should be fine however.. I suggest (and I will be doing the same) upgrading to a new pwning powersupply. It's cheap and easy.

Out of curiosity how much are you paying? I'm pretty sure the last I checked it wasn't the best card for the money. Two things to remember.. AGP automatically = expensive now and the other thing is the next tier of cards are coming out this Q1. If you can somehow manage to wait it out a month or even buy yourself something to get by on for a bit.......and THEN purchase whichever mack daddy you like when the new tier is released.. you'll come out on the better end IMO.

[Bobmuhthol]

You could get a Radeon X1650 512 MB.

[Sean of the Thread]

You could get a Radeon X1650 512 MB.

I would also advise against that for the reasons I just stated.. however for the money in comparison it would be a better choice.

[Methais]

430w should be fine however.. I suggest (and I will be doing the same) upgrading to a new pwning powersupply. It's cheap and easy.

Out of curiosity how much are you paying? I'm pretty sure the last I checked it wasn't the best card for the money. Two things to remember.. AGP automatically = expensive now and the other thing is the next tier of cards are coming out this Q1. If you can somehow manage to wait it out a month or even buy yourself something to get by on for a bit.......and THEN purchase whichever mack daddy you like when the new tier is released.. you'll come out on the better end IMO.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814131035

It's $240 on that site, but I did find it for $195 on another site, so I'll be buying it from there if I end up getting it.

And while yeah AGP = expensive, I'd have to get a new motherboard to be able to use PCI-E since mine doesn't support it, so I'm guessing I'd end up paying more in the longrun by doing that so I'll just stick with AGP for now. What are these new cards coming out expected to cost though, any idea?

I probably could wait another month or so for new cards to come out if it'd really be worth it, but I'm not looking to spend a ton of money on a video card either.

Mostly I just wanna be able to run WoW in at least 30 fps even in crowded areas or chaotic areas in raid dungeons with my video settings maxed. Right now I'm lucky to get 10 fps in those situations, usually around 5, and that's with my video settings turned all the way down.

[Bobmuhthol]

Jesus, you really should invest in a new motherboard. My card pulls pretty much the same specs, and it now costs $77 at Newegg. 256 MB, 256-bit, GDDR-3, clocks are a bit slower. I've got mine OC'd to 590 MHz core, 1200 MHz memory. Also by POWERCOLOR.

[Sean of the Thread]

Yeah that's where I was with my 9800 pro...started to suck but only recently really for some reason.

Perhaps I'd suggest buying from circuit city then for their price guarantee... if they price drops in the next 30 days or whatever they'll give you the difference. I'm expecting a drop in prices as soon as the 07 Q1 cards come out.

[Sean of the Thread]

Jesus, you really should invest in a new motherboard. My card pulls pretty much the same specs, and it now costs $77 at Newegg. 256 MB, 256-bit, core clock is slightly slower, but memory is faster. Also by POWERCOLOR.

New mobo isn't worth it yet for a lot of us (without e-machines). I plan on rebuilding in the next year however.

[Bobmuhthol]

Sucks that you paid too much, then, I guess.

[Makkah]

Just curious... how old is the 9800 Pro? Most of the (relatively) newer sold ones actually came with the XT chipset and can be flashed for a fairly modest boost...

[Sean of the Thread]

Just curious... how old is the 9800 Pro? Most of the (relatively) newer sold ones actually came with the XT chipset and can be flashed for a fairly modest boost...

At least 3 years old.. and it is really a kick ass card with lots of room to overclock for the age and money. I was a little rough on mine using it for video editing on sony vegas and constantly running dual monitors whilst in game. One time I alt tabbed from wow and it said fuck you... I clocked it down but it still won't run d3d apps.. it's now on a browser computer in the house.

[Sean of the Thread]

Sucks that you paid too much, then, I guess.

Wtf are you talking about kid?

[Bobmuhthol]

New mobo isn't worth it yet for a lot of us (without e-machines).
.

[Sean of the Thread]

.

Logically that means we paid too much for our boxes a couple years ago. You fail.


Emachine memory card =
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b236/Japgross/emachinemedia.jpg

[Bobmuhthol]

<<Logically that means we paid too much for our boxes a couple years ago.>>

And how did I ever allude to anything different? That's exactly my point.

[Sean of the Thread]

<<Logically that means we paid too much for our boxes a couple years ago.>>

And how did I ever allude to anything different? That's exactly my point.

Start taking SAT prep classes imo.

[Makkah]

Has anyone researched the benchmarks for the x1950 or x1650? I've been interested in upgrading lately too...

[Methais]

Well I just got the GeForce 7800, installed it and updated the drivers.

And my framerate is no better than it was with the old card. I also upgraded my ram to 1.5g the other day (tried to go to 2g but apparently my motherboard caps at 1.5) as well, so now I really have no idea why my framerate is so horrible.

My processor is a P4 2.4 GHz and my power supply is 430w (the box said to have 400+).

Any ideas on what the problem is here and/or how I might be able to fix it? Thanks.

I also got a x1650 that arrived today that I was going to send back, but I think I might install that and see how it runs, despite the Geforce 7800 being a better card. This doesn't make sense :(

[Artha]

Make sure you have updated drivers and try a defrag.

[Bobmuhthol]

2.4 GHz isn't very good. Also, try overclocking.

[Back]

Make sure you have updated drivers and try a defrag.

Defrag... As a Mac owber, I remember those days. It does improve performance overall. Though these days all we Mac people do is rotate logs and fix permissions.

[Artha]

...and then pound your one-buttoned mice impotently :p

[Back]

...and then pound your one-buttoned mice impotently :p

Fuck that. I have a trackball with four buttons and a ring scroller.

