Video card trial by fire

[RotBaron]

I've been working with Morfiend and a couple other on my video card issues. Thank you gentlemen very much for all your help.

I've evaluated my approach and found the flaw (I believe.)  That is, I wanted the "best" video card for my money. The only game I'm playing now and for the foreseeable future is AH, and I should be asking what is the "best" card I can get for my system to play AH.

The first attempt was an ASUS 560ti DCUII and I couldn't run the settings I would like without framerate issues. So I returned it.

Now I've purchased a XFX R7870 and have some increased performance over the 560 but at the cost of streaks across my screen (artifacts I believe they're called) and on some maps/some bases I get frame rate drops. If I turn down some settings they go away. What I desire to run is 1024pak, bump map planes/bldgs/clouds, detailed terrain, max distance obj/terrain. I probably forgot a few there, but what I don't think I need or want is shadows or clutter, and detailed water (makes judgement more difficult being smooth and light blue.)

On to my topic:

I know what I have is lower end on the cpu side, however it's what I've got for now:

Computer:  HP p6537c
Processor: AMD Phenom II X4 830
Ram: 10GB
OS: Win7 64bit


So my question is, in the $250-$325 range, what card would you suggest for me.

I assume at some point the better video cards are going give diminishing returns because of my comp/cpu...

I've been looking at the 660's but some Fry's salesmen have said the 660 is only marginally better (newer) than the 560 and may not actually increase performance much. 

Also it seems like the AMD cards are not the best choice for AH as the streaks (resembling tracers although they're black) seem like a common annoyance (startling too.)

Finally, if you want to see a dxdiag of my comp, the following thread has it toward the bottom of the first page:
http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,341825.0.html

The only changes since that dxdiag are the installation of 4GB of ram and the xfx7870 I'm running now.

Thanks in advance,
 

Rot


p.s. I suppose it's not possible for me to get everything I want based off of my system and budget, but if you could provide recommendations that would be great. I'm experimenting with turning my settings to best performance and setting AH as above normal/high priority and have had increased performance so far that way. However, I tried overclocking to around and up to 10%, at which point I got BSOD restart(s.) 

[RotBaron]

Also forgot to note, I've installed a xfx850w psu...

[The Fugitive]

Taking a quick look on Tom's Hardware, the card you have is about the best you can do for that price. However there are a couple things you might do to help what you have work better.

First, which drivers are you using for the video card? Newer isn't always better. If you have the newest, you can try rolling back to older drivers to clear up the artifacts issue. On the other hand, if you have real old drivers you might need to update them to clear it up. It's a bit of experimentation, but it is free and could help.

Second hit "ctrl","alt","delete" at the same time, and click on "start task manager". In the lower left corner ... how many processes are you running? The lower the number the better. You can go here...

http://www.blackviper.com/2009/10/01/black-vipers-windows-7-super-tweaks/

for help in cleaning up your system. If you can get your machine lean and clean it may run the game more smoothly at the settings you want.

[Skuzzy]

If you have not taken the time to clean up the HP bloatware from your computer, your video card is going to suffer performance issues as the CPU is too busy with bloatware to keep the video card busy.

[RotBaron]

Thank you for the replies.

I have followed the steps outlined in Blackviper's suggestions, not all of them but 6 of the 8. Not sure I want to rid of aero themes just yet, and it probably doesn't matter (?) as I've now learned to switch back and forth between asking for best performance (gaming) and best appearance depending on what I'm doing.

Also used decrapifier, not sure if it's the best, but I had to get an idea what bloatware was, and had already removed a lot of the bloatware prior, but this helped show me what was left and what it was.

After shutting down the processes I know I can and ready the comp to play AH, there are 43 (all total) processes running, size is probably more important there, but is that getting close to where it should be regarding other programs running?

Headed off to see how this works....

Thank you gentlemen.

 

[cattb]

Did you remove all the nvidia drivers out and any other traces of nvidia software? I am running the newest drivers for ATI and the last I played AH (week ago for FSO)I had no problems with the new drivers. Like also what was said your CPU may be bottlenecked.

[dhaus]

I have an XFX 7870 GHZ Black edition I just put into my new build with a I53570K and asrock extreme4 with a seasonic 620W power supply.  Turned all the eye candy on in AH except for the environmental updates and got streaks.  Haven't suffered any framerate hits.  Drivers are the latest ones, but not the beta.  GPU tmp never goes above 40 while on AH according to Afterburner. Realized I had the real time anti-virus turned on.  Turned that off and haven't seen the streaks.  It is still a test in progress, though.  Make sure your anti-virus is turned off when on AH. That might help.

[DREDIOCK]

43 (all total) processes running

 

Dont know how much your OS needs. But Im guessing 43 is still WAY too many.

Then again it may be normal for HP

[major347]

The HD7870 is the card in the price range your wanting. I have a HD7950 and I can have everything on except environment updates. I had the artifact issues also before the lastest drivers came out (13.1). With the new drivers I am totally happy with this card. My vote is to stick with the HD7870 and the new drivers should help with the lines or wait for the next set of beta drivers.

[RotBaron]

Thanks for the replies, I'm trying to stick it out with the 7870.

Yes my antivirus is on when I play AH, I run AVG. It does have several processes running, I'm counting 4 associated with it. I have considered shutting it off. I used to be up on security issues, but career went elsewhere.  I'm researching how vulnerable a system is while playing in an mmo with av off.

I don't run any wireless, I don't store any really sensitive data on this computer, so I might consider running with the av off.

[guncrasher]

Dont know how much your OS needs. But Im guessing 43 is still WAY too many.

Then again it may be normal for HP

it depends on the version of windows you have.  in xp that would be too many in win7 that's about ok.

midway

[Debrody]

The 7870 is about the maximum your CPU can handle - what SKuzzy said. You can even be CPU limited in AH. Try overclocking the CPU and see if it comes back in the in-game FPS.

[RotBaron]

it depends on the version of windows you have.  in xp that would be too many in win7 that's about ok.

midway

Win7

I got it down to about 38 processes, I need to research the rest and what they do and/or if needed.

 

[Skuzzy]

38 processes is what I run with on Windows 7.  I am pretty conservative about what I shut down, taking out the worst offenders.