Improve Frame Rate - Best Option?

[Ghosth]

Glary Utilities is very helpful for cleaning up your start menu. And for learning what process's can and can't safely be shut down.

Getting your startmenu cleaned up is the first step to taking control of your computer.

I don't take it as far as TC these days, but I'm running a 2 + year old system and frame rates are still pegged at 60.
With 23 - 25 processes running. That is with leaving skype up, and running Ventrillo.

Clean up your system first. Then see where you are.

[BaldEagl]

A system clean up will not help much.

That depends entirely on the user.  For someone who understands how to keep a system clean then no, it won't help much.  But there are so many who never run cleanup, never defrag, etc.  And then add on top of that those who spend a lot of time downloading things, etc. and those machines can be a mess.  I wouldn't be surprized at all to find someone like that having all kinds of stuff loading at startup and running in the background.  For them it would make a big difference.

I can still get 15-45 fps (average 25 fps) out of my 1.2Ghz PIII Tualitin (100Mhz FSB) with 768 Mb of PC100 SDRAM and a 32 Mb GeForce 440MX GT in AH.  I don't use it to play but installed the game to test it when everyone was complaining about the last major graphics upgrade.

[Foz]

Hi All

I used enditall.exe with the help of the suggested blackviper.com info to shutdown approximately 40 processes...leaving approximately 28 up and running.  This made a noticeable difference in FR while sitting on the runway and looking around....however on a typical flight, looking out the right or left view or looking down at the gauges would sometimes cause the FR to dip into the low 30's.

I am currently formating a drive to install windows and just the drivers, software necessary to run AH to see if that improves the situation any.  

If this test fails, what should be the next step?  I guess I need to know is AH more CPU dependent or GPU dependent?

Thanks for all the help so far :-)

BTW XP sees 3.25 GB of my 4 GB of RAM

Will provide the Power Supply information when able.

Foz

[715]

That depends entirely on what processes they are, don't you think? Some of the default installed things are really resource hogs. Even goin from a "mere" 40 processes down to 28 can make loads of noticable change on a fast system.

I suspect it does very much depend on the processes.  But on my machine it makes no difference whatsoever: at 46 processes I got 120 fps, at 31 processes I got 120 fps (same conditions same location same view, vsync off for testing).  So it is possible that cleaning up background processes can lead to no improvement at all.

XP SP3, 1280x1024, stock E8400, 4GB RAM, stock HD4850 w 512M, all AH settings maxed including 1024 self shadows with smoothing

[Spikes]

The CPU can run AH yes, but if it would possibly help his FR by optimizing it, why not? Drop 50 bucks into a good cooler and that CPU will scream.

I agree with cleaning up the system. But it could be a combination of all of the things mentioned.

[The Fugitive]

I suspect it does very much depend on the processes.  But on my machine it makes no difference whatsoever: at 46 processes I got 120 fps, at 31 processes I got 120 fps (same conditions same location same view, vsync off for testing).  So it is possible that cleaning up background processes can lead to no improvement at all.

XP SP3, 1280x1024, stock E8400, 4GB RAM, stock HD4850 w 512M, all AH settings maxed including 1024 self shadows with smoothing

well sure if your system is fast already your not going to see a heck of alot of improvement, but on a marginal system it could make a huge difference.

Foz, post what ingame setting you are using as well, texture size, shadows and such.

[Krusty]

There are also some video settings that may screw you up, even with your video card. Can you give a rundown of how you tweaked your vid card properties? FSAA, aniso, supersampling, etc?

[cattb]

 IMO  going from a 2.8 dual core to a 2.4 triple core. 2.4 is a little slow for this game. IF his perormance does not meet expectations once computer is cleaned up. A mild overclock would help. Intel has good headroom on their procesors, he should be able to get a overclock with out a voltage bump.

[Boozeman]

That depends entirely on what processes they are, don't you think? Some of the default installed things are really resource hogs. Even goin from a "mere" 40 processes down to 28 can make loads of noticable change on a fast system.

I disagree. I have 46 background processes running, CPU usage is 2-5% at idle with a 2,67 GHz C2D. Cutting down on that will maybe ease the load by 1-2 %. In relation to the CPUs capabillities, this is absolutely unnoticable.   

Wrong. He is not bottlenecked by his CPU. His CPU is more than fast enough to run everything he throws at it. It's not the CPUs fault if the software is being slowed down. Don't forget you're not just sending raw data to the CPU. You're sending commands to an OS, and if that OS is bogged down and trying to compute stuff it doesn't need, it's inefficient in how it sends individual bits of data to the CPU.