[Methais]

2.4 GHz isn't very good. Also, try overclocking.

I was wondering about that, but then a friend of mine has a PC with a slower processor and a slower video card (Radeon 9800 I think) and he gets a better framerate.

I just installed the x1650 and my framerate is still the same as on the GeForce 9800 and my old Radeon 9700. I'm clueless as to what the problem could be. I have a 430w power supply and the box says to have at least a 400w so that's not the problem either.

[Bobmuhthol]

Is your monitor's refresh rate really low?

[Methais]

Refresh rate is 60 Hz I think. That's all I can select from when I'm in WoW anyway.

Regardless, shouldn't I still have a higher framerate when switching to a significantly newer and faster video card?

[Stealth]

A lot of things could be causing the problem. Off the top of my head:

Slow hard drive loading new data to RAM.

Slow RAM/Not enough RAM.

Slow video processor/old video processor.


I would suggest downloading some benchmarking tools such as Sisoft Sandra and 3dMark and running their benchmarks. Especially Sandra, it will tell you where your bottlenecks are in your system. HD Tune is a good one for hard drive analysis.

How old is your current Windows installation? If it is more than a year old I would suggest backing up all your data and doing a clean installation. Then tweak your TCP settings for your connection.


Or you could just save your cash for a month or so and build a solid mid-range Core 2 Duo system with a nice PCI-E interface and really kick ass.

If you go with less expensive but good parts you can build a very decent system for 1000-1200 bucks or so. Especially if you can canibalize parts from what you have now. I would not worry about making your system Vista compatible. From everything I have seen written about it it is going to absolutely suck ass for games and digital media (DRM is just friggin stupid in this stuff). So I would plan on sticking with XP to do your gaming and such on.

All you would need are the following:

Low end Core 2 Duo processor 200 bucks for a 2M cache 300 for a 4M
2GB RAM another 200 bucks
GPU (Nvidia 7950 w/512mb) 250 bucks
MBoard 215 bucks for 680 series (2 16X PCI channels in SLI Mode)or 130 for a 650 (2 8X PCI channels in SLI Mode)
Case 50 bucks (many good cases for this price)
Power Supply 100 bucks for a decent mid-sized one

Total Cost: 930 bucks for the cheaper version. 1115 for the "expensive" version. Add a 36 GB Raptor for your OS drive for 100 bucks and you have a kick ass system for around 1100-1200 bucks.

You can probably canibalize your system for optical drives and HDs or if you want some kickin performance, get either a small or medium sized Raptor for your system and use your current HD as a data/swapfile drive.


Stealth

edited: You could also save cash for a month or two til all the new vid cards come out and then pick up another 7950 dirt cheap and run two in SLI mode for a real kick ass.

[Bobmuhthol]

<<Regardless, shouldn't I still have a higher framerate when switching to a significantly newer and faster video card?>>

Your framerate is limited by your monitor's settings. No matter what kind of card you have, 1 Hz will always be 1 Hz. At 60 Hz, you're limited to 60 frames per second, which is, of course, standard. I have no idea what the problem is without being able to physically check the machine.

[Methais]

Well I'm running significantly less than 60 fps so the refresh rate most likely isn't the problem :(

[Back]

I was wondering about that, but then a friend of mine has a PC with a slower processor and a slower video card (Radeon 9800 I think) and he gets a better framerate.

I just installed the x1650 and my framerate is still the same as on the GeForce 9800 and my old Radeon 9700. I'm clueless as to what the problem could be. I have a 430w power supply and the box says to have at least a 400w so that's not the problem either.

Check the connect to the internets.

[Celephais]

<<Regardless, shouldn't I still have a higher framerate when switching to a significantly newer and faster video card?>>

Your framerate is limited by your monitor's settings. No matter what kind of card you have, 1 Hz will always be 1 Hz. At 60 Hz, you're limited to 60 frames per second, which is, of course, standard. I have no idea what the problem is without being able to physically check the machine.

Nope, you're wrong. A scene can be drawn faster than a monitor can render it, 60hz is all the user will see (and most people's eyes can't tell the difference anyway), but 3d scenes can be rendered and are rendered on the card faster than the monitor unless it is specifically throttled in the engine. More than just graphics are calculated per frame, for example the position of any given element in a scene is calculated once per frame (so your monitor isn't showing it, but it is moving it).

You might want to check what kind of CPU usage you're getting in WoW, 2.4 Ghz is not too slow to be playing WoW at good fps, open up your task manager, go to the performance tab and view/update speed/low and then play a little, alt tab to the task manager to see how your cpu was utilized. Same goes for looking at your ram. Before entering the game note the processor times (in the processes tab, if it's not a visible column, go to View/Select Columns and add it), if a process other than WoW is eatting up your CPu that may be the culprit.

[Bobmuhthol]

Uhm.......

Nope, I'm right. If the monitor is displaying 60 frames every second, then the framerate is... 60 frames per second.

[Kranar]

Your framerate is limited by your monitor's settings.


Heh, your monitor's refresh rate has no effect on performance. Some people experience discomfort when viewing monitors that are less than 60-70 Hz, but by no means will anyone ever notice any flickering or slowdown.

A lightbulb, for example, turns on and off 60 times a second but I don't think you'll find a single person who notices this. Monitor refresh rate is more of a psychological phenomenon that affects some people and can be cause of headaches. It is not, however, a measure of performance.

I would suggest looking for the newest drivers and then running some benchmarks. You can find nVidia drivers right on their website.

Your computer is more than fine for playing WoW at the highest settings.

[Bobmuhthol]

...

Guys. This is a really fucking simple concept. I don't understand what you're making of it. I said nothing about performance, I said your monitor can't display a framerate higher than its refresh rate. What the motherfuck is going on?

[Kranar]

Nope, I'm right. If the monitor is displaying 60 frames every second, then the framerate is... 60 frames per second.


