Author Topic: I need a new computer. (Read 1492 times)

Roscoroo · « **Reply #30 on:** April 19, 2007, 03:35:31 AM »

how do you feel about your mainboard warrenty ?

if you mod the N bridge heatsink it will void it . unless its clipped on .

now the n bridge sink is ussually stuck on with stupid dbl back sticky tape and theres 3 ways to improve this .

1st you can get a small fan and install it on the heatsink or you can possition a side door fan to blow on top off it.

or go full out and remove the heatsink and go after improving this by either a fan cooled heatsink with artic silver under it or go for the water block with artic silver and you split the water line after the cpu and run 2 lines one for the N bridge and the other to the Gpu sink. you will most likely have to dbl your water capacity also .

38ruk · « **Reply #31 on:** April 19, 2007, 04:10:15 PM »

Is that a single radiator system kermit? If so you might be over doing it adding a chipset block. I have a Tt bigwater 745 with one 120mm and one 240mm radiators, if Tt sells the 240mm one seperate i would think about adding it externally in your situation .

Even thou i have the water system , i still run 5 80mm case fans, for the HD's and sound card , believe it or not my X-fi has a heatsink on it and can get toasty at times. GL 38

2cmex · « **Reply #32 on:** April 19, 2007, 10:22:49 PM »

Yes frog boy let me know how that 7950gt works out i might need a new card soon.

Kermit de frog · « **Reply #33 on:** April 19, 2007, 10:57:22 PM »

7950gt is better than the 7900 gt, but the 7900GTX is better than the 7950gt

The 7900GTX was way too much for me, so the 7950GT is as High as I'll go. I got it for just under 300.

I've overclocked my 7950GT to 630 and I'll try to push it to 650(7900GTX speeds). I'll OC the vid mem to 1600 once I get a heatsink for them. Stock 7950gt speeds are 550MHz.

2cmex · « **Reply #34 on:** April 20, 2007, 04:07:21 AM »

Thank you frog, I will see if the 7900gtx is in my price range if not i will put betty back to work. Long live all swimmers.

Kermit de frog · « **Reply #35 on:** April 20, 2007, 01:00:40 PM »

Irwink! · « **Reply #36 on:** April 20, 2007, 01:37:39 PM »

While you guys are on the subject of video cards and cooling - what is generally considered the generally acceptable temp range for Nvidia gpu's? I got a 7900GS and its generally running from about 52C at idle up to the high 70's when playing STALKER. It runs in the 60's for AHII. I've temporarily put a slot cooler in that keeps temps where they are now. It was a few degrees hotter beforehand. I've got an Arctic Cooling Accelero X1 coming from Newegg. I've looked all over and haven't been able to find "official" tempertaure ranges for these cards. Thanks.

38ruk · « **Reply #37 on:** April 20, 2007, 02:29:40 PM »

Those temps are fine, ive seen high 60's on air , the core slowdown threshold warning for my 7800gt is 115C LOL , and it cant be changed in the nvidia control panel . I would really like to know when my GPU reaches 80C not 115C

Pudgie · « **Reply #38 on:** April 21, 2007, 12:30:47 AM »

Here's my settings Kermit:

AA-8S
AF-16X
Conformant Texture Clamp-Use Hardware
Gamma Correct AA-On
Force Mipmaps-Bilinear
Negative LOD Bias-Clamp
Transparency AA-Multisampling
Texture Filtering-Quality
AF Mip Optimization-On
AF Sample Optimization-On
Trilinear Optimization-On
Threaded Optimization-On
Triple Buffering-On
Vertical Sync-Force On

Have old monitor(ViewSonic 21 PS CAD-certified CRT-discontinued)so resolution is set at 1024x768x32 @ 75 RR.

AHII runs regardless of what's happening at 75 FPS rock steady but graphics look the same as if TF was set to High Quality.

Highest GPU temps recorded while playing @ 52*C.

All components running at stock rated speeds.

Hope this helps.

Kermit de frog · « **Reply #39 on:** April 21, 2007, 01:14:45 PM »

Pudgie, you may be able to turn AS off completely for Aces High and increase your force mipmaps to trilinear for better quality. I'm not sure if you'll notice a differnece between bilinear and trilinear.
Your temperatures sound right. I had a 7900GS OC that would run at 50-65 C in temps. If the GPU ever went past 80 C, I'd be worried myself about it.

Pudgie · « **Reply #40 on:** April 21, 2007, 06:11:09 PM »

Uhh....what do you mean by AS there, Kermit?

Question,

How do you go about taking an in-game screenshot in AH & posting it here?

