Suggestions for a video card upgrade.

[cusideabelincoln]

You should be getting higher than 20 fps with medium settings. Have you tested the game anymore? When you lower your graphics does performance improve?

Nevermind, a 19x12 your 7800GTX is probably struggling. When you lower the resolution does performance improve?

 

[mingsoup]

So, I've been running my 5770 for a couple weeks now....and its a mixed bag.
Team Fortress 2 is a totally different game at max settings. But STILL in massive 32 player match, I see dips to 20fps. I'll see if I can get screen. Im all about the MINimum FPS. However, for the most part I hover way way above that.

Decided to try the ARMA II demo. Bad idea. People say its the most intensive PC game available for a reason. On recommended settings, on the secure objective multi player map, the forest doesn't exactly provide a pleasant experience.

On to World in Conflict. Its defaulting to 1440*900 and Very High. This is disappointing. While it wouldn't be a disappoint if my monitor was 1440*900 native, unfortunately! I bought a 24" 1920*1200. Aren't I supposed to run at the native res?

And then there is this. Natural Selection. Kinda puzzled about that. Note the 39 FPS. This only happens relatively heavy firefights.


Thoughts?
I just love PC gaming. :\ Now its my CPU, isn't it.

 

[RussianSensation]

Decided to try the ARMA II demo. Bad idea.

The problem is the games you run are just very intensive and even 5770 won't cut it (esp not your C2D).

Loves Quads (esp. Core i7). http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,687620/ArmA-2-tested-Benchmarks-with-18-CPUs/Practice/. Look at Core i7 @ 3.5ghz vs. E8400.....

Plus eats ALL graphics cards for breakfast at 1280x1024: http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=949&page=11

So no way it's going to play at 1920x1200 with what you have (not even GTX480 can!) But you already knew that Arma 2 is a beast!

On to World in Conflict. Its defaulting to 1440*900 and Very High. This is disappointing.

Loves Core i7 @ 4.0ghz and needs 5870 at least to maintain 50fps at 1920x1200. Minimum framerates increase from 17 fps on C2D 3.4ghz to 29 fps on Core i7 4.1ghz. http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd5870-cpu-scaling_4.html#sect0

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Yes, your E2160, despite being overclocked, is holding you back in the games you mentioned. TF2, ARMA II, and WIC can all take hefty tolls on the processor. And your Pentium DC E2160 is a crippled Core 2 Duo; the reduction of the L2 cache hurts gaming performance the most. A typical C2D will have 3MB of L2 cache or more; your Pentium DC only has 1MB.

TF2 is bastardly heavy on the CPU. Although you shouldn't really get down to 20 FPS with your setup. The only time I get slowdown that bad in TF2 is when someone throws Jarate or the Buff Banner is used. For some reason all those mini-crits can drop my framerate from 45 to 25 in an instant. Most other times I'll be above 45, although at certain places on maps and in heavy firefights it will be in the 30s. You should be getting about the same or a little more performance than I am in these 32 man servers (which is where I play the majority of the time).

But a question, when there are mini-crits with Jarate or Buff Banner do you notice your framerate tank too?

 

[mingsoup]

It seems I need a i7 920 oc'ed to 4.1Ghz and dual 4870's to game at 1920*1200, at max settings these days. (eye-roll) But its really fact. and even then, you aren't gonna hit 60fps minimum constant. That will be 1100$ plus for the Proc and GPU's on a good day. this is fricking ridiculous. here's a nice 15$ game. Too bad it requires 1100$ in hardware on that. my fricking monitor is 24" 1920*1200. its called a native res?

will anyone vouch for my E2160? or it just absolute crap?

Oh! how does one pc game. I think I'll just go back and play some more Lego Harry Potter on my Wii. That won't aggravate me as much. and after that, I'll go choo choo on Zelda Spirit Tracks. no slow down there.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

To get satisfactory performance all you need to do is upgrade to a real Core 2 processor. You'll get your 60+ fps in TF2 if you do this. Your E2160 is just too crippled and more games can use more than two cores these days. You don't need an i7 and you also don't need to completely max out every game.