First of all... monitors do not have a frame per second... it's called a refresh rate. A frame is a logical measurement of how quickly a game engine can render a scene... You can run a game at 100 frames per second and not even own a monitor. You can run a game at however many frames per second the engine can pump out while your monitor is shut off.

Don't forget there is more to a frame than just video, there's also sound, environment, artificial intelligence processes working in the background, and a whole bunch of other factors that constitute a frame. These will not slow down simply because your monitor runs at 50 or 60 Hz. These run independently of your monitor. You can have a game running at 100 FPS and your refresh rate might only be like 2 Hz. Consequently, an engine can be running at 1 FPS and you can still have a refresh rate of 60 Hz. They are independent of one another.

I think the problem is that when people ask for technical advice, and want something that will actually be of use and help... you tend to give advice that is factually incorrect.

It might help you to listen when people who know more than you correct you, than get all stubborn about it.

[Celephais]

Uhm.......

Nope, I'm right. If the monitor is displaying 60 frames every second, then the framerate is... 60 frames per second.

Your monitor will always refresh 60 times per second (when set to 60hz), even if you're only getting 10 fps. You can have more frames per second than your monitor can display, and you can get less.

[Artha]

You are all a bunch of nerds.

- Ar "Computer Science Major" tha.

[Bobmuhthol]

<<First of all... monitors do not have a frame per second... it's called a refresh rate.>>


I said your monitor can't display a framerate higher than its refresh rate.
You can fuck off at this point.

<<Your monitor will always refresh 60 times per second (when set to 60hz), even if you're only getting 10 fps. You can have more frames per second than your monitor can display, and you can get less.>>

Yeah. I know. But if his refresh rate was somehow set really low, his FPS would be reflected, while his card was actually putting out more frames than the monitor could display. Unless I'm just making this up, but I've never seen my FPS go over 60 with a 60 Hz refresh rate. I don't think that's much of a coincidence.

[Bobmuhthol]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frames_per_second


"An average 17" monitor can reach 85 Hz, meaning that any performance reached by the game over 85 fps is discarded."

Please, please, shut the fuck up about how what I said is at all incorrect. What a stupid fucking thing to argue about, especially in this thread.

[Celephais]

Yeah. I know. But if his refresh rate was somehow set really low, his FPS would be reflected, while his card was actually putting out more frames than the monitor could display. Unless I'm just making this up, but I've never seen my FPS go over 60 with a 60 Hz refresh rate. I don't think that's much of a coincidence.

It's quite possible to go over 60fps, it might be that WoW artificially caps fps at 60 (or whatever game you were in) so that it doesn't eat up all the resources.

And if his refresh rate were set really low he would see his screen tearing, not choppiness in game, infact his game would still be rather smooth, it would just be smooth in different portions of the screen at a time. He didnt' mention his actual FPS but I imagine he might have said something along the lines of "My FPS is exactly at 45.0fps despite the new video card" if his monitor was set to 45hz.

[Bobmuhthol]

<<It's quite possible to go over 60fps, it might be that WoW artificially caps fps at 60 (or whatever game you were in) so that it doesn't eat up all the resources.>>

Or maybe, just maybe, normal people like to refer to their framerate in terms of what the monitor is displaying. It's pretty obvious that my card is faster than my monitor, but I don't measure Hz in the number of frames my card is calculating that AREN'T BEING DISPLAYED.

[Sean of the Thread]

BOB = LOSE.

For everyone's sake please stay out of any computer thread. (you're ignorant)

[Celephais]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frames_per_second


"An average 17" monitor can reach 85 Hz, meaning that any performance reached by the game over 85 fps is discarded."

Please, please, shut the fuck up about how what I said is at all incorrect. What a stupid fucking thing to argue about, especially in this thread.

Wiki is written by people, people can be wrong, or they could intentionally omit details for the benefit of simplicity. The extra frames are not discarded unless the engine specifically caps itself at the refresh rate, download the directX sdk, the very first tutorial in it generates a program that will easily render more than 200 fps, it can't display them all, but it sure as hell renders 200 fps in the video card. The monitor discards the extra, not the program.

[Celephais]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frames_per_second


"An average 17" monitor can reach 85 Hz, meaning that any performance reached by the game over 85 fps is discarded."

Please, please, shut the fuck up about how what I said is at all incorrect. What a stupid fucking thing to argue about, especially in this thread.

Christ I just read the link... read the next freaking sentence:

An average 17" monitor can reach 85 Hz, meaning that any performance reached by the game over 85 fps is discarded. For that reason it is not uncommon to limit the frame rate to the refresh rate of the monitor in a process called vertical synchronization (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_synchronization). However, many players feel that NOT synchronizing every frame produces better in-game performance, at the cost of some "tearing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Page_tearing)" of the images.

[Kranar]

Wiki isn't wrong in this case, it's just that Bob hasn't bothered reading the article he's referencing. He just skimmed through it, found a quote that was meant to be put in proper context, and jumped to excitement rushing to post it on the PC out of context before understanding what it is he read.

But anyhow... yeah, some DirectX SDK tutorials including the default project which generates a teapot, render at 300 FPS on my machine.

[Bobmuhthol]

The article doesn't say that the frames are discarded by any program (however you did 1 post ago by saying WoW caps at 60), and I thought it was fairly clear from that article that the monitor was discarding the frames. And that is what I've been saying the entire time. I've never heard of someone bragging about their 200 FPS in a video game when their monitor isn't capable of supporting 200 Hz.

http://bobmuhthol.dynalias.net/images/fps.jpg

As much as you might want to think that I'm retarded, I'm not.

