New video card

[dr0be]

I bought a ati x850 XT awhile back, like 6-8 months ago, back when it was expensive as hell ($400). Well, ive never really noticed it till recently when I played BF2142 recently. But on 1024x768 res, with all the graphics (texture, geometry, effects, terrain) on medium and all the lighting options on low, it will run fine but 1) When I get inside a building with alot of people (titan for example) my framerate will drop to like 10-15ish and its very noticeable.

atm im running...

3.0ghz Pentium 4
Ati Radeon x850XT
3gb Corsair pc3200

I dont understand on such mediocre settings it still can lag. Im convinced its maybe not running on 8x. I checked the ati control center and it says its set to 8x, how can I check my BIOS and change it if its not on 8x because its performing poorly.

(was running latest omega drivers, changed to catalyst 6.9 yesterday. No different with BF2142)

And if my card is just crappy and sucks, what card is reasonable for last resort before spending XXXX dollars to upgrade new mobo, new cpu, and new card to get PCIe

 

[Vinnybcfc]

It might be the cpu; I have the same card PCI express version @ 1280 x 1024 res on default settings on the demo (mostly medium) and it ran great

You could be right about the BIOS, it depends on what board you have if you want to look:

1) Press the key to get in (Normally delete or F1 check your board manual)
2) Go through the settings and see if there is anything AGP related like Fastwrites etc
3) Quit by 'Quit without saving changes' if you are unsure on saving any settings

 

[dr0be]

Alright, I went into BIOS and went through all the menus and the only video related things were a setting with 2 choices (AGP/PCI or PCI/AGP) it was set on AGP/PCI. The other setting was apeture size, was set at 128mb, highest is 256mb. That have anything important?

 

[Captante]

You can try setting the AGP apeture to 256mb's but I doubt it'll make any difference... won't hurt anything though.

Bottom line is that the X850XT in AGP is pretty close to the fastest AGP card available right now (Nvidia 7800GS) & faster then everything else so upgrading it isn't worth it... also I wouldn't bother getting a faster P4 unless its super-cheap because it won't help much either.

Its possible the X1950 Pro AGP will be faster then the 7800GS, but its not available yet & even when it is, I'd still say you would be better off moving to a PCIe motherboard & somthing along the lines of an Nvidia 7600GT/7900GS for a bit more money... you can sell your X850 for around $100 to absorb some of the cost too.

 

[dr0be]

I dont understand how a 3.0ghz P4 and a x850xt in BF2142 1024x768 res on mostly low, some medium settings runs a steady like 10 fps though. Somethings not right.

 

[imported_Truenofan]

i'd suggest turning the shadows off then. all it is is eye candy. i run med at the highest in this config.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Change the aperture size to 256 for sure... enable fast writes in bios if available and then also in ur ati driver..... even without that thoe still 10 fps seems relle bad.... maybe ur card is almost dying :/ if the driver says ur in 8x then thats what ur running on... maybe ur card is overheating and thus not running correctly..? check vidcard temp using atitool (free download) if ur card supports temp monitoring.... it must coz my atix800Pro does support it.... good luck

 

[dr0be]

In BF2142, the only settings above the lowest they go is texture and terrain (medium), res is at 1024x768, distance on 80%, and it gets noticeable low frame rates. All lighting is lowest it goes because yes it is just eye candy.

Im downloading atitool and checking the temp. Whats a reasonable high and avg temp for the card?

*EDIT* Should I run BF2142 in a server then alttab and check the temps?

*EDIT2* Played a whole game on an open map (oil fields for those who play 2142) in a 32 man server and my temps were...

GPU max/avg 63.8/49.3
GPU environment max/avg 45.0/39.1

 

[dr0be]

bump >.<

 

[Sentry2]

Framerates do tend to drop quite a bit inside a titan. I would say what you're experiencing is normal for your setup. If the game plays decent outside at those settings then I'd say you're fine.