How to squeeze some performance from my video card?

[lollybo]

Hey all. I think I'm going to skip out on the 8 and 9 series of video cards because 1. it seems Nvidia is being really slow due to lack of ATI competition and 2. there are no demanding PC games that are out that I want to play on high. I can run bioshock just fine, and in general there are no other games I really want to play.

So, this brings me to the heart of my question: how can I squeeze as much performance out of my aging 7900gs until the next generation of cards? Any good guides on OCing? Any mobo tweaks? Thanks!

 

[Piuc2020]

Just a thought: NVIDIA having trouble revolutionizing the performance of their GPUs is not a byproduct of ATI's laziness, it's just GPUs have hit a thermal wall and it's very hard to improve GPUs, much like it happened with CPUs. So that's why ATI and NV are going the multi-gpu route and by maximizing the efficiency of their architectures to improve performance.

Anyways, the most you can do to improve the performance of your 7900gs is to overclock it, to do so you only need to download RivaTuner, then just go to the overclocking tab, it's actually pretty simply, just move the sliders, test extensively, reduce clockspeeds when you reach instability.

You could always check the guides on www.tweakguides.com, they feature game-specific guides for getting the most out of the game performance-wise and they also feature driver and OS tweaks, very useful indeed. You can switch to Windows XP 32-bit if you are using Vista and you can try to use tweaked drivers like Omega Drivers or NGOHQ.

And I wouldn't hold my breath for a new generation of cards, the most we'll see this year is multi-gpu cards and expensive, heat-power behemoths such as the R700 and the GT200 respectively.

 

[lollybo]

Hmmm, so I should buy an 8800gt then because it's going to be excellent for a while? If I can recall correctly, new dual cores at first tend to be somewhat redundant, but they get a lot better, so it should take at least another year before another revolutionary GPU comes out.

I would like some more opinions on this. I would like to order my 8800gt this weekend if I do decide to buy one.

 

[IlllI]

what resolution do you play at lollybo

 

[lollybo]

I usually play at 1280x1024 for games up to 2006. Some 2007 and 2008 games I can only run on medium/ lower res.

I thought I'd wait it out because of Nvidia making all these new cards, but it seems like they hit diminishing returns for now based off what Puic said. If that is the case, I'd rather spend about 200 on an 8800gt now then wait another year before I upgrade my aging video card.

 

[AzN]

If you don't play then there's no reason to buy a new card.

All you can do is overclock the core on that puppy and get a little more. These Geforce 7 is weak in the shader though so don't expect any games to play on high setting again.