Videocard upgrade question

[SilverB]

First i apologise if this already have been covered, and only read this forum now and then.


My question is this.

I recently had a Nvidea 8800 GT card wich gave me on a 1680*1050 in high settings about 50 fps average on my system.

Then I needed to upgrade the card because Battlefield 3 ( was going to a LAN party ) ran very slow, about 17 fps  1680*1050 low autosettings.
Upgraded the Gforce 8800 to a MSI 560 TI twinfreezer OC and the battlefield 3 improvement was massive, ran 70 fps in high settings in 1680*1050,
so a real incredibel improvement. i must add, that BF# run in DX11.

No, then i fired up AH3 offline. and was a bit surprised when the framerate was exactly the same as with the 8800 card.
same  happned with Flight sim X. exactly the same framerate.


I suspect that AH2 run evething in CPU rather than GPU is that correct.

But should such a title as FSX not improve ?

SilverB

[Ack-Ack]

some games are more intensive on the CPU than the GPU, also you may have vsync enabled in both AH and in FS.

ack-ack

[SilverB]

Tank you for your reply. Sould have mentioned that i at least in ah had vsync turned off for frame rate check

[Tigger29]

First i apologise if this already have been covered, and only read this forum now and then.


My question is this.

I recently had a Nvidea 8800 GT card wich gave me on a 1680*1050 in high settings about 50 fps average on my system.

Then I needed to upgrade the card because Battlefield 3 ( was going to a LAN party ) ran very slow, about 17 fps  1680*1050 low autosettings.
Upgraded the Gforce 8800 to a MSI 560 TI twinfreezer OC and the battlefield 3 improvement was massive, ran 70 fps in high settings in 1680*1050,
so a real incredibel improvement. i must add, that BF# run in DX11.

No, then i fired up AH3 offline. and was a bit surprised when the framerate was exactly the same as with the 8800 card.
same  happned with Flight sim X. exactly the same framerate.


I suspect that AH2 run evething in CPU rather than GPU is that correct.

But should such a title as FSX not improve ?

SilverB

Most likely you're not going to see more than 60FPS in any game unless you disable v-sync.  If BF3 is reporting a number higher than 60 then most likely because it disables v-sync by default.

V-sync is what prevents the video card from drawing frames faster than the monitor can display them.  If you have a 60hz monitor (which translates into 60fps) then there is no point to having a video card output 70fps.  Actually doing this can cause issues such as tearing and in AH "rubber bullet syndrome".

So if a game is putting out 50-60FPS then what is the point to installing a better video card?  Well simply put you can run higher graphics settings without seeing a decrease in FPS.

You can disable v-sync in Aces High's initial video setting menu (the one that allows you to change your screen resolution before you log in to an arena).  Disable it and see if the number increases.  This will show what the video card is capable of displaying without the limitation of the monitor.

[Debrody]

Well AH does not have a so much advanced graphics, therefor its easyer to bump into a CPU limit.
The 8800GT is an aging yet a potent card, should be able to run the game on full graphics in full hd at a steady 60 fps where theres a limit on your monitor.
V-sync off, then compare the cards. The 560ti ir a real good one, you shuld get like 400 fps with shadows off and like 80 with everything maxed out.

[Chalenge]

The real question isnt in regards to vsync but whether the monitor is set to default resolution (native mode) and whether or not you run AH2 at that same resolution or not compared to your desktop. The 560 should be more than enough to ge reasonable performance from AH2.

As to FSX you should join the boards at avsim and in the FSX forums you will find a thread about optimizing your ini file for FSX. FSX can be a bear even for a system that runs AH full throttle.

[SilverB]

Seems like i missed a setting in FSX where you can set the target framerate. maxed it to unlimited, and maxed most other settings as well.
And despite the increased settings it immideately went to more than double the framerate.

Regarding AH2 i have flashed the mainboard bios with newest version, as i also did with the chipset. just to be sure, ATM i'm reinstalling the program only keeping my sticksettings and
skins. hope it helps. anyway thanks for you'r suggestions.

SilverB

[Tigger29]

The real question isnt in regards to vsync but whether the monitor is set to default resolution (native mode) and whether or not you run AH2 at that same resolution or not compared to your desktop. The 560 should be more than enough to ge reasonable performance from AH2.

