Question about 8800 GTS320 vs 640

[blackangst1]

I kinda went off on a rant in another thread and didnt want to hijack it My question is this: based on my system would I see a significant improvement in online MMO's by updating to the 640 card? It's my understanding memory helps render and I belive that is what is causing my lag/low FPS.

Viewsonic 22" Widescreen monitor native rez 1600x 1050 (I think)
eVGA 8800GTS320 Superclocked
Abit IB9 mobo
C2D E6600
OCZ gold memory
Vista 32 bit Ultimate
Nothing overclocked

Now. I game at that level and even with AA off my gameplay isnt great. Sure I could play at a lower rez, but if bumping up to 640 vid card would help I'd rather do that.

Opinions?

 

[trOver]

What games are you playing? I can max everything out with my evga 320 and I play at the same res as you, and i always manage over 30 frames

 

[blackangst1]

Mostly Vanguard. I *can* manage 30+FPS, but often I get 10 or so. Also, there are many times I will turn around, for example, and it will get a little skip. Does that help?

 

[sthaznpride17]

I am having stuttering/low FPS with my 320MB also. I play Lord of the Rings Online, and memory usage shows full whent eh highest settings are used with 4xAA/8xAF at 1280 x 1024. MMO's I think would benefit a lot from the extra memory.

 

[Bradtechonline]

If you can find a 640 within 20-30 bucks of a 320 go ahead, and get it. Really just depends on what resolutions you want to play in, and what games you are playing. I opted out for this x1950xt 256 for 169.00 due to what resolutions I play in now, and plan on upgrading to *only 1280x1024*.

 

[blackangst1]

Well I bumped down to 1440x900 and although it's a little better, I still stutter. f'ing pisses me off it's such a beautiful game.

There has to be a reason there are two models. Although the early benchmarks show nearly identical performance, lately it's not that way. I have read many articles about how the extra memory DOES in fact take care of alot of rendering issues...which is what I believe Im having. I've also read 1600x1200 is about the breaking point for this card, and thats about what I play at. Maybe Im talking myself into trading for a 640, but I really cant see a reason to keep this. If I still had my 19" widescreen I think it would be fine. But with a 22", Im thinking not so much.

Please people chime in. I'm going to wait a few more days (when I have time lol) so if I can get some convincing to keep the 320 I will. I can tweak my in-game settings if needed.

Bottom line: will the doubling of memory increase render performance noticably or not? Is the 640 card just a bragging rights card?

 

[firewolfsm]

Try overclocking first.

I run the same res with a 7900GT and it's fine, I don't see why you're having problems.

 

[will889]

Originally posted by: blackangst1
Mostly Vanguard. I *can* manage 30+FPS, but often I get 10 or so. Also, there are many times I will turn around, for example, and it will get a little skip. Does that help?

I have an open thread about this issue in the eVGA forums. You're not alone. Look around the net and you'll see it's happening to volumes of people with the eVGA 8800GTS 320MB card.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: will889

Originally posted by: blackangst1
Mostly Vanguard. I *can* manage 30+FPS, but often I get 10 or so. Also, there are many times I will turn around, for example, and it will get a little skip. Does that help?

I have an open thread about this issue in the eVGA forums. You're not alone. Look around the net and you'll see it's happening to volumes of people with the eVGA 8800GTS 320MB card.

Thanks for the advice Will I'll go tomorrow and register and check out the forum.

Is it the eVGA card or the 320MB thats the issue? Hell if it's eVGA I'll return it and a BFG lol

Anyway I'll check it out-

 

[will889]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: will889

Originally posted by: blackangst1
Mostly Vanguard. I *can* manage 30+FPS, but often I get 10 or so. Also, there are many times I will turn around, for example, and it will get a little skip. Does that help?

I have an open thread about this issue in the eVGA forums. You're not alone. Look around the net and you'll see it's happening to volumes of people with the eVGA 8800GTS 320MB card.

Thanks for the advice Will I'll go tomorrow and register and check out the forum.

Is it the eVGA card or the 320MB thats the issue? Hell if it's eVGA I'll return it and a BFG lol

Anyway I'll check it out-

No not just the eVGA but IIRC the greater share of the complaints are for the eVGA 320MB, but that could just be because more people have the eVGA and are getting that card because of the great warranty and trade-up program. I have seen other 320MB 8800GT's suffering form the issue around the net, and a few scattered 640MB versions with the issue. I think all of these cards are identical (PCB and HW wise) actually besides the name and stamp that goes on them, so getting a BFG 320 might be the same.

If I were going to get another 8800GTS it would be the 640MB version because I have read more than one account that this solved the issue, but then again who knows of that person uninstalled and reinstalled any drivers and what procedures they used. Half of my games run great, and my legacy games and a few new ones run like a$$. COD, COD2, FEAR, Stalker all run badly at times with severe and abrupt FPS drops at various intervals. Many people that own the card think it's a memory leak of some kind. COD series can be fixed by disabling dynamic lighting and volumetric lighting (for me anyway) but who wants to do that on a $299.00 video card? Not me

 

[blackangst1]

You describe exactly my issue Will. I guess rather than calling it "skipping" you are precise in saying there are huge FPS drops. I could understand if I were going from say outside in an open field with not much there into a large city, but it will happen in almost all scenarios. I played a little last night and watched my FPS and thats exactly it. I'll go from 35 FPS and for no apperant reason down to 3-10 for about 3 or 4 minutes. Then back up. It really is aggrevating because Im really only seeing about a 10-15% gain in FPS from my AGP 6800 GT Golden Sample. And like I said earlier I havent really cranked up the settings alot. I've also tried turning off AA and antriscopy completey which doesnt seem to help.