You are wrong I'm afraid. His CPU is NOT fast enough to get AH maxed. The 5% overhead load will not have any decisive negative effects on that. 

Would you rather run a dust buster with a clean air filter or a dirty one? Clean air filter sucks things up nice and fast, but a dirty filter takes almost all the suction out of it.

Krusty, let these analogys go. They are ridiculous. Really.

In this case, running 50 processes is a severely gunked up filter, and no matter what horsepower you got behind it, the filter (the OS, the processes running) is going to slow down what goes in and what comes out.

In this case it's like a filter filled to 5% no more.   

P.S. You do realize that the core2duos redid the basic performance and efficiency of Intel processors, right? For any given GhZ rating, even a Core2Duo running on a single core will outstrip a P4 of the same GHz.

A P4 3.0 GHz can be outperformed by a C2D E6400 running at 2.13GhZ, probably. And that's a low-level C2D chip compared to a high level P4. They only get (much) better as you go up the ranks. His 6600 quad may "only" run at 2.4 GHz, but it's way better than a P4 3.2 GHz overall.

I know. But my point still stands. 2,4 GHz @ Core Architecture is still not fast enough, considering you can have Core architecture running at speed up to 3,6 Ghz. And that makes the difference. You cannot ignore a 50% increse in clockspeed in a CPU loaded game like AH and trying to match that with 1-2 % overhead you can free up with a clean up.   

[Wobbly]

Can't see if you have a separate sound card from the spec you post - of you are running onboard this will sap CPU energy. I have a XP64/E6600/8800GTS/4mb ram/Creative Soundblaster X-Fi soundcard and I get 75fps on max hi-res except shadows.

[Krusty]

You are wrong I'm afraid. His CPU is NOT fast enough to get AH maxed. The 5% overhead load will not have any decisive negative effects on that. 

Wrong.

Just... plain wrong.

Many folks run on lesser systems. This is NOT a horribly intensive game. I currently have an E6420 (2.13GHz, 1066 FSB) and I can quite easily max everything in AH out. The limiting factor for me is my budget video card.

I'm telling you from first hand experience his CPU is way more powerful than AH will need any time in the forseeable future. If he is having problems with 15 fps it's NOT because his system is underpowered.

Period.

If there's a problem stopping his system from running properly at 2.4 GHz, the SAME problem will be present if he overclocks it. He needs to treat the problem, not the symptom. The symptom goes away if he does this, an the situation is resolved.

[SKColt]

 I also agree that the Q6600 is fast enough to run the game ust fine. I am running the CPU at 3.1 Ghz with a 9800GTX card. Video settings are maxed, including shadows on. FRs stay at 59fps.

 I temporarily dropped the CPU speed to stock 2.4 and I was still able to run the game maxed.

 I am using a Samsunh T240HD 24 inch monitor running the desktop and the game at the native resolution of 1920X1200. No problems!

 OS is WIN 7 Pro 64 bit, 4 gig 1066 ram.

[Foz]

OK I did a clean OS install and just the basic items to get AH up and running.  That got me down to 22 processes.

It did help but I do not believe it will be satisfactory from a FR standpoint... I still get dips down into the 30's in some standard situations even with shadows off.

So the question is what is the next step....OC CPU?  Get a new video card....there seems to be some debate on what would be the best move.

For those that asked I am including some screens of my current settings for the video card in game and out.







Additionally someone asked about my soundcard.....I have a built in sound card I am using...think it is a Realtek....however in the clean install the first go round the drivers did not install properly so I just used my usb headset instead.

PS is 600 w

I have an aftermarket CPU Cooler with two 120mm fans.

Thanks again for all the input.

If I left anything out please ask and I will provide it.

Foz

[Spikes]

Well, if it is a clean OS, and you have seen little result, yes, the next test would be to slowly, and carefully start 'boosting' your system. Do you have an aftermarket cooler?

But I do think your 8800GT would be your biggest bottleneck.

[Krusty]

I'm curious... that 8800 is a nice card (no doubt about it) but I'm wondering if that FSAA maxed out is causing it. Can you lower it to 4x FSAA or so? Second notch in, probably? As a test, what kind of FPS does that yield?

At lower resolutions I don't think it would be as much of an issue, but at 1600 I'm curious.