But there are most definitely some games you should be able to max out. Most console ports (save for GTA 4) should play well.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

If both your 5770 and your 7800 were both tanking to 20FPS the culprit is your processor. Something is going on at those moments which taxes the proc a lot more than it taxes the card and it becomes the limiting factor, evidenced by a card literally 3-4 times faster than a 7800 pumping out the same frames. Large 32 man servers tends to put a lot of stress on the processor, dealing with all the netcode and the like, a perfect situation for the lack of cache to really bite you in the ass.

As for the Nat. Selection thing, is it only happening in nat selection?

I dunno where you're getting the idea that you need to spend eleventy thousand dollars to get your performance to a really respectable place. ~100 bucks on a decent processor (or ~200 for a 9550 and you're done for a good long while) and you're there. Minimums will go through the roof and you'll be playing in style.

Some games, like crysis and arma2 just aren't going to really run well for a few more gens of cards, so don't loose sleep over them.

 

[GaiaHunter]

I've to agree with the 2 above posters.

 

[tincart]

TF2 loves quad processors. I went from an Athlon X2 7850 OC'd to 3.2 ghz to a PII X4 965 (stock) and my FPS just about doubled on a Vapor-X 4890. I run the game maxed at 1920 x 1080 on 32-player servers without issue and I'm generally a sniper so smooth FPS is a must.

 

[toyota]

TF2 loves quad processors. I went from an Athlon X2 7850 OC'd to 3.2 ghz to a PII X4 965 (stock) and my FPS just about doubled on a Vapor-X 4890. I run the game maxed at 1920 x 1080 on 32-player servers without issue and I'm generally a sniper so smooth FPS is a must.

I doubt it came anywhere near actually doubling and much of the increase was probably the much better clock for clock performance than the 2 extra cores. even my gtx260 and stock E8500 never go below 60 the times I have checked.

 

[v8envy]

Something else is wrong. I had the 3.2ghz 2180 with a 8800GT and I can absolutely positively with no if ands or buts guarantee I did *NOT* dip to 20 fps in tf2 -- with a video card 30% or so slower than OP. Not even on 32 man servers, ever.

Is a virus scanner running? Software firewall? Something else competing for CPU? Is the machine swapping to disk for some reason? Did a power outage revert your overclock?

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Uninstall all drivers (Nvidia/ATI) restart in safe mode and run Driver Cleaner to remove all remnants of both drivers, then reinstall ATI drivers again and see if that solves some of the weird performance issues you're having.

Also, what settings are you running TF2 at? You could still see some slowdown if you're trying to run it at 8x AAA at the full resolution or doing full screen AA via CCC.

Go into Catalyst Control Center and make sure you have your AA set to Application preference and "edge-detect" and your AA performance type set to performance. While you're there make sure you have Catalyst AI set to advanced and your mip-map level to quality and everything that gives you the option "Use Application Preference" to that.

 

[mingsoup]

Did the Driver Sweeper thing, reinstalled graphics drivers. Also uninstalled my AV. Turned off all msconfig start stuff. Lowest FPS I saw in TF2 21 player match was 39. I have 0 AA, Trilinear AF, only High Textures, and the middle reflect option on.Everything else maxxed. 39 only happened maybe once in half hour of gaming, but 40's were pretty common.

 

[toyota]

sounds about right

 

[Tempered81]

will anyone vouch for my E2160? or it just absolute crap?

not too bad but there are faster s775 cpus

 

[Skurge]

Thers no way you should be getting those numbers in TF2, I might have a quad, but at 1920x1080 with 8xAA, I get avrages in the 70s to 80s. You should't be getting anywhere near 20fps with a e2160.

 

[mingsoup]

Thers no way you should be getting those numbers in TF2, I might have a quad, but at 1920x1080 with 8xAA, I get avrages in the 70s to 80s. You should't be getting anywhere near 20fps with a e2160.

drops to high to mid forties in extreme firefight? only one 39 hit in half hour on 21player match? there's no real way to bench TF2 though.

World in Conflict is playable at 1440*900 maxxed. Not really absolute silk, but playable. Kinda irksome, but a CPU boost would definitely improve min FPS.

