Author Topic: hyperthreading (Read 491 times)

chug4u · « **on:** October 07, 2004, 10:45:38 AM »

I have a P4 3.0mhz Socket LGA 775 W/ 1GB DDR2 533Mhz PC4200(soon to be 3GB) RAM. X300SE Video Card PCI Express x 16 , 70gb sata HD. 56K (44K most of the time) connection. What is the best setup for this to run AHII? Hyperthreading On or OFF. what other tweaks should I perform?

Quote

Of every one-hundred men, ten shouldn't even be there, eighty are nothing but targets, nine are real fighters... We are lucky to have them, they make the battle... AH but ONE, one of them is a Warrior... he will bring the others back - Hericletus c. 500 B.C.

ChasR · « **Reply #1 on:** October 07, 2004, 08:10:46 PM »

Forget about spending money on RAM and buy a better video card. 1 gig is plenty. The x300SE is at the top of the low end cards with roughly 65% of the performance of a 9600 Pro. The vid card is far and away the weak link in your system.

chug4u · « **Reply #2 on:** October 07, 2004, 10:09:37 PM »

but my system is using up to 790mb of that 1 gig (Shown in the AHII display), with no windows open in the background, just windows xp (system) and the isp is open. I had an older comp P4 2.0 mhz RDRAM with 512mb of ram and upped it 1.5 and virtual mem went up The whole Cpu reacted better, and AHI played alot better. I'm looking to fix the whole problem. When I get back to work maybe i can afford a better Vid card. I'm looking at the X700 which would of been alot cheaper.

ChasR · « **Reply #3 on:** October 08, 2004, 07:12:40 AM »

Unless lack of memory currently causes it to swap to disk, adding more ram won't make a difference in any positive way. On many systems, adding ram would actually slow them down, either by disabling dual channel addressing (intel) or changing the command rate from 1T to 2T (AMD). 1 gig is the sweet spot.

ChasR · « **Reply #4 on:** October 08, 2004, 07:21:29 AM »

To answer your original question, I run my intel rigs with HT on. Skuzzy once said he thought there might be a slight performance gain to be had in AH with it off, but I'm unaware of anyone actually testing to verify that. In AH1 I tried it both ways and could see no difference. In my case, folding protiens for Stanford University's distributed computing program, HT results in 15% greater throughput than when it's disabled.

chug4u · « **Reply #5 on:** October 08, 2004, 08:57:58 AM »

Thanks for the info. I had already bought the ram. I'm not a Computer Genuis but i'm learning, I don't even know how to overclock. (I see you overclock yours) I'll let ya know if i see a difference. If I don't like it I'll sell it on EBay and get most or at least some of my $$ back. I've been selling my old computer stuff to buy most of this new stuff anyway. I'm looking forward to seeing that x700xt on Newegg.com though I looked at some performance test against the 6800 Ultra and the x600xt in numbers the 6800 ultra was at 105 the x700xt was at 61 and the x600xt was at like 16.9. The X800 is just Way too expensive for a video card. 700 is suppose to be in the $200 range.

ChasR · « **Reply #6 on:** October 08, 2004, 10:09:58 AM »

Well, at least you'll be able to keep almost every application open at once without running out of ram.

How many memory slots does your MB have any way? Most Intel boards have 4 and will run in dual channel mode when either one DIMM slot per channel or both DIMM slots per channel are populated with the same type and size ram modules. Thus Dual channel memory will work at 512MB (2 x 256), 1GB (2 x 512 or 4 x 256), 2GB ( 2 x 1024 or 4 x 512), and 4GB (4 x 1024). I don't think you can put 1.5GB (I'm assuming your computer has 2 x 512 and you're adding 2 x 1024) in each channel and have it work (according to Abit and MSI it wont). Your system will be faster with 2 x 1024 sticks or 2 x 512 sticks than it will be with with 3GB. Dual Channel memory results in a 5 to 10% increase in memory bandwidth.

The x700XT would be a good choice.

chug4u · « **Reply #7 on:** October 08, 2004, 12:37:01 PM »

with my old Dell i added 1 gb (2x512)Of RDRAM to my existing 512mb (2x256) for a total of 1.5GB and it worked fine. but yes I have 4 slots and have 1GB (2x512) existing. I am adding 2x1024. I should receive the memory on Mon. Any other tweaks you know of? I get 59FPS sometimes like sitting on runway, with the X300 but it drops dramatically when alot of planes in area, sometimes 20-24fps.

llama · « **Reply #8 on:** October 08, 2004, 12:56:03 PM »

Chug,

AH2 is one of those rare games that is mostly CPU-limited and not Video Card limited. That is to say, your 3 gig P4 is running at FULL THROTTLE to calculate the AH2 environment and sending all that data to teh video card, which is totally able to handle it and then some in 90% of the scenes.

I myself have a P4 at 3 gig and a 9800Pro (flashed to XT speeds), and I get around 70 fps on the runway, and it never gets below 50, BUT....

That's because I am judicious with the video driver settings and the AH2 quality/performance sliders. Using the wrong settings, I can get framerates even worse than you.

Try this: use 512 or 256 sized textures. Fly at 1024x768 resolution. In the video card drivers, try turning off Anti-Aliasing, or only do "2X" Anti-Aliasing.. Start playing with the AH2 Quality/Speed sliders.

There's a lot of room for variability here...

-Llama

ChasR · « **Reply #9 on:** October 08, 2004, 01:29:21 PM »

Chug,
Your old Dell didn't have a dual channel memory controller so it didn't make any difference what memory configuration you used. It does in the new one.

chug4u · « **Reply #10 on:** October 08, 2004, 01:48:34 PM »

Ok well I'll find out Mon when the new Mem comes in. I'll keep the 2gb and sell the 1gb if I have to. I Know somebody will buy 1gb of PC4200 at a decent price.

ChasR · « **Reply #11 on:** October 08, 2004, 02:31:26 PM »

Sisoft Sandra has a good suite for benchmarking your computer. You'll be able to tell the effect of the added memory if you do a before and after bench. The program will also advise you of available performance tweaks.

blackfalcon4 · « **Reply #12 on:** October 08, 2004, 03:57:32 PM »

llama,

Whered you find the new vid bios to make it an XT?

Kev367th · « **Reply #13 on:** October 10, 2004, 01:33:43 PM »

Actually the problem seems to be that AH2 uses system resources way beyond what it seems to be doing.
I play far more graphically intensive games at higher resolutions and get much faster frame rates.
Try FS2004 at Chicago with over 50 large aircraft and the scenery, still get better frame rates.

chug4u · « **Reply #14 on:** October 11, 2004, 11:49:55 PM »

I added the 2 gig of ram today. The system seems to recognize all 3gig I put the 2 1mb sticks in the 2 slots i took the 512's out of and put them in the other 2. The frames went way up to 89 on runway and rarely go down to 40's But HT's display only recognizes 2 gigs of memory with 0 mem used? don't know what that's about but game plays fine. no more glitches and slowdowns as of yet.