Author Topic: Frame rate cut in half (Read 436 times)

lane · « **on:** February 22, 2005, 11:56:28 AM »

Before the last couple of patches had a steady 57fps. Now its in the 20s and 30fps. I've had to step back my frame resolution 1 notch and fly with short visual just to play. Wondering if video card isnt up to it? Running a Nvidia GeForce 4MX440 with AGP 8x with a windows XP operating system. What do you think? Help please.

StarOfAfrica2 · « **Reply #1 on:** February 22, 2005, 12:26:01 PM »

The MX 440 was a great card. I had one myself for AHI and it worked great. It's pretty dated though.

lane · « **Reply #2 on:** February 23, 2005, 12:46:41 AM »

Thanks StarofAfrica. What is a good video card for this game?

OOZ662 · « **Reply #3 on:** February 23, 2005, 12:51:55 AM »

Ah the MX440. That's what I had gotten to run this game when it came out. GeForce 4 MX440 PCI. Was suprised it worked.

Seeing as you have an AGP slot, look for a card that uses all 8x and has at least 128 MB of Vram. I've heard a lot of sucess about the FX5xxx cards when good drivers are installed, but I don't know if they are AGP.

Check and see if you have a PCI-e (PCI Express) slot as they run faster than AGPs but are so new that there aren't many cards for them.

StarOfAfrica2 · « **Reply #4 on:** February 23, 2005, 01:07:50 AM »

Thats like asking what kind of canoe is best on a river.

Alot depends on your system. AH is pretty CPU dependent, so even a mid-range video card probably wont get maxxed out if you have a slower computer. Good bet is either the ATI 9600 series cards, or Geforce 5700 series. Those are not the bottom of the barrel, but they arent the top either. If you want the mid-range stuff, although I'm very much pro-Nvidia, I'd have to recommend the ATI 9600 series as the best of the bunch. Pains me to say it, but its true. Really though, its going to depend on how old the system is, as to how much money you are going to want to sink into a video card. A really slow computer is going to suck in AH anyway, no sense in spending good money on a mid range card if you have to upgrade everything else.

As with everything, there are good and bad cards on both sides, so its best to research if you are going to buy. Check reviews (and not the ones shown to you by the retailer or the manufacturer). Check out Tom's Hardware

http://www.tomshardware.com

for info, also try

http://www.nvnews.net

for info on Geforce cards, and try

http://3dgpu.com

although alot of their stuff is dated its still educational.

You can also look at

http://www.d-silence.com

and even

http://www.driverheaven.net

for information on what issues different drivers are having with which cards.

bustr · « **Reply #5 on:** February 23, 2005, 07:19:43 PM »

Every time my frame rate has been cut drasticly I run pingplotter from the desk top to see what my round trip time is to the game server. Then I logon and see if at the arena selection screen ping time matches my pingplotter time. If my time at the arena selction menu his higher (2x-4x) than from the desktop, I know I have some form of hijack\trojan. If you go into the arena at this point your FR will be in the bucket. My FR is between 120-60 while my ping is about 63-71, so I know how rude FR in the bucket can be when it is 27-6.

Problem is, if you do have this, getting a remover that can detect the hijack. There have been times I had to run 6 antispyware apps against my PC before one detected the trojan that was increasing my ping time from 63 to 175 and dropping my FR from 120-60 to 27-6.

I wonder how many players have had a hijack\trojan all this time rather than any real hardware performance problems with AH2? I reiterate that it may take downlading a few different spyware removers to find out.

lane · « **Reply #6 on:** February 25, 2005, 12:35:49 AM »

Hey star thanks for the info. checked that toms place out and rreally good info. Just 1 question. With the ATI 9800 or 9600, whats the differance between the XT or the PRO?

StarOfAfrica2 · « **Reply #7 on:** February 25, 2005, 01:33:30 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by lane
Hey star thanks for the info. checked that toms place out and rreally good info. Just 1 question. With the ATI 9800 or 9600, whats the differance between the XT or the PRO?

This page should help break it down for you pretty quickly.

http://www20.graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041004/vga_charts-02.html

Note in the chart they show you the chipset used for the GPU (graphics processing unit) and the speed rating of both the GPU and the memory on the card, and also the width of the card's memory bus.

The only real difference, in both of these cards, between the Pro and the XT is the GPU. The XT is the faster processor. Also note that the 9800 has twice the memory bus width and twice the pipes.

This page is a good reference for breaking down the diff. between various cards. He also goes into softmodding cards, but just my personal recommendation stay away from trying that. Its a good way to waste the money you spent buying a card.

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=31&threadid=1382619&enterthread=y

(edit)

Note that the info in that last link is like 2 years old, but it is still very relevant.