[Bobmuhthol]

<<He just skimmed through it, found a quote that was meant to be put in proper context, and jumped to excitement rushing to post it on the PC out of context before understanding what it is he read.>>

Okay, seriously, reconsider what my original point was: if Methais had a low refresh rate on his monitor, his reported frames per second would be a low number.

Support: "An average 17" monitor can reach 85 Hz, meaning that any performance reached by the game over 85 fps is discarded."

If you can somehow manage to disagree with this, which apparently you can, you need to shut the fuck up immediately.

[Methais]

It's quite possible to go over 60fps, it might be that WoW artificially caps fps at 60 (or whatever game you were in) so that it doesn't eat up all the resources.

And if his refresh rate were set really low he would see his screen tearing, not choppiness in game, infact his game would still be rather smooth, it would just be smooth in different portions of the screen at a time. He didnt' mention his actual FPS but I imagine he might have said something along the lines of "My FPS is exactly at 45.0fps despite the new video card" if his monitor was set to 45hz.

Right, sorry about that. My fps is around 10-20 or so, usually somewhere in the middle. If I'm in a crowded area like Shattrah or something it drops to around 5-8.

[Kranar]

Look... bottom line is that the refresh rate of his monitor is not the problem and never was or could have been.

You can continue arguing that it possibly could have been to try and save face, or just move on and try in a sincere manner to provide some advice that will actually be of use in resolving this problem.

Up to you.

[Bobmuhthol]

Yeah, fuck you.

[Celephais]

The article doesn't say that the frames are discarded by any program (however you did 1 post ago by saying WoW caps at 60)

actually I said "it might be that WoW artificially caps fps at 60 (or whatever game you were in) so that it doesn't eat up all the resources." nice misquoting there too.

And I have heard plenty of people brag about fps over their max refresh, mostly because it's indicative of what they're capable of displaying within an acceptable fps. Personally I have never heard of anyone refer to their fps as their refresh rate.

[Kranar]

Methais, do you have the most recent device drivers? You'd be surprised how much they help if you're not up to date.

[Celephais]

Right, sorry about that. My fps is around 10-20 or so, usually somewhere in the middle. If I'm in a crowded area like Shattrah or something it drops to around 5-8.

Did you check your processor usage or if you have any other processes running that might be wrecking you? The best advice in this terrible thread has been the fresh install of your OS (including a format). What about your virtual memory, despite how much ram you have, you always end up using some virtual memory, which is awfully slow, if you can get your virtual memory on it's own partition that's the best, and if you install a fresh OS and don't make a partition specifically for your VM, immediatly set your VM to as large as you'll ever want it (for min and max) so it doesn't fragment.

[Methais]

Yes, got it from the nvidia site.

[Alfster]

Right, sorry about that. My fps is around 10-20 or so, usually somewhere in the middle. If I'm in a crowded area like Shattrah or something it drops to around 5-8.

I have the same problem. I tried lowering my settings but it does nothing for my framerate. The lowest settings I get about 2 fps more than at the highest settings.

[Bobmuhthol]

<<nice misquoting there too.>>

I didn't misquote you. I didn't even quote you.

<<Personally I have never heard of anyone refer to their fps as their refresh rate.>>

I have never once heard anyone report a video game FPS that exceeded their monitor's refresh rate.

[Celephais]

<<nice misquoting there too.>>

I didn't misquote you. I didn't even quote you.
"however you did 1 post ago by saying WoW caps at 60" - Bob

my apologies, you paraphrased me... wtf...


<<Personally I have never heard of anyone refer to their fps as their refresh rate.>>

I have never once heard anyone report a video game FPS that exceeded their monitor's refresh rate.

Huh... really... I mean, just about every current benchmark in existance reports over your refresh rate... you can even try reviews of cards, TomsHardware is a good place to start... yup, you can find FPS for games over 100fps.

[Bobmuhthol]

<<my apologies, you paraphrased me... wtf...>>

Says the guy who gets on me for (not even doing this) saying that framerate = refresh rate.

<<Huh... really... I mean, just about every current benchmark in existance reports over your refresh rate... you can even try reviews of cards, TomsHardware is a good place to start... yup, you can find FPS for games over 100fps.>>

Now talk to someone that isn't benchmarking their card. Not everyone gives a fuck about Hz that are wasted.

[Celephais]

<<my apologies, you paraphrased me... wtf...>>

Says the guy who gets on me for (not even doing this) saying that framerate = refresh rate.

How about this then:
"At 60 Hz, you're limited to 60 frames per second, which is, of course, standard."

You'll admit that's wrong? Right? I mean, sure you didn't say framerate is synonymous with refresh rate, but you sure said it is limited, which your wiki refutes.

Here's another one:
"I have never once heard anyone report a video game FPS that exceeded their monitor's refresh rate."

There is someone reporting a video game FPS over the monitor refresh... if you have never heard of using a video game to benchmark a video card, you shouldn't be in the this thread.

[Methais]

Did you check your processor usage or if you have any other processes running that might be wrecking you? The best advice in this terrible thread has been the fresh install of your OS (including a format). What about your virtual memory, despite how much ram you have, you always end up using some virtual memory, which is awfully slow, if you can get your virtual memory on it's own partition that's the best, and if you install a fresh OS and don't make a partition specifically for your VM, immediatly set your VM to as large as you'll ever want it (for min and max) so it doesn't fragment.

I'm defragging right now but I'll check the processor usage thing when it's done if the defrag doesn't help (it defrags every tuesday so it's due and a bit of a mess). I have a 2 gig partition for virtual memory,

[Bobmuhthol]

Effective framerate is 60 FPS with a 60 Hz refresh rate. If you're using FPS reporting software that displays the FPS on your monitor instead of your card's max/current, the framerate is not going to exceed the refresh rate. I tend to use such software, and I guess I must be in the minority.

