Upgraded My Computer. Kinda Disappointed.

[ncasebee]

I came from 3.2 GHZ P4 and 9800 Pro with same 1024 Mb of DDR400 ram. My new system is in my sig. This is my story. Please comment on your feelings and views or advice.

Tests from upgrade.
UT2004 MAXED runs like butter, where previously I had trouble doing medium. Impressed...Upon inspection my FPS lies between 59 and 80~90. This 59 figure comes up alot in games. The High 50's disappoint me.
3Dmark 03 :::::16411 Impressed (This is exactly what I should be getting, according to bneches.)
3Dmark 05::::::7855 (Top of the line hardware chugging. A view of the future. I hate upgrades. Fight scene and dragon...30fps....HOLY WOW...30 fps. (This is what I should be getting.)
Vampire Bloodlines....Runs moderately better, but not perfect
Half Life 2......Performance is not what I had expected. With the Battlegrounds mod I was sticking at 60 FPS with bursts to 120. WTF? Is it still the Nvidia ATI feud thing? I had 1024*768 maxed Trilinear Filter/ No AA. I thought it would be 100+ constant.
Counterstrike Source Stress Test. 160 Fps up from 70 Fps. Impressed 2x+ improvement.
Battlefield 2 stuttering. Need more memory I guess.

The games seem to cap low at about 59. It's kinda strange that so many games, that's where they bottom out. I thought this video card was so insane that you HAD to run at high uber res and maxed. I'm at 1024 maxed, and well, I'm not seeing fps so fast, I have to use higher res.

Still testing games.


This is why I like consoles. I spend nearly 1000$ on the top of the line parts, and this is what I get. Don't flame me, they are very very good parts. Vampire Bloodlines certainly isn't perfectly smooth. Morrowind still isn't butter smooth. Nice, but not perfect. With consoles, you get what you get, THE END. Performance is always pretty good. Why? Because it has to be. But that's apples and oranges.

Maybe I'm a freak. I don't know. Tell me your feelings peoples. Am I just expecting to much? What would make me happy? Well.....I guess 70+ constant maxed 1024? I think I'm sick. FPS matters too much to me. I'll play a console game at 30fps, and be perfectly happy, but that's because I know that's just how it is. With computers, things are quite different.

Drivers! Oh yes....

77.77 Nvidia Drivers.
Latest Nforce 4 Drivers from Nvidia.com
Latest Audigy Drivers.
Windows Update.

Like I said. 7855 in 3dMark05 is where anandtech and tomshardware are, with machines like mine, so I'm assuming my performance is on.

 

[mOeeOm]

Might as well say it...did you download all the drivers? You didn't say that in your post.

 

[ncasebee]

Edited post.

Yeah, I've got all the newest drivers. Mobo, Video, and Audio.

Brand new hardware running a 2004 game(UT2004) which drops to mid 50's?

 

[mOeeOm]

That shouldn't be....I'm running on a crappy X800XL, UT2004 on max settings 1280x1024(no AA/AF though) and its at the max fps the game goes at, 85. You should be getting that :S

 

[ncasebee]

Any benchmarks I can do?

 

[superfly27]

I went from Celeron 667 MHz/Geforce2 MX200/192 MB of RAM to a Duron 1.8 GHz/Geforce4 Ti4200/512 MB RAM.

Well, the difference was temendous in a way because I could play demos that would not even load on my old HP. Then I built this machine with a Duron and was a little shocked though at the UT2004 performance. I thought I could run everything on high. Boy, was I wrong.

So, after spending more time looking a benchmarks, I decided I would get either an X700 Pro, 9800 Pro or 6600 GT and a way faster CPU. And also, 1 GB of RAM instead of 512 MB. I just ordered the X700 Pro because it was only $135 CDN at Tigerdirect.ca although I ordered a Arctic Silencer for it from shoprbc where I'm getting my mobo etc. I also ordered an Athlon 64 3400+ 2.4 GHz that totaled $270 CDN after shipping and duty from compuvest. Why would I spend that little on an upgrade? Because the Geforce 8 line has not come out yet. And I believe in 18 months, we may see faster dual cores or even quad cores that will make it worth an upgrade (and DDR2 etc.).

Anyway, I haven't put up my Duron/Ti4200 on eBay yet because my other parts have not even arrived yet. I only got the CPU the other day and I only got shipment confirmation of my video card today. Oh, and I also ordered 1 GB of RAM. I won't be playing BF2 because I didn't like the video demo of it.

