New GPU, lame performance

[Todd33]

I upgraded my 7900GT with a 9600GSO. I was under the impression that it was over 2x as fast. I installed COD:WaW and cannot get it to run well. I'm dipping down to 15 fps in the first fight at 720P w/ 2x AA with medium settings.

The problem I guessing is my CPU, an old AMD 4400+ w/ 2GB and fresh Win XP.

Did I just waste my money or is it just this one game?

I ran the Future Mark 06 and scored like a 7100.

From PC Gaming to Vid card&Graphics- PC Gaming Mod- DAPUNISHER

 

[zerocool84]

Make sure you uninstall old drivers and reinstall new ones.

Also yes, your ancient CPU will hold it back immensly. You should turn off AA.

 

[Koudelka]

Shouldnt this go under Video Cards and Graphics, then?

EDIT: but on topic, CPU shouldnt hold you back that much. WaW doesnt require much to run i believe. Would definitely try another game first. But also depends on the rest of the settings you have ingame.

 

[Todd33]

Ya, wrong sub-forum. Sorry guys.

 

[Sam25]

Originally posted by: zerocool84
Make sure you uninstall old drivers and reinstall new ones.

Also yes, your ancient CPU will hold it back immensly. You should turn off AA.

Yup, turning off AA will help quite a lot.

 

[vj8usa]

Originally posted by: Koudelka
CPU shouldnt hold you back that much. WaW doesnt require much to run i believe.

I beg to differ.

 

[Todd33]

Originally posted by: vj8usa

Originally posted by: Koudelka
CPU shouldnt hold you back that much. WaW doesnt require much to run i believe.

I beg to differ.

Wow, that might be my issue. Maybe it's time for a cheap CPU upgrade.

 

[Scali]

Why would AA matter? That's something that is strictly in hands of the GPU. If the CPU is bottlenecking your games, you can usually increase the AA setting without getting lower framerates. Likewise, turning AA down won't make it go faster, because it's the CPU limiting it, not the GPU.

And yea, a 4400+ is getting a bit long in the tooth, I suppose.

 

[Todd33]

Turning off AA and some other setting did almost nothing. It must be CPU.

What is the best bang for the buck in CPU/MB for the low end?

 

[angry hampster]

Originally posted by: Todd33
Turning off AA and some other setting did almost nothing. It must be CPU.

What is the best bang for the buck in CPU/MB for the low end?

$185 phenom II dual core combo with $10 MIR:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...?ItemList=Combo.211674



or:

P43 UD3L $79:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813128380
and E6300 $88:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16819116091

 

[Todd33]

My friend said he would give me a deal on his E8400, MB and RAM in a few weeks

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

There has to be something wrong. He shouldn't be going to 15fps.

 

[brblx]

i might agree. on medium settings at 1280x720, a single core should be able to handle cod4/5 (identical engine, right?). i would expect fairly smooth framerates.

but yes, even with just a 9600gso (is it the good one? there are both 48 and 96 stream processor versions) he's pretty crippled by that cpu. even just a stock e5200 would be a large upgrade, overclocked even better. he should be able to run cod5 on high, being only one step down on an 8800/9800gt (again, assuming it's the good version of the card).

 

[AzN]

It's most likely a driver issue. You should uninstall drivers and reinstall drivers.

 

[TC91]

An A64 4400+ is a dual core, no? I believe the 4000+ was the fastest single core non A64 FX cpu, correct me if I'm wrong.

Anyways, Todd33 run GPU-Z to check if your pci-e is running at 16x or 1x. Also check to see if you have the 48 shader 9600gso with the gddr2/ddr2 (severely bandwidth limited card) which might be the issue if the pci-e slot is at 16x.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: vj8usa

Originally posted by: Koudelka
CPU shouldnt hold you back that much. WaW doesnt require much to run i believe.

I beg to differ.

Wow, that is pretty surprising. I just installed WaW on this E2140 rig. I haven't gotten around to playing yet. According to this site I should get about 25-35fps out of this thing. I might have to check this out.

update: yeah, this game is definitely cpu limited. I'm hitting the low 20's pretty regularly when the action breaks out, and the GTX 280 isn't even working that hard. I can hear the fan spin up occasionally on the GTX, whereas in Fallout 3 it runs at a higher RPM most of the time. Also, changing the resolution and graphics options didn't seem to have any affect on the fps.

 

[Scali]

Originally posted by: TC91
An A64 4400+ is a dual core, no? I believe the 4000+ was the fastest single core non A64 FX cpu, correct me if I'm wrong.

I believe it's either 2.2 GHz dualcore with 2x1MB cache, socket 939/DDR, or a 2.3 GHz dualcore with 2x512KB cache, socket Am2/DDR2.
The first 4400+ was introduced in early 2005, I believe.

So on the one hand I wouldn't be surprised if this CPU would be bottlenecking the videocard... on the other hand, I don't know how heavy that particular game is... if you turn down the detail, shouldn't most games be pretty playable still? My brother still plays Left 4 Dead on a Pentium 4 3.8HT, and it runs pretty well. I think a 4400+ would be faster.

So like it was said above, try upgrading your drivers for the chipset and videocard to the latest, if you haven't done this already. Perhaps you should also disable any kind of virus checker and whatever, while benchmarking your system. You may also want to do a check for viruses/malware to see if that is eating away performance.
If all that fails, well, then I guess it's time to get a new CPU

 

[vj8usa]

Originally posted by: nitromullet

Originally posted by: vj8usa

Originally posted by: Koudelka
CPU shouldnt hold you back that much. WaW doesnt require much to run i believe.