[Stealth]

Methais go here:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/SiSoftware_Sandra_Lite_d4664.html


And download Sisoft Sandra Lite and run the benchmarks. It should show you something.


Stealth

[Celephais]

Effective framerate is 60 FPS with a 60 Hz refresh rate. If you're using FPS reporting software that displays the FPS on your monitor instead of your card's max/current, the framerate is not going to exceed the refresh rate. I tend to use such software, and I guess I must be in the minority.

HAHAHA, oh man, I used to think you were smart. For starters, I'm laughing at "FPS reporting software".

Frame rate IS NOT PICTURES DISPLAYED. There is much more to a frame than just what is sent to the screen. Infact given the information he has given, it's likely not graphics that's slowing him down. It's likely the physics supporting those graphics.

I'm guessing to you minority = only person... no fps is reported as what is displayed at your monitor... it just so happens that if the engine is using vsync it'll slow the physics calculations down to the refresh rate (and will not send new info to the graphics card faster than the refresh rate).

[Bobmuhthol]

<<no fps is reported as what is displayed at your monitor>>

Shit, my OSD must be lying to me then.

<<For starters, I'm laughing at "FPS reporting software".>>

My bad, was my term not technical enough for you? Using English to explain what I'm referencing is clearly not allowed.

Let me explain what FPS reporting software is. It's software that reports FPS. It's pretty fucking general.

[Back]

I'm defragging right now but I'll check the processor usage thing when it's done if the defrag doesn't help (it defrags every tuesday so it's due and a bit of a mess). I have a 2 gig partition for virtual memory,

All hail mighty Zod?

[Kranar]

It's likely the physics supporting those graphics.


Quite likely the case, physics and other background processes.

Methais... when you're playing and seeing the very low FPS... do you hear sounds from your hard drive as if it's loading something? That crunchy sound computers make? If so, then there's a memory issue as your computer is struggling to swap memory back and forth between RAM and the hard drive.

[Methais]

Quite likely the case, physics and other background processes.

Methais... when you're playing and seeing the very low FPS... do you hear sounds from your hard drive as if it's loading something? That crunchy sound computers make? If so, then there's a memory issue as your computer is struggling to swap memory back and forth between RAM and the hard drive.

No I've never noticed any sounds coming from the hard drive. I also just upgraded my ram from 1 gig to 1.5 gigs if that helps any. Was gonna do 2 but my system wouldn't boot with 2g in it :(

[Celephais]

<<no fps is reported as what is displayed at your monitor>>

Shit, my OSD must be lying to me then.

<<For starters, I'm laughing at "FPS reporting software".>>

My bad, was my term not technical enough for you? Using English to explain what I'm referencing is clearly not allowed.

Let me explain what FPS reporting software is. It's software that reports FPS. It's pretty fucking general.

Bob... seriously, you're digging your hole deeper.

It's already been stated that you don't need a monitor to calculate FPS, if I was playing a game and I had screenshots taken 120 times a second and saved to my harddrive and the monitor was refreshing 60 times a second, the game is still running at 120 fps. "Reporting software" is just a gross misunderstanding of what's going on, it's just a portion of the existing software's render loop, increments a counter and averages it out over a period of time (up to the engine how it's implemented). This is entirely independant of the monitor. Every render iteration updates the physics (usually by taking the time since last render run, and applying that time to objects current physics... determining new positions and increasing the position in the animation loops), the monitor does not need to keep up with this.

[Bobmuhthol]

I'm not even reading your posts anymore. The amount of bullshit you talk about is increasing in an exponential fashion. It's all totally fucking irrelevant to my original point.

[Celephais]

I'm not even reading your posts anymore. The amount of bullshit you talk about is increasing in an exponential fashion. It's all totally fucking irrelevant to my original point.

http://forums.g4tv.com/i/authorsicons/stewie-victory.jpg

[Stealth]

What are the timing settings on all the sticks of RAM you are using? How many are you using (I am assuming 4)? You may want to try and run it with just your two biggest sticks of RAM. If the RAM sticks have incompatibilities it could slow you down a lot. In most cases you should use the same size RAM sticks, same brand and same memory timings.


Stealth

[Celephais]

What resolution/settings are you using methias? 10-20 fps and sometimes as bad as 8 with a new VC, 1.5gb of ram and a 2.4ghz, with a dedicated VM partition... to be that slow ... something fishy going on. Are you running any pluggins? Try disabling them all and seeing if that makes a difference.

[Methais]

Did you check your processor usage or if you have any other processes running that might be wrecking you? The best advice in this terrible thread has been the fresh install of your OS (including a format). What about your virtual memory, despite how much ram you have, you always end up using some virtual memory, which is awfully slow, if you can get your virtual memory on it's own partition that's the best, and if you install a fresh OS and don't make a partition specifically for your VM, immediatly set your VM to as large as you'll ever want it (for min and max) so it doesn't fragment.

With WoW running:

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a162/DoyleHargraves/SS1.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a162/DoyleHargraves/SS2.jpg


With WoW not running:

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a162/DoyleHargraves/SS3.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a162/DoyleHargraves/SS4.jpg

If any of that helps.

[Methais]

What are the timing settings on all the sticks of RAM you are using? How many are you using (I am assuming 4)? You may want to try and run it with just your two biggest sticks of RAM. If the RAM sticks have incompatibilities it could slow you down a lot. In most cases you should use the same size RAM sticks, same brand and same memory timings.


Stealth

Right now I have a 1 GB stick and a 512 stick. The 512 is Samsung and I forgot the name of the 1 GB but it's not Samsung. I have another 512 Samsung stick that I could swap out with the 1GB stick and go back to 1GB if you think that would make a difference. I have 3 ram slots total, but if I go over 1.5 GB my system won't boot so I guess that means my motherboard can't handle over 1.5 GB ram. I've had the ram in for a few days now, and got the video card today, and nothing seems any better or worse with my framerate.