In terms of CPU, the articles I see are mostly about stock. However, with my Mugen I'd want OEM and then strangle the crap out of the chip in OC. Any comparisons like that? I have somewhat ill feelings towards intel, as just look at my dead end 775 I'm sitting in right now. Anyway to recycle memory? Is that even smart?

The bad thing about PC gaming, is you can never just game. Always a newer better. I've had my 360 and Wii now for 5+ years. No upgrades there. Just games.(subterfuge) I mean, when does one ever really NEED to upgrade their shit. Now the 7800GTX, sure that was 5 years old and dying hard. My E2160 isn't 5 years old though. Are there services for "never good enough as seen in PC gaming" counseling services?

 

[Skurge]

drops to high to mid forties in extreme firefight? only one 39 hit in half hour on 21player match? there's no real way to bench TF2 though.

World in Conflict is playable at 1440*900 maxxed. Not really absolute silk, but playable. Kinda irksome, but a CPU boost would definitely improve min FPS.

In terms of CPU, the articles I see are mostly about stock. However, with my Mugen I'd want OEM and then strangle the crap out of the chip in OC. Any comparisons like that? I have somewhat ill feelings towards intel, as just look at my dead end 775 I'm sitting in right now. Anyway to recycle memory? Is that even smart?

The bad thing about PC gaming, is you can never just game. Always a newer better. I've had my 360 and Wii now for 5+ years. No upgrades there. Just games.(subterfuge) I mean, when does one ever really NEED to upgrade their shit. Now the 7800GTX, sure that was 5 years old and dying hard. My E2160 isn't 5 years old though.

I play WOC at 1920x1080 with everything on except AA, well I bought a 360 2weeks ago, I sold it after a week. The graphics were pretty dismal.

 

[mingsoup]

Would you then recommend a Phenom II X4?

 

[Skurge]

Would you then recommend a Phenom II X4?

Yes, but that would mean a new platform for you.
The Athlon X4 are pretty good too.

Core 2 Quads are real expensive still. You could always get a q8300 and OC

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Q8xxx processors only have 1 meg of cache per core, so really it wouldn't be much of an upgrade for him. If he sticks with 775, either go for an E8xxx or a Q9550 or GTFO. Core 2 processors are cache whores since they still use that old relic of an FSB, the less they have to fetch from memory the faster they run.

Don't change platforms that'd be pointless.

 

[RussianSensation]

It seems I need a i7 920 oc'ed to 4.1Ghz and dual 4870's to game at 1920*1200, at max settings these days. (eye-roll) But its really fact. and even then, you aren't gonna hit 60fps minimum constant.

60 frames per second minimum? What?! Do consoles get 60 frames per second minimum? No. Average? No. In fact, current consoles often can't even maintain 30 frames per second (Just Cause 2 PS3, Madden, etc). . . Your argument about how a console is 5 years old and can play games without upgrading doesn't make any sense because you are comparing console graphics to PC graphics.

The bad thing about PC gaming, is you can never just game. Always a newer better. I've had my 360 and Wii now for 5+ years. No upgrades there. Just games

The Wii? Any B+ rated 5-year old PC game looks better than any Wii game ever made! Is there any game on Xbox360 that looks as good as Crysis? No. Crysis is a 3 year old game!

Did you try playing Call of Duty Modern Warfare 1 or 2 on the 360 vs. PC? What about Dragon Age Origins? Dirt 2? How can you compare graphics of 30fps at 1280x720 (or lower) on 360 to 1920x1200 on a PC? The textures on consoles are just washed out and the frames are slow to boot. Not to mention a lot of modern xbox360 games are actually running at just 1024x600.

So why is it ok to play a Wii game with horrible graphics at 30 frames per second but for a PC you expect a $150 graphics card and a $70 CPU to play a game at 60 frames at 1920x1200 + AA? Your expectations are just unrealistic. Your PC monitor's resolution is 2.5-3.75 times what the consoles can produce. Plus you want 60 frames minimum, not just average, which is 2-3 x more frames than a console. So you are asking a $150 graphics card and a $70 cpu to be 5-10x faster than your Xbox360......how does that make any sense?

For 1920x1200, 5850 is the bare minimum + 3.0ghz+ quad core if you want 4AA in current gen games. I am sure if you lower resolution to 1024x768 with 0AA, a PC game will still look better than the console and give you the 30 frames that you get on a console. In fact, every single console port will look better on a PC at 1024x768 4AA than on PS3 or Xbox360; and 5770 can easily do 1024x768 with any game.