/sigh

I'll go through the eVGA forums and make a determination today, and will most likely try the 640. As a side note I *am* running on Vista, but I dont think that would matter. I have tried LITERALLY every driver from 100.xx up to 158.60 beta doing full clean uninstalls and the funky uninstall/reinstall/uninstall/reinstall method on every one.

I havent been much of an ATI fan as of late so honestly dont know much about whats out there. Would a high end ATI do better maybe? If I recall what little I've read there really isnt an ATI card out there now to compete with the 8800 series.

/sigh

All I want is a great gaming experience dammit!

 

[lordroddington]

Hey I've got the same problem.

In my case, on Lord of the Rings Online, it will perform well for about 5 minutes, then it will start studdering with low framerates. I have Rivatuner monitoring the memory usage, and its at about 380MB, which could explain it. But ALT-TABing to the desktop and going back into the game fixes it, presumably because it reloads only the textures that it is currently using. I think this could be an issue with some games/the driver not properly clearing out unused textures.

Who knows, maybe due to the non-standard memory size, the game sees a card with more than 256MB of memory and assumes its 512MB. I'm hoping that this will improve with driver releases - I could use evga step-up to a 640MB one but I don't really have the money right now...

 

[sthaznpride17]

Originally posted by: lordroddington
Hey I've got the same problem.

In my case, on Lord of the Rings Online, it will perform well for about 5 minutes, then it will start studdering with low framerates. I have Rivatuner monitoring the memory usage, and its at about 380MB, which could explain it. But ALT-TABing to the desktop and going back into the game fixes it, presumably because it reloads only the textures that it is currently using. I think this could be an issue with some games/the driver not properly clearing out unused textures.

Who knows, maybe due to the non-standard memory size, the game sees a card with more than 256MB of memory and assumes its 512MB. I'm hoping that this will improve with driver releases - I could use evga step-up to a 640MB one but I don't really have the money right now...

This is EXACTLY the problem I have, and many other owners of the 320MB 8800 have. I have done some reasearch and there are reports that the nVidia Drivers are not handling the memory properly, or the game engines themselves cannot handle the memory properly. In some cases, such as Quake 4 which uses crazy amounts of Vid Memory, 320MB just isn't enough.

 

[will889]

Yeah the card seems to suffer from memory leaks badly. Sad because I could tell the card could be the best card I have ever owned. It's quiet and startlingly fast when it works right. I am RMA'ing mine tomorrow anyhow and I will watch and see how this plays out for a while, or a may try like blackangst1 and go for the 640MB. No doubt though give props to eVGA tech support and their emails back and forth they are really good about things and I highly recommend them to anyone -- the card just wouldn't run well consistently in various combinations of HW and PSU's. I would throw my wife's 7950GT in and the same games were no problem. borrowed a friends X1950XT and again no problem (man that's a good card BTW it may have lower high FPS than the 8800GTS but far more steady and all games worked flawlessly much like the 7950GT but a bit faster in nearly every game at the same save points). If this X1950XT is in stock anytime soon I'm all over it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814102067

 

[blackangst1]

Well I spent most the day on eVGA and BFG's forums and it does indeed look to be a problem with the 8800gts 320 model, not just the branding. Seems there are issues with the two OC models (eVGA and BFG) as well as the vanilla flavors. Like Will said, people are hit and miss and it's screaming fast - WHEN it works. From my humble experience I concur it seems to be a memory leak of some sort, so drivers wont help.

/sigh

Well, the good news is I now have an excuse to upgrade to the 640 LOL I'll be picking it up tomorrow night. Seems those are pretty stable.

 

[pcslookout]

I have a 8800 GTS 320 but is it really worth going to a 8800 GTS 640 or should I just go straight to a 8800 GTX instead ? I only have a 19 inch CRT monitor that is pretty old. I don't think I will be upgrading my monitor anytime soon inless my current 19 inch CRT monitor dies. The highest resolution I played a game at so far is 1600x1200 but I usually play games at 1024x768 or 1280x1024. 1600x1200 to the most but my current monitor refresh rate is only 75 Hz at 1600x1200. Anything above 1280x1024 is 75 Hz for the most part. 1280x1024 and below is 85 Hz which i prefer.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: pcslookout
I have a 8800 GTS 320 but is it really worth going to a 8800 GTS 640 or should I just go straight to a 8800 GTX instead ? I only have a 19 inch CRT monitor that is pretty old. I don't think I will be upgrading my monitor anytime soon inless my current 19 inch CRT monitor dies. The highest resolution I played a game at so far is 1600x1200 but I usually play games at 1024x768 or 1280x1024. 1600x1200 to the most but my current monitor refresh rate is only 75 Hz at 1600x1200. Anything above 1280x1024 is 75 Hz for the most part. 1280x1024 and below is 85 Hz which i prefer.