EDIT: I have no idea how to check or adjust the timing settings on my sticks either. Never heard of til just now actually.


What resolution/settings are you using methias? 10-20 fps and sometimes as bad as 8 with a new VC, 1.5gb of ram and a 2.4ghz, with a dedicated VM partition... to be that slow ... something fishy going on. Are you running any pluggins? Try disabling them all and seeing if that makes a difference.


I'm set on 1920x1080 Wide, but I've tried lower resolutions as well and my framerate didn't improve. I've also tried disabling all my mods too, with no improvements.

[Bobmuhthol]

I'm interested in why WoW takes up so much memory for you.

[Methais]

How much should it be taking?

[Celephais]

Try turning down just your textures... you have the AGP card right? it might not be set at 8x agp, if turning your textures way down improves things, you'll want to go into your BIOS and check what speed your AGP slot is running at.

[Bobmuhthol]

<<How much should it be taking?>>

Mine is usually between 100 MB and 300 MB depending on duration of gameplay and environment. See what it is at the login screen. It should be less than 150 MB (this may be a little generous - I get 101 MB) if your video card's memory is working as well as it should.

[Methais]

It's a little over 100 on the login screen, and slowly works its way up to 400 something as the game loads. Loading or not loading mods seems to make no difference.


Try turning down just your textures... you have the AGP card right? it might not be set at 8x agp, if turning your textures way down improves things, you'll want to go into your BIOS and check what speed your AGP slot is running at.

Turning down textures didn't seem to do anything. The only thing that seemed to make any kind of difference was turning my terrain distance down, which put me at just under 20 fps =/

[Methais]

Methais go here:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/SiSoftware_Sandra_Lite_d4664.html


And download Sisoft Sandra Lite and run the benchmarks. It should show you something.


Stealth

Run the benchmarks on everything? I wouldn't know how to interpret any of the results (ran a couple benchmarks and have no idea what any of it means for the most part) but I can run whatever ones I need to run and post a screenshot or something.

[Celephais]

Turning down textures didn't seem to do anything. The only thing that seemed to make any kind of difference was turning my terrain distance down, which put me at just under 20 fps =/

Terrain distance and textures have the same general impact, they reduce the amount of memory needed to be stored in the graphics card to render a given scene. I would go into your bios and see if there is anything funny there... like it not recognizing all of your video ram. Good luck...

[Artha]

I know this might sound dumb, but make sure your card's connected all the way and fit in snugly.

[Methais]

Terrain distance and textures have the same general impact, they reduce the amount of memory needed to be stored in the graphics card to render a given scene. I would go into your bios and see if there is anything funny there... like it not recognizing all of your video ram. Good luck...

I didn't really notice anything. But then again I don't really know how to check for it either :(

[Methais]

Apparently my motherboard is AGP 4x and not 8x. I'm not sure how much that sucks yet, so how much does that suck? Would I need to get an AGP 8x motherboard to get real use out of this card? Cause if so I might as well return the card and get a PCI-E board, then I'd probably need a new processor, and then I might as well just get a whole new PC...right?

[Sean of the Thread]

Please download and u2u me the results and we'll go from there.

http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html



edit* or AIM or email would prolly be easier.


blackbelushi@yahoo.com
Aim Blackbelushi

[Methais]

Please download and u2u me the results and we'll go from there.

http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html



edit* or AIM or email would prolly be easier.


blackbelushi@yahoo.com
Aim Blackbelushi

I emailed this to you too but am posting here also:

Operating System System Model
Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (build 2600) No details available
Processor a Main Circuit Board b
1.80 gigahertz Intel Pentium 4
8 kilobyte primary memory cache
512 kilobyte secondary memory cache Board: ASUSTeK Computer INC. P4PE REV 1.xx
Bus Clock: 100 megahertz
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160.04 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
53.82 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

PLEXTOR CD-R PX-W4824A [CD-ROM drive]
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WDC WD800JB-00CRA1 [Hard drive] (80.03 GB) -- drive 1, s/n WD-WCA8E5878587, rev 17.07W17, SMART Status: Healthy 1536 Megabytes Installed Memory

Slot 'DIMM 1' has 1024 MB
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h: (NTFS on drive 1) 2.15 GB 35 MB free
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j: (NTFS on drive 1) 16.11 GB 4.52 GB free
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[Methais]

I also ran a program called Aquamark 3 that someone recommended. Here are the results if it helps with anything:

My score was:

GFX: 5,736
CPU: 4,558
Total: 35,216

General:
Name: Benchmark 2007-01-30 15-09-41
Processor:
Vendor: GenuineIntel
Name: Pentium(R) 4 processor
SpeedMHz: 1804
Type: 0
Family: 15
Model: 2
Stepping: 7
Flags: 0xBFEBFBFF
Number: 1
HyperThreading: n/a
MemoryOS: 1610055680
Graphics:
Description: NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GS
Vendor: 4318
Device: 245
SubSys: 530848241
Revision: 162
CoreClock: 0
MemoryClock: 0
Driver: nv4_disp.dll
DriverVersion: 6.14.10.9371
VideoMemory: 253755392
TextureMemory: 287309824
OperatingSystem:
Version: Microsoft Windows XP
Type:
Build: Service Pack 2 2600
Run0:
DisplayWidth: 1024
DisplayHeight: 768
DisplayDepth: 32
AntialiasingMode: 0
AntialiasingQuality: 0
AnisotropicFiltering: 4
DetailLevel: 4
AvgFPS: 35.216461
MinFPS: 22.878937
MaxFPS: 71.287132
AvgFPSRender: 57.377026
AvgFPSSimulation: 91.179131
AvgTrianglesPerSecond: 10601287
MinTrianglesPerSecond: 1536329
MaxTrianglesPerSecond: 41881474
AquamarkScoreRender: 5736
AquamarkScoreSimulation: 4558
AquamarkScore: 35216

[Kranar]

Methais... you stated your processor was a Pentium IV running at 2.4 GHz, but either it's seriously damaged or you were lied to by the people who sold it to you.

