7900GT Expectations/Problem/WoW?

[Muhumbe]

I recently upgraded from a Leadtek 6600GT TDH to a 7900GT (MSI NX7900GT-VT2D256E-HD). I am using this with a Dell 2405 (24" widescreen 1920x1200). I assumed that this card would allow me to play World of Warcraft at max settings, however I cannot as the fps gets too low in certain situations. Was I expecting too much from this card with the screen resolution I play at, or should it be able to handle it? (I posted the rest of my system below for reference.) As it is right now, I basically have to play the game at the same settings of the 6600GT (but it does look much better). I was only able to boost up the terain texture and antisotopic filtering.

The only thing I am unsure of with set up is the 7900GT card required me to plug a power cable into it whereas the 6600GT did not. On the 7900GT the port has two rows of three for the newer psu's and an adapter that splits to two plugs for the older psu's (not sure of the plugs name but the adapter has two plugs for the four horizontal prong adapter coming from the psu). Since I have a older psu and neeed to use the adapter do I plug power into one of the splits or both?

Any input would be appreciate or if you have a similar set up to me I would like to know what settings you are able to play Warcraft in. Thank you.

My set up:
MSI NX7900GT-VT2D256E-HD
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Winchester 2000MHz HT
CORSAIR ValueSelect 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel
Western Digital Raptor WD740GD 74GB
NEC 16X DVD±R DVD ND-3520A BK

 

[Boogak]

I think you should be able to run it at max settings at 1920x1200. The extra power cable is necessary because the 7900GT is a power hungry beast, the PCI-e slot is not able to provide it with enough power on its own. Plug 2 separate 4 pin power supply plugs into the adapter split.

I have the same monitor with SLI'd 7800GT's and it runs silky smooth everything maxed. I do have 2gb of memory though, perhaps your low FPS is due to disk swapping?

And welcome to the forum

 

[Muhumbe]

Thanks for the welcome Boogak- these forums are a great help.

I called MSI after my original post and they did tell me to plug power into both of the splits on the card as you confirmed. I originally plugged in only one power cable to the split and hoped that plugging the other in would make the difference, but it is still pretty much the same.

Is there a way for me to test or check if the problem is related to disk swapping/memory?

After testing out a bunch of settings on World of Warcraft I can set everything to high and get a decent frame rate in low populated areas, but I do get a strange screen flickering when moving thorugh the terrain and my fps goes to about 16-19 in highly populated areas. I know the decrease in fps is expected in higher populated areas, but I didn't expect it to be that low seeing as my laptop with a Geforce Go 7600 gets better.

 

[nitromullet]

The drop on FPS in highly populated areas is not gpu dependent, but cpu dependent. With a 7950GX2, I would get better FPS in Orgrimmar (or Ironforge) than when flying over Ashenvale. In terms of gpu dependent aspects of the game, the weather effects and high levels of AA seem to result in the largests hits to FPS.

edit: oh yeah, welcome to AT

 

[Lyfer]

You definetly should up to 2gbs of ram. Such a nice GPU/LCD setup just needs it.

 

[PianoMan]

Just wondering, were you running your 6600GT at 1920x1200 as well with lower settings? That 24" LCD resolution is a bear to drive, so if your laptop isn't having to drive that many total pixels (at a lower rez), it could be the reason why the laptop feels smoother (unless you're hooking up the 2405 to your laptop).

My (soon to be sold) 7800GT could drive BF2 with max settings (no AA) at 1920x1200, so I figure a 7900GT should do the same.

I figure a disk swap issue would manifest itself regardless of whether the screen is "crowded" or not, but I could be wrong...

PM

 

[Soccerman06]

I think you have to OC that cpu of yours if you want to get better fps, a 3200+ will OC to probably 2.4-2.6ghz depending on good that cpu is.

 

[Muhumbe]

So what I am hearing is that with my current set up the results I am getting are "normal"? If I want to get max settings in game I would need to OC my cpu, or get a newer, beefier cpu? With both options it would benefit me to bump up my ram to 2 gbs.

The laptop is running at 1440 x 900 and gets great results with terrain distance, environment detail, and spell effect at middle settings, terrain texture and detail on high, anisotropic filtering low, and weather effects on mid/high. Those are the same setting I have to run on my desktop (7900GT @ 1920x1200) to get good fps, although I would think I should be able to go much higher. the 6600 GT was set the same except for Terrain texture was at low setting (1920x1200).

I just want to confirm that AA is refering to antialiasing correct? In WoW it is listed as the multi-sampling selection?