I beg to differ.

Wow, that is pretty surprising. I just installed WaW on this E2140 rig. I haven't gotten around to playing yet. According to this site I should get about 25-35fps out of this thing. I might have to check this out.

update: yeah, this game is definitely cpu limited. I'm hitting the low 20's pretty regularly when the action breaks out, and the GTX 280 isn't even working that hard. I can hear the fan spin up occasionally on the GTX, whereas in Fallout 3 it runs at a higher RPM most of the time. Also, changing the resolution and graphics options didn't seem to have any affect on the fps.

Yeah, your stock E2140 will be a severe bottleneck for your GTX280 in quite a few modern games. The E2xxx CPUs overclock like crazy though; a 100% OC on your chip (from 1.6 to 3.2) wouldn't be unrealistic (though your 945 board might hold you back). Even at 3+ GHz though, that CPU will be a bottleneck in some cases considering how fast your GPU is.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: vj8usa

Originally posted by: nitromullet

Originally posted by: vj8usa

Originally posted by: Koudelka
CPU shouldnt hold you back that much. WaW doesnt require much to run i believe.

I beg to differ.

Wow, that is pretty surprising. I just installed WaW on this E2140 rig. I haven't gotten around to playing yet. According to this site I should get about 25-35fps out of this thing. I might have to check this out.

update: yeah, this game is definitely cpu limited. I'm hitting the low 20's pretty regularly when the action breaks out, and the GTX 280 isn't even working that hard. I can hear the fan spin up occasionally on the GTX, whereas in Fallout 3 it runs at a higher RPM most of the time. Also, changing the resolution and graphics options didn't seem to have any affect on the fps.

Yeah, your stock E2140 will be a severe bottleneck for your GTX280 in quite a few modern games. The E2xxx CPUs overclock like crazy though; a 100% OC on your chip (from 1.6 to 3.2) wouldn't be unrealistic (though your 945 board might hold you back). Even at 3+ GHz though, that CPU will be a bottleneck in some cases considering how fast your GPU is.

Yeah, this motherboard is not an OC board. It's ok though, this system is my media/file/print server, so it doesn't need to be fast. I just dropped my GTX 280 in here while I save up for a Nehalem build.

That is a sweet OC on your E2160 btw. Gotta love those Abit boards.

 

[Todd33]

Originally posted by: TC91
An A64 4400+ is a dual core, no? I believe the 4000+ was the fastest single core non A64 FX cpu, correct me if I'm wrong.

Anyways, Todd33 run GPU-Z to check if your pci-e is running at 16x or 1x. Also check to see if you have the 48 shader 9600gso with the gddr2/ddr2 (severely bandwidth limited card) which might be the issue if the pci-e slot is at 16x.

I'll check these suggestions out, but according to the link with the COD5 benchmark my setup is doing as expected. My card is a DD3 Asus 384MB one, it supposed to be the faster of the two with the GSO label I think.

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: Sam25

Originally posted by: zerocool84
Make sure you uninstall old drivers and reinstall new ones.

Also yes, your ancient CPU will hold it back immensly. You should turn off AA.

Yup, turning off AA will help quite a lot.

Why?
AA is card related. Slows card down. Not CPU.
Or so I thought?

 

[frozentundra123456]

I agree with the posters who think you should be getting better performance. I have an intel E4500 and an ATI HD4650. This should be fairly comparable to your system: slightly better CPU, similar graphics card. I have not tried COD5 with this system, but I can play COD4 at mostly high settings with 2xAA at 1440x900 with framerates in the 30 to 45 range.

Clean out old drivers and reinstall latest drivers. Also, do you have something running in the background that is using a lot of CPU power such as antivirus or spyware?? Are you overheating on the CPU or GPU??

 

[frozentundra123456]

Just another thought.

I assume you are benchmarking in single player mode. I you are having framerate issues in multiplayer, obviously it could be from lag issues.

 

[vj8usa]

Originally posted by: frozentundra123456
I agree with the posters who think you should be getting better performance. I have an intel E4500 and an ATI HD4650. This should be fairly comparable to your system: slightly better CPU, similar graphics card. I have not tried COD5 with this system, but I can play COD4 at mostly high settings with 2xAA at 1440x900 with framerates in the 30 to 45 range.

Clean out old drivers and reinstall latest drivers. Also, do you have something running in the background that is using a lot of CPU power such as antivirus or spyware?? Are you overheating on the CPU or GPU??

Not trying to single you out, but what's with all the people saying his performance is lower than it should be? Didn't any of you look at the benchmarks from PCGH that were linked? CoD5 is not CoD4, and is quite a bit more demanding. That benchmark shows a 5000+ dipping all the way to 23FPS and averaging only 30FPS (at 1280x1024 with a GTX280), and a 5000+ is faster than a 4400+.

Oh, and frozen, your E4500 is quite a bit faster than his 4400+ (not just "slightly better"). And it'd still probably hurt your framerate in some parts of CoD5, assuming it's at stock clocks.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I ran COD5, one level with my system, E4500 and HD4650. I guess the game is more demanding than COD4. I still got in the low 30FPS at 1440x900, mostly high settings, no AA. However, one time it did dip into the low 20s when there was a huge explosion. So I guess you are right vj8, but if the OP is consistently dipping less than 20 FPS that seems kind of low still.