Your Pentium IV is running at 1.8 GHz right now according to both benchmark results you posted. If it is damaged, that would help explain a lot... I'd look into this.

[Methais]

I was wondering about that too. I ran another test somewhere (forgot which thing it was) but my processor showed up as 2.4 GHz. If I right click My Computer and click Properties, it shows up like this:

Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz
1.80 GHz, 1.50 GB of RAM

So is the processor actually a 2.4, but only running at 1.8? If so, would there be a reason other than it possibly being damaged?

[Kranar]

The processor is running at 1.8 GHz.

Other reasons for this could be that it's underclocked to avoid overheating, there's not enough power available, or it's been damaged.

The combination of having a 4x AGP (which I wouldn't recommend since 4x and 8x use different voltages), and a possibly damaged processor running at 1.8 GHz account for a lot of why your computer is not performing as well as you'd like it to.

[Marl]

Wow way off topic but I just dled and ran that aquamark......I was impressed with the graphics tests it does. I have a 7900 gtx geforce so your score should be WAAAAY higher than what you have because your card is just a step down from mine i believe. Here was my scores

GFX: 19,875
CPU: 11,686
Total: 107,409

[Parkbandit]

Is it bad that I got a fatal error when running that Aquamark 3 test ?

:(

Gonna reboot and try it again...

[Parkbandit]

Fuck.. still get the error.

Bad thing?

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e6/belike53/Error.jpg

[Sean of the Thread]

I was wondering about that too. I ran another test somewhere (forgot which thing it was) but my processor showed up as 2.4 GHz. If I right click My Computer and click Properties, it shows up like this:

Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz
1.80 GHz, 1.50 GB of RAM

So is the processor actually a 2.4, but only running at 1.8? If so, would there be a reason other than it possibly being damaged?

You guys don't know wtf you're talking about.. the answer is simple.


http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b236/Japgross/319072737_05598ff76e.jpg

[Bobmuhthol]

I get the same error as Parkbandit. :(

I was anxious to see the results, too. My card was pounding out frames like nothing.

[Marl]

I get the same error as Parkbandit. :(

I was anxious to see the results, too. My card was pounding out frames like nothing.

worked fine for me...when are you guys getting the error?

[Bobmuhthol]

After the 3D rendering test finished, it went to a black screen. I waited a little while for it to change, then went out of the room for 5 minutes, and it was still black. Hit the Windows key to get back to my desktop and the error was there waiting for me.

[Methais]

Here's a copy of a post someone on another forum made about my problem. A friend of mine is coming over tonight that will know what the hell this actually means, since most of it just goes right over my head:


Here is one problem:
Model : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz
Speed : 1.80GHz
Performance Rating : PR1966 (estimated)
Cores per Processor : 1 Unit(s)
L2 On-board Cache : 512kB ECC Synchronous, ATC, 8-way set, 64 byte line size, 2 lines per sector

Why is this saying Speed: 1.8 GHz. It should say like Speed 2.39: GHz or 2.40 GHz or 2.41 Ghz. Maybe because your RAM is throttled back? Are your motherboard settings correct for your processor? 1.8GHz is like Celeron speed. I would look at fixing the second problem first and see if this fixes itself.

Here is a second problem:
Model : ASUSTeK Computer Inc 82845PE Brookdale Host-Hub Interface Bridge (B0-step)
Front Side Bus Speed : 4x 100MHz (400MHz data rate)
Width : 64-bit
Maximum Bus Bandwidth : 3200MB/s (estimated)

Logical/Chipset 1 Memory Banks
Bank 0 : 512MB DDR-SDRAM 2.0-3-3-6 (tCL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS) CR1
Bank 1 : 512MB DDR-SDRAM 2.0-3-3-6 (tCL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS) CR1
Bank 2 : 256MB DDR-SDRAM 2.0-3-3-6 (tCL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS) CR1
Bank 3 : 256MB DDR-SDRAM 2.0-3-3-6 (tCL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS) CR1
Speed : 2x 133MHz (266MHz data rate)
Width : 64-bit
Memory Controller in Processor : No
Maximum Memory Bus Bandwidth : 2128MB/s (estimated)

Performance Tips
Notice 5406 : System bandwidth appears memory limited. Attempt to use higher-performance memory.

It seems like your motherboard and processor support 400MHz FSB, but your RAM is throttling back your motherboard to PC133 (266MHz) speed.

Did you upgrade your computer and use the RAM from an old computer? You seem to be running PC133 RAM in your motherboard, and your processer supports 400MHz FSB. Could you just put in the new ram and take out all of the old ram and re-run the benchmark?
Your memory bandwidth speed should be 400MHz data rate.

Here is what i would do. Check your old ram to see if it is PC 133 ram. If so, what is the speed of your new ram? Is it DDR 400 (PC 3200) RAM? If the speeds on the new ram and old ram don't match, or if you can't tell what is the speed on the old ram, then
take out all the old RAM and put in just the new ram. Then rerun the memory test. See if it is now detecting at 400MHz. Also, your motherboard should support 2GB of RAM (if it is the Asus p4pe motherboard) so i'm not sure why you couldn't get it to work. Perhaps because of speed mismatch?

Is the 1.5 GB you have in their now all PC 133 ram and you bought an extra GB of DDR 400 ram that didn't work with your old ram?

