Weak framerates on fast system!!!! ADVICE?

[smp]

Okay .. a buddy here at school just braught his new AMD rig over to get me to help him, so of course, I come here first, this is the deal;

AMD 1.4 tbird
256 meg DDR
A7M266
GeForce 2 TiVX Asus 64mg
Maxtor D740X
Win XP

He's only getting 50 to 60 FPS in quake demo right now in regular gameplay .. the settings are at full everything and 800 x 600 .. is this normal? I'm not much of a gamer but I know that at the same settings I get higher framerates on my Radeon AIW 32 DDR card .. so this is concerning me. Not only that, but he also plays Shogun and it TOTALLY lags (not an online game, video lag) ... He says he installed the Nvidia drivers that came with the card, the Asus CD that came with the board .. I don't know what's up. Unless the video drivers on the CD are terrible, but that's what it's looking like so far.
Any suggestions would be great, thanks.

 

[MistaTastyCakes]

Try getting his drivers updated and make sure AA and Vsync are disabled in the card's settings.

 

[MisterDuck]

I would:
1. Download the latest updates for Windows XP (make sure you have DX 8.1, latest service pack if there is one, etc.)
2. Go to Asus's site and download the latest Via 4 in 1 driver pack
3. Go to nvidia's site and download the most recent detonator drivers for that chipset (geforce2 ti)
4. Disable all screen savers, desktop backrounds, and clear out the programs running in the tray except essential ones (I don't know if WinXP has that crap, but it uses system resources)
5. If that doesn't work, try downloading drivers for all of his other components and updating those.

Other than that, I don't really know. It could be that WinXP uses a LOT of memory and you're just maxing out his memory - 256 isn't all that much for a box with WinXP and everyone I've spoken with reccomends 512. It's sort of the reason I'm still on W2k, because I don't like the overhead associated with WinXP (it's bloated, IMO)

Good Luck.

 

[smp]

People who recommend more than 256 megs of ram when they aren't even using 256 are lame.
I just checked his system resources and he's not even close to using it all.

I don't even know how he installed the drivers. .. this is why I never installed XP .. it's too automatic. I don't like windows to find drivers for me, I like to install them myself, that way I know what is going on and I know where I might have made the mistake. If XP makes a mistake, then it's all up in the air .. I'm not enough of a window hacker to be able to figure that stuff out.

I'll tell him everything you guys have recommended, but I think he's gonna install win2k tonight anyways.

 

[MisterDuck]

Hey, I'm just going off what I've heard - I know 256 is more than plenty for 9/10th's of all the w2k users out there, but everyone I've spoken with says the overhead of winxp is much more.

Either way, if you checked his resources then you're probably fine. I'd help with the drivers in xp, but I've never used it so I can't really give any suggestions. I'd upgrade, but I don't think xp brings anything to the table that w2k already has.

 

[AA0]

I've got 256 with XP, and I want another 256, but since the prices went up, I won't get it. I'm sure there will be a difference, but not earth shattering.

 

[mrman3k]

Why do you want more RAM, I have 256 and the most I have ever used under extreme 6+applications running and copy/pasting it used 180MB, WinXP has excellent memory managment. People that say you need more than 256 are either running server applications or are BSing and trying to justify why they should get the 512 just for bragging rights. Trust me, 256 is all you need.

 

[smp]

Why do you want more RAM, I have 256 and the most I have ever used under extreme 6+applications running and copy/pasting it used 180MB, WinXP has excellent memory managment. People that say you need more than 256 are either running server applications or are BSing and trying to justify why they should get the 512 just for bragging rights. Trust me, 256 is all you need.

Well said. Bragging rights!!!
I do have 512 on my win2k machine, but I got the other 256 when it was dirt cheap, and I do use photoshop with large files and a few other things from time to time. It's not necessary though, but if I ever need to pull a stick for another machine I won't hesitate, cause i have it.

 

[AndyCunningham]

I recently went to 512mb RAM and can say that I haven't noticed much if any difference, even with a number of apps open at a time. Certainly if one of the 256 modules failed I wouldn't bother replacing it.

 

[MisterDuck]

It depends upon what you're going to do. I know I found 512 to be of GREAT assistance in w2k when running photoshop (I did some graphic design work for several CD's - constantly working with HUGE files - 250+ megs) and also soundforge (it would just load the entire song to memory instead of messing around with the HD), but for all practical purposes I don't think you need 512 right now. Same goes with any sort of Macromedia apps - they LOVE lots of memory. I don't know about games - I think 256 is probably fine for just about any game out there right now.

I'm just trying to offer suggestions, that's all. You said his comp was slow - not enough memory can be a cause of that, assuming he has a system that's running a lot in the backround.

 

[Silver222]

I wish people wouldn't talk out of their ass so much. As it has been pointed out by a few smart people, if you've ever used Photoshop, 256 is not going to cut it.

Does your buddy really need a 1.4tbird? Nope, he could get along fine with a slower Duron. Do you see where I'm going with this?

 

[acidvoodoo]

yea i'd suggest he gets the latest det drivers

i went to a friends house today, he had a 1.3ghz athlon, 256 ram, geforce 2 mx, and i ran 3dmark2001, he got 700(i have a k6-2 450,128mb,voodoo3 system that scored 550), i ask him when the last time he updated his drivers, his said, never, so we went to the nvidia website, got the drivers, ran 3dmark again, and his scored went up to 1800

 

[erikiksaz]

What's a TiVX? Is it at an MX-level? If i remember correctly, Quake 3 never ran all that great on those MX cards, especially at 32-bit full detail.

 

[Crusty]

Make sure your agp aperture setting in the bios is at least 128mb. If not texture acceleration will be unavailable and thus slow laggish gameplay!

 

[BFG10K]

Make sure you have the latest BIOS and chipset drivers for that system and make sure the card isn't running in PCI mode.

 

[JackBurton]

<< I wish people wouldn't talk out of their ass so much. As it has been pointed out by a few smart people, if you've ever used Photoshop, 256 is not going to cut it.

Does your buddy really need a 1.4tbird? Nope, he could get along fine with a slower Duron. Do you see where I'm going with this?
>>


Agreed. I swear to God, that gets on my LAST freakin' nerve when people using W2K say anything more than 256MB is useless! :| Do you come to this conclusion after playing some old games and do some little thing on Photoshop?! Games like QIII and UT run GREAT with 256MB of ram on W2K or XP. HOWEVER, MoH:AA, and ESPECIALLY RTCW use A LOT of your memory. For example, I played a game last night, and I had MMJ running (for playing MP3s while I'm on my online gaming killing spree), plus 2 IE sessions and RCTW. After playing for about an hour, I was using 544MB of my 512MB of memory! :| Needles to say, I'll be getting 512MB more VERY soon! Everyone else that thinks 256MB is just perfect for W2K or XP, have a good time playing the older games.

 

[JackBurton]

As for your problem, use Sandra to benchmark your memory and CPU just to verify everything is where it should be. Next download AMD's AGP patch for Windows 2000. After that install the latest nVidia drivers. You'll be good to go then.




You did install the VIA 4in1 drivers (minus the AGP driver), right?