neomatrix248

I recently bought an EVGA GeForce 8600 GTS 512mb (DX10) video card. I upgraded from an ATI Radeon 1950x Pro 256mb (DX9) video card. However, when I installed it and tried playing games like crysis and oblivion, I noticed no performance increase, though the graphics were a little better. So my question is, did I waste my money buying a side-grade video card, or is the problem something else, like my processor? I have an AMD Athlon X2 2.6Gz 5000+ processor.

stu22

Overall there isn't a terrible amount of difference between them (link), you kind if went from a high-end card from last generation to a mid-range card from this generation. You may notice bigger improvements in other games as result of more video RAM.

I wouldn't really recommend upgrading the CPU just yet, it's modern enough to play all new games and the benefits from say a quad core wouldn't really be seen in gaming.

neomatrix248

When I'm playing games like Medieval Total war 2, I get huge performance slow downs when there are a lot of enemies in the battle (3000+). I go from like 40 fps to 5. Is this likely processor related?

HawMan

what brand is your 430w psu? I think it may be your problem.


The AMD 5000+ is fine, i have it and i can run crysis on high @ 1024x768 (And higher a little )

1 g0t 0wn3d

how much ram do you have?

neomatrix248

That info is a little old, I have a 600 watt power supply now, and I have 4gb of ddr2 RAM. I think I'm set there.

I'm getting about 10 fps with crysis on high in dx10 1280x1024

1 g0t 0wn3d

what are your temps and voltages using speedfan in my sig

neomatrix248

I didn't know if you meant in-game or out of game, so here's both.

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1 g0t 0wn3d

have you ever installed the amd dual core optimizer?

neomatrix248

negative, should I?

by the way, I'm thinking about sending this card back and getting the 8800 GTS 312mb card instead. It's only about 40 bucks more and gets about 40% higher fps according to that website. Would this hopefully get me some better performance?

stu22

I installed the optimiser before I started gaming and havn't had any problems so it certainly won't hurt.
Link (2nd link from the top, 4.68mb)

$40 more for the 8800GTS is a good deal, but check the price of the 8800GT 512mb as well, it's slightly faster and can sometimes be had for cheaper. You might want to have a look at some Graphics Card Benchmarks and compare the prices to these results.

Also could you tell us what size monitor (in inches) you have and what resolution you're running your games?

Set it to medium, High and Very High settings aren't really expected to work on current machines, but rather on future ones. Crysis on medium will still look better than just about anything else on the market and is definitely playable.

Usually dips this significant in strategy games are attributed to not enough RAM, but since you've got 4gb I'm not too sure.
Try setting the resolution to 640x480 for a bit, if there isn't a significant performance increase then we can probably rule the graphics card out. You might want to get a program to inspect your RAM usage during play, if you start to use 100%, then this is probably the issue, if not the only thing left is the CPU.

Out of curiosity are battles with 3000+ units part of the Campaign, in multiplayer or using mods? If it happens just as bad in multiplayer the CPU probably isn't at fault (as it doesn't need to calculate AI related stuff).

[Edit]are both games patched? often these contain things to optimise performance.

1 g0t 0wn3d

Yes you should install it asap

emosun

If your getting the 8800, make sure to get the g92 512mb ddr3 pci-e 2.0 version. The old 320/640mb are a bit slower and will run hotter then the newer g92 revision.

Also, you should consider a 3870 too. Ati cards have been getting some very good results in crysis and especially the 3000 series. They'll also use a little less power then the 8800.

neomatrix248

Unfortunately, I don't have the finances to go any higher than the 8800 GTS 320mb card. Actually, that one is a little above my price range.

As far as the processor optimizer thing goes, it wont install due to problems with my registry (I posted that in the windows vista category a few days ago). After about 20 posts, we couldn't figure out how to fix it so I'm not even going to bother with that.

My monitor is 1280x1024 resolution, and I try to run all my games at that setting, although some games only let me run at 1280x9## something resolution for some odd reason.

After looking around, the 8800 GTS seems to be the best bang for my buck that I can find. The 8800GT's I found are all $250+ while the GTSis only $200

Also, strangely I can run both of my graphics card using Call of Duty 4 multiplayer maxed out settings at about 80 fps 1280x1024, which was why I thought something other that the graphics card was at fault. CoD4 seems to be a pretty graphic intensive game and my rig can handle it no problem.

emosun

You can get this version then rather then the old 320mb version.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...193&CatId=1560

Its still only 200$ and will run cooler, use less power, and uses pci-e 2.0 for future boards.