Once you have your ram running at 400MHz, see if that fixes the processor speed problem. If it doesn't check your processor settings in the Bios.
After you have both of these issues fixed, re-run the aquamark test. You should see a big difference between your old card and the x1650 and the x1650 and the 7800gs. If they are all 3 about the same, you still have a problem.

[Parkbandit]

After the 3D rendering test finished, it went to a black screen. I waited a little while for it to change, then went out of the room for 5 minutes, and it was still black. Hit the Windows key to get back to my desktop and the error was there waiting for me.


Yup.. same place for me.

Not sure what the deal is.. but as long as everything else is working, I'm not going to freak out too much.

I'm still averaging about 50ish fps in WoW

[Methais]

Fixed the processor problem and the ram running slow. Was a BIOS setting that somehow got changed.

[Parkbandit]

It's all about you ,eh Methais?

WHAT ABOUT MY PROBLEM!

And please.. don't use the old "I started this thread so you are offtopic" typical bullshit either.

[Marl]

Fixed the processor problem and the ram running slow. Was a BIOS setting that somehow got changed.

whats your new aquamark benchmarks?

[Sean of the Thread]

It's all about you ,eh Methais?

WHAT ABOUT MY PROBLEM!

And please.. don't use the old "I started this thread so you are offtopic" typical bullshit either.

Which card do you have again?

[Parkbandit]

Which card do you have again?

Radeon X1650 512 MB

Fix it.

Fix it now.

[Artha]

Alright, I've just entered some codes into my UltraRemoteDiagnostic2000.

Try it out and see if that works, PB.

[Parkbandit]

Nope.. still same error, same place.

Fix your piss poor remote imo.

[Artha]

Alright, I've tried using my UltraRemoteDiagnostic2000Diagnostic but it returns no errors. I'm not sure, I've never come into this problem before!


edit: Just checked my UltraRemoteDiagnostic2000DiagnosticDiagnostic and it crashed, so this can only be bad.

[Methais]

whats your new aquamark benchmarks?


GFX: 7356
CPU: 6231
Total: 46258

Still shitty scores :(

[Marl]

GFX: 7356
CPU: 6231
Total: 46258

Still shitty scores :(

what was your average fps?

i think i was running 120 on average

[Methais]

Way less than that. I wanna say 30 something.

I'm just gonna return all the shit I bought this week (ram and video cards) and just upgrade my motherboard, processor and ram and get a PCI-E card.

This thread is now about Parkbandit and whatever problem he was having.

[Marl]

Way less than that. I wanna say 30 something.

I'm just gonna return all the shit I bought this week (ram and video cards) and just upgrade my motherboard, processor and ram and get a PCI-E card.

This thread is now about Parkbandit and whatever problem he was having.

If you are gonna do that just buy you a new comp ;)

[Methais]

I thought about it, but everything else (hard drives, DVD drive, etc.) are fine, so I see no point in replacing them.

[Methais]

I was looking at some cards on here, but I really have no clue what the difference is between them, or what recertified means, etc. if one of you has time to take a look and offer a suggestion. I'm hoping to spend no more than $300 on a video card, but I don't want some crap model either. Thanks.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?DEPA=0&type=&Description=geforce+7800&Submit=ENE&N=0&Ntk=all&Go.x=0&Go.y=0

http://www.merchanthound.com/search?start=0&limit=10&page=1&form_keyword=geforce%2B7800&sort_type=price

[Sean of the Thread]

I think you're doing the right thing really.. I was gonna suggest it actually after seeing your belarc adviser page.

[Methais]

Yeah. Right now I have the old video card (Radeon 9700 pro) and back to 1 gig of ram, and my framerate in WoW is identical to what it was with the x1650 and the Geforce 7800 in it. So yeah, time to rip out some guts and put some new ones in.

Got any suggestions on which PCI-E card to get from my previous post?

[Bobmuhthol]

Don't get NVIDIA.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814131030

[Methais]

I thought about that one too, but won't I need a huge power supply for that?

Also, what's wrong with Nvidia?

<--- nub

[Bobmuhthol]

I don't know why everyone is so power supply crazy. I've never had a problem with any that I've had. On that note, I can't tell you definitively whether or not you would need a new one.

NVIDIA is overpriced and nowhere near as cool as ATI.

[Sean of the Thread]

Power supply is probably one of the most important factors to consider now days with the new peripherals and demand. It's the culprit with many problems.. from video to cpu/ram etc.

It's cheap.. just get a jacked up one and forget about it. Outgrowing my power supply is what pwnt my 9800 pro. It was a proprietary PS but in all my other rigs I've used Antec supplies and been happy with their performance.

I'll be researching others for my next build in about a month.. and I'll prolly be getting an ATI 1950 series as well.

[Kranar]

Honestly, we can argue day and night over NVidia vs. ATI, just like people argue day and night over Intel vs. AMD.

Fact of the matter is that these debates tend to be very unproductive when all is said and done and based mostly on emotional/personal reactions and loyalties to the company rather than actual technical details.

In general, you'll find both companies offer very good product lines depending on what you're looking for. A good site that offers benchmarks of various GPUs is www.tomshardware.com (http://www.tomshardware.com)

Look through the GPUs on that site, then try and find one that meets specs you were impressed with on either www.newegg.com (http://www.newegg.com) or some other hardware vendor. Repeat this iteratively until you converge on both a price point you're happy with, and performance you want for your gaming.

Don't fall into the trap of NVidia r0x0rz ATI or AMD pwns Intel... in all seriousness... that's mostly amaturish. Both companies are very competitive, now more than ever.

[Parkbandit]

This thread is now about Parkbandit and whatever problem he was having.

All posts beyond this have been reported for being off topic.

[Bobmuhthol]

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=202944514&adid=17662