 

[ncasebee]

My 3DMark scores are spot on, so the system I assume is performing as it should, and yet I am not happy with the performance.

 

[allanon1965]

are you running dual channel ram? i noticed a huge improvement when i went from 1 gig of ddr400 to 2 gigs (4 X 512) dual channel kingmax ram.....no stuttering in pacific fighters or MS combat FS 3.....

 

[Polish3d]

On my system, only 240mhz faster than yours on the single core, I get 130-140fps in HL2, 1680x1050 resolution, 4xAA, 16AF all Settings High

 

[yourdeardaniel]

check your monitor refresh rate and in game settings; some games have fps sync to monitor refresh rate, you can disable it using display settings or in game config

 

[yourdeardaniel]

doesn't win xp have a refresh rate problem that limits FPS to 60 in games? or has that been fix?

 

[n7]

UT2k4 is extremely CPU dependant.

Video card doesn't have to be uber high end to play UT2k4 maxed, but it seems the game just can't get enough CPU power.

I would assume you are getting your ~60 fps in ONS maps.

I get around the same in ONS, & while i never benched it, i noticed fps stay higher after i OCed to 2.6 GHz

 

[Muscles]

Wow man your old system is almost exactly like my current one. Here it is:

P4 3.0C
Asus P4C800-E Deluxe
Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb
Fortron 400W PSU
OCZ PC3700 Gold Rev.2
WD 80GB SE 7200RPM w/8mb cache
Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-105
Sony DVD-ROM
Audigy 2

I am in the EXACT same situation as you were. I'm planning on upgrading specifically for Quake 4. And what's really ironic is I was going to build an identical system as your new one except use 2gb of RAM, different HD, an Audigy2, and XP Pro as the OS. The reason I haven't bought the parts yet is because I've been tearing my hair out trying to wait for R520.... I'll be really pissed if I buy now then R520 comes out and it's 20+ fps better than the 7800GTX (really unlikely IMO but there is that possibility). The other thing I'm thinking about is if I should just throw the extra money down on the 4400+ instead of the 4000+ even though my gut is telling me dual core is an over-hyped waste of money right now especially for gamers. Ugh I guess I'll continue to pull my hair out another couple weeks

 

[superfly27]

Originally posted by: Muscles
of money right now especially for gamers. Ugh I guess I'll continue to pull my hair out another couple weeks

No, it's coming out in LIMITED quantity in October (see theinquirer.net).
Then you'll have to wait like 3 weeks for prices to go down.

 

[superfly27]

Originally posted by: yourdeardaniel
doesn't win xp have a refresh rate problem that limits FPS to 60 in games? or has that been fix?

Really? I thought it was just VSYNC.

But, if frame rates drop to 20 fps at max settings at 1600x1200 and AA on to max, then it's not VSYNC (as far as I know). If you can't see anything over 60 fps, or higher on low settings, then it's VSYNC limiting the frame rate and not the computer (if you have a powerful CPU and GPU).

 

[ZobarStyl]

The problems you list don't seem to be the vidcard so much as just individual cases. Morrowind doesn't run well maxed out no matter what you have in the system; the officially recommended (not just minimum) video card is a Geforce 2 GTS, and 5 generations later you still get low FPS. The issue is the draw distance; drop it just a tiny bit and you'll see a major increase in FPS, especially in outdoor areas. BF2 cannot be run in high quality mode without 1.5-2 gigs of RAM; both of these issues arise because assuming any system so far ahead of the curve can just max all settings doesn't always work out. As for Vampire Bloodlines and HL2, well I don't get particularly low FPS on my 6800GT, but it's well established that the engine in question is ATi optimized, which might explain part of it. Like you said though, considering your other scores, I would say the system is set up right, but not every game is coded perfectly

 

[ones3k]

Originally posted by: ncasebee
I came from 3.2 GHZ P4 and 9800 Pro with same 1024 Mb of DDR400 ram. My new system is in my sig. This is my story. Please comment on your feelings and views or advice.

Why did you upgrade in the first place, your p3 3.2ghz w/ radeon 9800 pro is fine

 

[Muscles]

Originally posted by: ones3k

Originally posted by: ncasebee
I came from 3.2 GHZ P4 and 9800 Pro with same 1024 Mb of DDR400 ram. My new system is in my sig. This is my story. Please comment on your feelings and views or advice.