If you arent having any of the problems oceans of people are having, the 320 looks like a good fit for you. It *would* be a good fit me were it not for the flaky hardware. It's hit or miss...if you got a good one, keep it.

 

[tigersty1e]

Sad to hear these problems, but could the cards be throttling?

My 6800 throttles badly. It is smooth in the first 5 minutes and then throttles for about the next 5-10 minutes. After this, it sometimes plays smoothly and sometimes continues to throttle.

Try disabling throttling on the stock speeds and see what happens.

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: pcslookout
I have a 8800 GTS 320 but is it really worth going to a 8800 GTS 640 or should I just go straight to a 8800 GTX instead ? I only have a 19 inch CRT monitor that is pretty old. I don't think I will be upgrading my monitor anytime soon inless my current 19 inch CRT monitor dies. The highest resolution I played a game at so far is 1600x1200 but I usually play games at 1024x768 or 1280x1024. 1600x1200 to the most but my current monitor refresh rate is only 75 Hz at 1600x1200. Anything above 1280x1024 is 75 Hz for the most part. 1280x1024 and below is 85 Hz which i prefer.

If you arent having any of the problems oceans of people are having, the 320 looks like a good fit for you. It *would* be a good fit me were it not for the flaky hardware. It's hit or miss...if you got a good one, keep it.

Well I am not sure if this is the kind of problems you are talking about the oceans of people are having with the 320 but I have had the problem of getting a BSOD often in Company of Heroes after a few hours each time. I had it happen during the beginning as well. I have some settings on Ultra. One of the setting I try putting on Ultra tells me it may not work for some reason. So I just keep it at high even though it sometimes works fine on Ultra. So instead of having two settings in that game on Ultra there only one. I wonder if the 640 would allow me to put the other setting on Ultra without this warning ? Another thing I didn't like in Company of Heroes is I noticed when I had a huge army it seems like the whole game slowed down. Would the 640 help in regard to this?

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: tigersty1e
Sad to hear these problems, but could the cards be throttling?

My 6800 throttles badly. It is smooth in the first 5 minutes and then throttles for about the next 5-10 minutes. After this, it sometimes plays smoothly and sometimes continues to throttle.

Try disabling throttling on the stock speeds and see what happens.

nah not throttling

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: pcslookout

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: pcslookout
I have a 8800 GTS 320 but is it really worth going to a 8800 GTS 640 or should I just go straight to a 8800 GTX instead ? I only have a 19 inch CRT monitor that is pretty old. I don't think I will be upgrading my monitor anytime soon inless my current 19 inch CRT monitor dies. The highest resolution I played a game at so far is 1600x1200 but I usually play games at 1024x768 or 1280x1024. 1600x1200 to the most but my current monitor refresh rate is only 75 Hz at 1600x1200. Anything above 1280x1024 is 75 Hz for the most part. 1280x1024 and below is 85 Hz which i prefer.

If you arent having any of the problems oceans of people are having, the 320 looks like a good fit for you. It *would* be a good fit me were it not for the flaky hardware. It's hit or miss...if you got a good one, keep it.

Well I am not sure if this is the kind of problems you are talking about the oceans of people are having with the 320 but I have had the problem of getting a BSOD often in Company of Heroes after a few hours each time. I had it happen during the beginning as well. I have some settings on Ultra. One of the setting I try putting on Ultra tells me it may not work for some reason. So I just keep it at high even though it sometimes works fine on Ultra. So instead of having two settings in that game on Ultra there only one. I wonder if the 640 would allow me to put the other setting on Ultra without this warning ? Another thing I didn't like in Company of Heroes is I noticed when I had a huge army it seems like the whole game slowed down. Would the 640 help in regard to this?

Thats not exactly the problems people are having. Most dont involve BSOD..its just a DRAMATIC drop in FPS for no apperent reason. Like Will above directed me, take a look at your card's forums. In my case, eVGA. Many many many people having the exact same issue. From my reading people are thinking it's a memory leak with the 320's.

In your case involving large army slow downs...well, thats normal. You have much more to render. It's like when I used to play Everquest...normal playing was fine, but when I went on a raid with 60+ people I'd lag. Pretty understandable.

Im not going to recommend anything, just read up and decide. Try and target your exact problem. Dont do what alot of people do and say "I have 3 out of 6 symtoms I must have that problem too!" In the case of the 320's, everyone is having the same identical problems.

 

[blackangst1]

Holy double post batman

 

[pcslookout]

Is there anyway to fix large army slow downs and lag?

 

[blackangst1]

What setup do ya got?

 

[pcslookout]

Intel Core 2 Duo E6420
Geforce 8800 GTS 320 MB
4 GB of DDR2 ram
Western Digital 15,000 rpm Raptor 150 gig main hard drive (Game is installed on the raptor)
Hitachi 500 gig 7200 rpm IDE hard drive