As to FSX you should join the boards at avsim and in the FSX forums you will find a thread about optimizing your ini file for FSX. FSX can be a bear even for a system that runs AH full throttle.

No vsync definitely could be what he's seeing here.  For example:

OLD VIDEO CARD:  Game "A" shows 55-60FPS.  Game "B" shows 10-15FPS.
NEW VIDEO CARD:  Game "A" shows 55-60FPS.  Game "B" shows 100-120FPS.

User sees a 1000+% increase in Game "B" but almost no increase in Game "A" therefore thinking that the new video card did nothing for Game "A".  This is not true.  In all reality there's a good chance that Game "A" enables v-sync which caps the frame rate at 60FPS and that Game "B" disables v-sync which allows it to show a higher FPS even though the monitor cannot physically refresh itself that fast.

In order to properly compare the performance increase from both games the user would have to make sure v-sync is disabled in both games.  (Temporarily of course just to note the performance capability.. there is no need to leave v-sync disabled all the time)

I'm not saying that AH isn't being CPU limited on his system.. I'm just saying that he needs to disable v-sync so he can compare apples to apples here.  I find it difficult to believe that upgrading from an 8800 to a 560 wouldn't yield any performance benefit to AH whatsoever.

Of course the resolution should be set to the monitor's native resolution but this wouldn't cause a performance issue.  For all we know 1680X1050 could very well be his native resolution...

[100Coogn]

The OP may have Vsync disabled within the game, but I would check the actual video card setting using the control panel. 
If it's set to 'on' in the control panel, it will override the AH settings, even if AH is set to 'off'.

Coogan

[SilverB]

The very first thing i checked when i noticed the lack of preformance was vsync. disabled it and rechecked.
however AH did not respond any different.
The native resolution of my monitor is 1680*1050 60hz. though not able to show any additional frames it still should
show the possibel framerate as a number when i check it in AH. offcause the monitor just skip those extra frames.
but the number should still be displayed. That can be checked by lowering the visible range slider, bump it down
to 0,5 and the framerate shoot up to 120.

SilverB

[SilverB]

OK got some progress, as noticed i cleaned out AH even in the regetrydatabase, and reinstalled it making sure the same settings was used.

The framerate went from around 60 to around 100. still not what i feel the card is able to do.
the last preformance i feel ( like somone noticed ) is to be found tinkering with nvideas profiles for each game.
Yes i know my monitor is unable to show those extra frames, but in the future that extra preformance could be
utilized as better graphics at 60fps.

Tanks for your help

[Chalenge]

Of course the resolution should be set to the monitor's native resolution but this wouldn't cause a performance issue.  For all we know 1680X1050 could very well be his native resolution...

Oh really? More bad information. You should always run at native resolution. The point was to find out if he knew what his native resolution is. Everyone jumped into the thread without even asking for system specifics. So typical.

SilverB in light of what you have posted since it would appear you need to clean your drivers and reinstall them.

[SilverB]

Indeed, tried that, using a program called driver cleaner. but unsure if i did it correct, as i did it quite fast. So I better try once more just to be sure.

To be honest i'm not a totally computer illiterate person, but it's always nice to get new imputs and idears, one might have missed somthing obvious. And perhaps somone had the same card andcould give a few pointers.

Been working with computers since the ZX81 and forward, but with so many ways to put a PC together, there is still
plenty room for errors to creep in

I apologise if my responces mot have been totally clear, as english not is my native language, but i think the essence of
my problem got trough.

As the problem  mostly is taken care off, a few tweaks still missing. Ill just thank all who responded.

SilverB

[Tigger29]

Oh really? More bad information. You should always run at native resolution. The point was to find out if he knew what his native resolution is. Everyone jumped into the thread without even asking for system specifics. So typical.

SilverB in light of what you have posted since it would appear you need to clean your drivers and reinstall them.

OK then so explain how setting a 1920X1080 monitor to 1680X1050 would yield performance issues?  The video has to render a lower number of pixels and therefore should perform better.  The visual quality of the monitor would definitely suffer but setting it to a lower resolution should not cause a lower FPS.

If I'm so wrong here then explain how!