 

[mingsoup]

So, in response to the replies about my findings for the 5770, along with a bang for the buck CPU thread I saw, I was thinking i5-750. That and try get another 5770 to pair in Cross-Fire. However, it seems that you are shooting yourself in the foot w/ XFire on a 1156 platform, as almost all the motherboards aren't x16/x16 or even x8/x8. I've heard bad bad things about x16/x4, but have yet to find an absolute article about it. Is Crossfire and SLI really only an option for people who can afford a GTX480 and then ANOTHER? I find very little incentive to invest oodles into a motherboard. They are practically disposable, with socket changes happening so rapidly. I suppose all tech is disposable, its just that a 300$ motherboard isn't going to add any gaming performance.

It seems a faster proc might help with my RTS World in Conflict, as well as 40+ player CS Source zombie mod matches. If i'm going to game at a lower res, like 1440*900, I'm closer to CPU land than GPU land in my mind. Now after my GPU upgrade, not being quite happy, I'm going to drift back over to CPU land.

Would this be smart? The whole idea of a budget cross fire build however, is kinda elusive to me. Other thoughts on my situation would also be very welcome. I would really welcome thoughts on the matter.

 

[RussianSensation]

It seems a faster proc might help with my RTS World in Conflict, as well as 40+ player CS Source zombie mod matches. If i'm going to game at a lower res, like 1440*900, I'm closer to CPU land than GPU land in my mind. Now after my GPU upgrade, not being quite happy, I'm going to drift back over to CPU land.

You are very much correct. By playing at a lower resolution you will be much more CPU dependent as your 5770 won't have to work as hard. At the same time this means your CPU speed will be more important for minimum framerates.

There is no need to spend $300 on a motherboard. I would not advise a setup with 16x/4x (such as my motherboard for Crossfire). However, Microcenter has an excellent deal on the Asus Sabertooth 55i motherboard (socket 1156) for $126 - $30 rebate: http://www.microcenter.com/single_pr...uct_id=0322017

This means $96 for a board that can do 8x/8x and supports either CF or SLI and can overclock well (which won't limit your 5770s in CF, or even GTX480s in CF).

Core i5 750 is $170 at Microcenter as well. So together the CPU + motherboard would cost you about $270 before taxes. If you sell your current motherboard + cpu + ram for $100, then the upgrade may not be so expensive.

Best bang for the buck though may be getting a used Q9550 CPU (or Q6600/6700). Keeping in mind Q9550 is 333 fsb x 8.5 multiplier and P35 DS3Ls don't like going much beyond 400 FSB with 45nm Penryns, you are still looking at a healthy 3.4ghz overclock. This way you keep your 6GBs of ram and your motherboard. This may very well be the best budget option.

If you don't mind the older 65nm and hotter than Q9550 processors, then a used Q6600/Q6700 are amazing overclockers as well. They have a multiplier of 9x and can often be found for even less than the used Q9550. On your motherboard this means 3.4ghz at just 379 FSB (easily doable as I had your board in revision 1 coasting with Q6600 @ 3.4ghz for 2 years!) This way you can wait until next year before you dive into a brand new socket (since 1156 and 1366 on Intel are going to be obsolete anyway). So with this option, if you sell your CPU for $30 and get a Q6600 for $120, you can have a 3.4ghz Quad core system = Phenom II X4 @ 3.4ghz for a $90 upgrade! Regardless of how hot Q6600s were, they are nowhere near as hot as the Core i7s when overclocked !!!!

Here is a rundown of Q6600 @ 3.6ghz vs. Core i7 920 vs. Phenom II X4 @ 3.7ghz: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/phenom-ii-x4-920-overclocking_8.html#sect0

For the $$$, it's going to be almost impossible to beat upgrading to a Q6600/6700/9550 for you if you can find any of these 3 processors used.

 

[mingsoup]

Wow, now that was good advice. Thanks Russian.
Any opinions on the whole push for XFire 5770's?

Does anyone have an article on x8/x8 limitations and where you hit the wall with it?