6800nu and HL2/CS:S on High

[oupei]

Hey, I have a stock PNY 6800nu and I can't seem to run HL2/CS:S on high model/texture detail settings. In CS:S, fps drops to 5 in outdoors scenes but is as high as 75 indoors (in cs_office). HL2 runs ok, but has to pause to load stuff every so often (between "loading" times). My rig is kinda outdated : tbred 2.2ghz, nf7-s, 1gig ddr400, pny6800nu, but it should be able to do better, if anand's performance in the HL2 GPU shootout is any indication. Do you guys know what's wrong?

 

[vshah]

motherboard drivers installed?
use drivercleaner and re-install the drivers

 

[Elfear]

I wonder if your cpu is holding you back. Here is a good article to review that shows the cpu's effect on gaming performance. HL2 is more cpu dependant than other modern games.

 

[Munky]

I definitely think you should be getting higher fps, unless of course you're playing at 1600*1200. Also, try different video card drivers, or run the CS:S video stress test to see if you're getting the kind of score that you're supposed to.

 

[fstime]

Turn fast writes off.

 

[BobDaMenkey]

Originally posted by: munky
I definitely think you should be getting higher fps, unless of course you're playing at 1600*1200. Also, try different video card drivers, or run the CS:S video stress test to see if you're getting the kind of score that you're supposed to.

Agreed. Also do try the driver cleaner, with Xtream G drivers. I'm not sure what to tell you outside of that.

 

[oupei]

fast writes did improve some, but I found that it was really the AA. going from 2xAA to no AA changed my FPS from 9 to like 90 at one location (where my fps was the worst).

 

[MrMiyagi]

Mines the same way. @ 1680 x 1050 with any AA I get unplayable fps...but as soon as I take the AA off its smooth as butter. Huh...

P4 2.4
1 gig ddr400
MSI 6800nu unlocked
IC7

 

[Silversierra]

How much ram do you have? It could be deprived and be constantly having to access the hd slowing the game down. I remember that bf1942 would almost freeze with 512mb of ram on high settings.

Edit Ignore above, I see you said you have a gig.

 

[Pete]

AA would do it.

 

[bcoupland]

It's quite possible that the 128MB frame buffer is being completely used up when you turn on the AA, so the card has to go over the AGP bus to the system ram, which is much slower. So you're not GPU or CPU limited, but rather video ram limited.

 

[oupei]

Originally posted by: bcoupland
It's quite possible that the 128MB frame buffer is being completely used up when you turn on the AA, so the card has to go over the AGP bus to the system ram, which is much slower. So you're not GPU or CPU limited, but rather video ram limited.

that must be it... because anand also runs the 6800nu/6600gt/x700 at 1024/768 with 4xAA with no problems. Would have been nice if he mentioned that that's why he tested the other cards at 1280x1024 4xAA and not these.