Why did you upgrade in the first place, your p3 3.2ghz w/ radeon 9800 pro is fine

Nah it isn't "fine." I have almost the exact same system he did (read my first reply on this thread) and I am not happy with the performance either.

 

[superfly27]

Originally posted by: ones3k

Originally posted by: ncasebee
I came from 3.2 GHZ P4 and 9800 Pro with same 1024 Mb of DDR400 ram. My new system is in my sig. This is my story. Please comment on your feelings and views or advice.

Why did you upgrade in the first place, your p3 3.2ghz w/ radeon 9800 pro is fine

On the Pentium, the difference is like 133 fps in UT2004 for the Pentium 3.2 EE GHz or 120 fps on the 3.2 GHz vs. about 150 fps on an Athlon 3400+ 2.4 GHz. Or wait, in Doom3, that's 90 fps vs. 85 fps for the EE and 80 for the other 3.2 GHz model.

Yeah, I suppose. Now he's more "future proof". That's about it. So, it does look like he did "jump the gun" too fast and spent more than he needed to at the moment. There aren't that many programs optimized for dual core yet. \EDIT: Whoops! That's not a dual core.

 

[ncasebee]

Yeah, guess I'm just future proofed.

Everquest 2. That's another one that isn't perfectly smooth. I can't even think of running at extreme. I run at high with 1024 Res, and I'm see areas all the time that slow down quite a bit.
Anarchy Online isn't any better. 40-60fps, and that's it. That's on maxed. Anarchy Online. Ran like crap two systems ago, one system ago, and still today.

Guess I jumped the gun a little bit, but then again I like to upgrade every year or two.

I can't wait for my Xbox 360, where I won't have any freedom. All that will concern me is the game and how to play the game. (Uhg, That reminds me.....I bought a 4:3 HDTV.....LMAO...Didn't know HDTV Resolutions only come in 16:9.....bad bad blunder. Still stings.)

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

Everquest runs better with more than 1GB of RAM... Try getting another 1GB. Maybe that'll fix a couple problems.

 

[Muscles]

ncasebee: If you could go back in time knowing what you know now would you of bought and done the same thing or something different?

 

[ncasebee]

I would have waited. I think. I would have waited for the R520, or waited indefinately. The 800$ I spent is certainly not justified. I was expecting much much more. I would have waited, and in the mean time....bought an xbox 360. But that's just me.

I was expecting 100% on everything, including Everquest 2 and Battlefield 2. With another gig of ram I could get very close in Battlefield 2. Everquest 2 is still impossible. Everquest 2 went from running like 100% utter poop.....to just poop. Wow...it's amazing what 800$ will get yah. Anarchy Online's code sucks. Morrowind has always been kinda slow. I was expecting much more from Half-Life 2. Half-Life 2 is my biggest disappointment. Yes the performance is much much better.....but not good enough. My 3.2 Ghz P4 wasn't good enough either, so I could have saved myself 800$ and stayed at "not good enough." Sad really.

 

[Noobtastic]

you shouldnt be stuttering on BF2 using a 7800.

While im waiting for my computer, im stuck playing at local cyber cafes and the one nearest me use's 6800 Ultra 1 gig of memory and AMD 3800.

(Every system) and they run every game imaginable beautifully.

BF2 at high settings runs amazing...so there is either something wrong with ur card or you need to download the most recent driver.

BF2 is teh sh1t!!

 

[Minotar]

You can go on and on about this, but I tell ya, if you play PC for a while and you go back to console, that, my friend, will be your biggest disappointment. After playing on my new PC for a while, I can't even look at my Xbox anymore. The graphics are so terrible on TV even with component video and HD. PC monitor high rez displays just kick the sh*t out of consoles. Don't believe me? Play Doom 3 and Farcry at 1600X1200 for 2 weeks and then go back and try to play console. Go ahead... Take the PC to console challenge!!!! As a matter of fact, when you go back to console, pick a supposedly graphically impressive game such as Ninja Gaiden. Dude, I am telling you, it is painful!!!! While PC might not be perfect, the graphics are far cleaner, and the games are far deeper than anything on console.

PS.EQ2 just sucks arse!!!! It would run like poop on a superPC because Sony used extremely inefficient coding for the game. Don't bother with that game.