Help me find what is slowing me down

[dopefishzzz]

Hello ! I'm new to the board and find every topic SO interesting, I've learned so many thing here,

So here is my question !

I've got pretty good frames per second in all my favorites games (half life 2, doom 3 ROE, far cry, etc. etc.) most of the time, but during hard action scenes, my FPS can drop to 25 and even 20 FPS and I find it annoying.

I use 1280 X 1024 with 8X AF and 2X AA and couldn't stand less than that with my current big monitor.

My current setup look like this. I've built that setup WAY before knowing about this forum, so I may NOT have all of the best parts you seems to all have (hehe)

Antec TruePower 350W
AMD K8V-X
A64 2800+ 754 o/c to 2.0 GHz
1 GB Generic DDR400 ram (2 X 512)
1 74Gb Raptor
MSI 6600GT 128mo AGP o/c ~20%
22" CRT

What could be slowing me down ? What part should I change and what would you suggest ? And How much would it cost me ?

I really find it frustrating, because I've built this system 6 months ago and it already seems to be outdated !!! lol. But I guess that's just the fun part of computer gaming, isn't it ?? haha.

Thanx in advance,

and sorry about my bad english, I'm French Canadian

 

[UsandThem]

The slowdown happens because you are running at a higher resolution with 8X AF and 2X AA.

Action scenes are very complex with so much going on at once.

The only thing that will help you with this is getting a higher end video card (like a 6800GT) and a faster CPU wouldn't hurt.

 

[dopefishzzz]

Really ? And I tough, 6 months ago, that the 6600 was high end !

So you would recommend changing my video card to a 6800 ?

I don't really need better frames rates, just better frame rates in ACTION scenes !

Well... hard to buy an AGP card AGAIN, when the AGP bus is outdated ... :s

 

[imported_bum]

The 6600 was never really a "high" end card. It was released under the 6800 series as a mid-range option. A better CPU would help, but it's the video card that's bogging you down. Unless you wanna sepnd 350+ bucks on a new card, you'll have to turn your settings down (start with AA/AF)

 

[dopefishzzz]

Thanx Bum.

I just wanted to be sure that it was my VIDEO card that was slowing me down,

and not my CPU.

So i'f I change my video card to a 6800GT, what minimum frame rates should I expect with these settings ?

I wiould LOVE to be able to keep 45FPS+ in every game situation...

 

[mwmorph]

45+ minimum is pretty high. an oced 6800gt/x800xl(or maybe an x800pro modded to xt) would do it, along with ocing your cpu a bit more(try for 2.4ghz)

 

[dopefishzzz]

Hum. I can't get my motherboard pass 220 because of my sata drives (my shutty asus motherboard can't lock SATA Drives),

I may have the money to upgrade only ONE part of the computer,

so would a 6800GT 256mo AGP be a good investment ?

 

[Arcanedeath]

you can get an EVGA 6800GT for 279 or 269 after rebate right now at Newegg, If your in the market for an AGP card thats the way to go.

 

[dopefishzzz]

Seems like a pretty good price,

Buying another AGP card seems silly to me,

but changing to PCI-Express would mean a new motherboard, cpu AND video card

 

[Ike0069]

Getting a 6800 GT is all you need. I play every game at 1600X1200 with 4XAA and 8XAF with adequate frame rates (except for NFSU for some reason).
Now you're CPU is still plenty fast, and the 6600 GT is still a very nice card. It will run most any game just fine at 12X10, but turning AA and AF is a little too much in some parts of some games.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Quite frankly, you need to get an ATi card if you're going to use AA & AF unless you're willing to get an SLi setup going. Right now, ATi cards handle AA & AF much better. Go check out the VGA tests that Tom's Hardware has done & you'll see what I am talking about. nVidia cards suffer from a huge framerate drop when you turn those on.

 

[uOpt]

Originally posted by: dopefishzzz
Seems like a pretty good price,

Buying another AGP card seems silly to me,

but changing to PCI-Express would mean a new motherboard, cpu AND video card

Upgrading to socket 939 and PCIe would be a lot more expensive than just a video card. Even the video card alone is more expensive by a good margin if you get an AGP 6800GT for $269.

I don't agree that this system is not worth fitting out with a new video card later even a new CPU. The 400MHz single-channel RAM won't hold you back too much.

Also, the 6600GT should be very easy to sell.