Kermit de frog · « **Reply #41 on:** April 21, 2007, 07:38:20 PM »

AS = AF at least that's how I use the terms.

So your AF is set to 16x, but try turning it off and see if you can see a difference in quality. I can't see a difference anymore after this update from AH and I've been told it does nothing for Aces High.

Press ALT + S keys to take a picture of the game. They are then saved automatically in your Aces High Folder. They are saved as a bmp so you will need to convert them to jpg format. Search the BBS for instructions on posting screenshots on the web.

Pudgie · « **Reply #42 on:** April 22, 2007, 03:23:53 PM »

Ahhhh..............I C.

What would help us all immensely w/ optimizing our boxes to run AH to their best is a listing of what commands the AH FE is sending to either Directx or to your GPU so that you don't end up replicating commands & slowing up the business w/ useless cycles.

Take for instance:

In the Video Settings:

When you check the boxes that tells AH to optimize Terrain or optimize Objects, the FE is sending instructions to the GPU to set some of the driver settings to some preset values. It would be nice to know exactly which settings are affected & how much, and if we should turn these off in AH if we want to tune all this from the vid card's control panel to stop replicating instructions to the vid card.

Hey HT, does this make sense?

Roscoroo · « **Reply #43 on:** April 25, 2007, 01:17:55 AM »

for you kermie .

notice the split after the cpu . then it comes back together after the dual lines cool vga and chipset . If you can exit with a larger diameter hose to the radiator in this last leg it can really help . I have my 64 bit pc running 1/2 inch line here in the last leg to the rad and from the rad to the holding tank ... the rest is 3/8's hose.

but i also run a huge tranny cooler for a radiator and it lays in my mini fridge freezer along with almost 2 gals of distilled water antifreeze mix .

So if you wanted to increase water volume. just adding another radiator even without a fan would be a huge help when it comes time for serious OCing .

Pudgie · « **Reply #44 on:** April 28, 2007, 08:32:51 PM »

Ok Kermit, I've done some revamping:

AA-4X (visually not enough difference to justify 8X)

AF-8X (visually not enough difference to justify 16X. This is 1 of the settings that I think is a waste of time setting it in your vid card's control panel due to the AH settings in Video Settings, if checked-especially the Optimize Objects & Optimize Terrain settings. I think that the AH FE controls this & in some small way may control AA as well.)

Conformant Texture Clamp-Use Hardware (same)
Gamma Correct AA-On(same)

Force Mipmaps-Bilinear(tried both ways & saw no difference. This is another setting that I think is no good to AH as AH FE uses mipmapping techniques & levels are pre-defined)

Negative LOD Bias-Clamp(same)

Transparency AA-Multisampling(same. Supersampling definitely better image-wise but just too much of a performance hit for the degree of image improvement, meaning the degree of image improvement wasn't enough to justify the degree of performance drop.)

Texture Filtering-Quality(same. Unless you have the latest high performance vid cards that can run texture filtering at full bore-High Quality setting-& not slow down any in FPS, this setting is about as far as you would need to go. My 7900GTX can do it but I just don't see a big enough image improvement to justify it, but I can certainly justify the extra power when in furballs, lots of smoke, etc.)

AF Mip Optimization-On(same)
AF Sample Optimization-On(same)
Trilinear Optimization-On(same)

Threaded Optimization-On(changed to Auto. Found out that this setting is best left for the game in question to decide & since AH FE is written to take advantage of multithreaded routines whether software-Hyperthreading-or hardware-dual core/multiple core CPUs & mobos-it will set this to ON anyway)

Triple Buffering-On(Found out that this setting only applies in OpenGL API, not D3D API-which AH uses-so this setting has no effect in AH & can be turned off if you don't have any games or apps that run in OpenGL. But go get Riva Tuner 2.0 Final & load the bundled utility D3D Overrider that comes w/ Riva Tuner. This utility forces any graphics card-whether Nvidia or ATI-to perform triple buffering under D3D thru the D3D API up to D9.x. Get this, you'll not regret it! I have found that this utility works better w/ your vid card than the game FE-games that have the setting to send TB to the vid card, haven't seen this setting in AH, but........-will in this regard)

Vertical Sync-Force On(same. Couple this w/ TB properly applied & it's the only way to go IMHO.)

This is where I'm at ATM.

Some of this stuff is the reason behind my previous posting that I believe that it would be very beneficial to the community if there was info included in the Readme that stated which vid card settings does the AH FE set upon initiation if certain settings/controls were picked in-game so that potential conflicts or performance degradation can be avoided.

Use at your leisure.