Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: TheflyingElk on May 13, 2009, 07:44:50 PM
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Hey Everyone, I have been reviewing the graphics testing program and I must say I am feeling a bit ill, I know the tech curve is always moving but $$ is a little tight right now so what are your thoughts on this?
my current system: Dell XPS 3.4 P-4 Intel 875P processor 1.5 RAM, running home edition XP SP-3
Video card ATI 9800XT with current drivers, 256 on the card. video card is AGP
power supply is 460 W,
last test I ran with the new graphics testing program FR was 15-20, would a video card upgrade hold off a total rebuild? how about Panic and go running down the street crying the HORROR!!! or
should I just wait the standard two weeks and see what happens?
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you ahould be fine with a better VC, for $100 or less you can easily get a big upgrade....
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I asked about this since I build a lot for AH players. The 9800 will have NP with the upgrade
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I asked about this since I build a lot for AH players. The 9800 will have NP with the upgrade
He has an "ATI 9800"
You didn't specify if you meant ATI or nVidia's "9800". I think his ATI 9800 is struggling to run the game as is. :)
nVidia 7800GT may be the best you can do, and it looks like you have the power supply to handle it, along with an adequate CPU.
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He has an "ATI 9800"
You didn't specify if you meant ATI or nVidia's "9800". I think his ATI 9800 is struggling to run the game as is. :)
nVidia 7800GT may be the best you can do, and it looks like you have the power supply to handle it, along with an adequate CPU.
I stand corrected nVidia's 9800 will be no issue
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Hey Everyone, I have been reviewing the graphics testing program and I must say I am feeling a bit ill, I know the tech curve is always moving but $$ is a little tight right now so what are your thoughts on this?
my current system: Dell XPS 3.4 P-4 Intel 875P processor 1.5 RAM, running home edition XP SP-3
Video card ATI 9800XT with current drivers, 256 on the card. video card is AGP
power supply is 460 W,
last test I ran with the new graphics testing program FR was 15-20, would a video card upgrade hold off a total rebuild? how about Panic and go running down the street crying the HORROR!!! or
should I just wait the standard two weeks and see what happens?
this Ati 9800XT is giving you problems now? what version of drivers are you using? are you using ATI's Cataylist Control Center or ATI's Tool Tray? how many processes you got running? do you use VOIP? or any hcat programs? itunes? etc???
the ATI 9800XT was the cadillac AGP card of its time....... I used an ATI 9800PRO 256 meg ( Pro AGP Slot on the MB )
and could get fairly reasonable framerate (45 to 60 consistently ) with all middle settings under the detail sliders in the graphic settings ingame...and did not use anything but the display driver only for the video card.....
I bet it has more to do with your PC settings/programs/way your PC is set up more than it does with your video card itslef..........my 2 cents worth, anyhows.....
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You should use Catalyst 4.12 drivers with the 9800 cards. If you run the ATI Catalyst Control Center, you might have problems as it chews up about 15% to 20% of your video card's performance all by itself. On your older card, that could be very problematic.
I have a computer with the X850XT in it and a 2.8Ghz Northwood P4. I'll be testing it this morning. Just keep in mind it is running the Catalyst 4.12 drivers.
Also keep in mind you may not be able to run with all the eye candy on in the latest version. If you want all the latest eye candy, then the 9800 card may be long in the tooth. Computers are going to vary. I noted my personal computer is getting better frame rates with the ATI 4850 video card, versus some of the NVidia GT260 cards.
How much is running on your computer, by default, is going to have a very big impact.
I cannot stress this hard enough. Installing the ATI Catalyst Control Center is absolutely the worst thing you can do to your computers video performance.
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there are people here saying the ati cards suck compared to the nvidias but i too have a 4850 and have no issues .. whats your opinion on that 4850 vs 9800GTX's etc...
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Once you get into that class of video card, it makes little difference. Both ATI and NVidia have had thier problems. Today NVidia might be worse then ATI, tomorrow, it will reverse.
Anyone thinking that either company is better than the other, in terms of product quality and/or stability, has not really paid attention to what has been happening to both for a very long time.
It then boils down to comfort level and what someone is used to. I use whatever I think might be the best choice for any given application the computer will be used for.
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Skuzzy is it also a crapshoot whether the nvidia control panel wastes video card performance? I'm using SLI'd nvidia 9800GTX+ with Forceware version 178.24 (other versions completely crash on installation).
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I'm a bit amazed at the variation in frame rates. I realize that some folks are pushing a huge # of pixels at very high res but I also see systems where the apparent pop is far below what I would expect. I'm pushing roughly 260FPS on the "stock view" and 340 when I bring the water into play. I'm thinking about plugging box into my 46 in 1080P over weekend (want to try track IR on it anyway) to see what FPS I get...
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I have Loaded the cat 4.12 drivers working fine, Just so there is no confusion, my current version of AH operates Fine, my concern was the upcoming change in the terrain with this older set-up.
My real question was could I just up gun the video card to the best Current AGP based card or should I just wait and see what happens? What AGP card out there will get the best out of the upgraded AH terrain? I know AGP is on its way out but My other hardware is still operational and I need all the time I can get out of it, Thanks for looking Guys :aok
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Ditch the ATi Catalyst Control Center and get ATi Tool Tray.
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moot, I really do not know if the NVidia control panel is a performance hog or not. If it is .NET based, it will incur some performance loss.
It is one area Microsoft really screwed up on. Forcing all the drivers into the .NET framework. .NET is an application API, not a systems API. Seems Microsoft's engineering is being run by application programmers these days looking at how they go about things.
I digress. From what I have been able to gather, the NVidia control panel has far less of a performance impact than the ATI Catalyst Control Center. That may not be saying much as the ATI panel is absolutely horrid.
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Hey Kararya, I Just set up the ATI tray, I have looked around at a couple of AGP based cards the X1950 and the HD 3850 What do ya think? worth the 100.00 or just tune this card?
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If I may make a suggestion... Don't buy anything NIB (new in the box) for AGP as you'll probably get raped unless you're getting some kind of crazy close-out deal..
For some reason, retailers think they can sell obsolete hard-ware at a premium.......? :huh
Sounds like you have an XPS Generation 2...
Things I'm noticing right off the bat: how is your RAM set-up? You have dual-channel capability.. With 1.5 gigs, you may not be taking
advantage of that.. It's best to have stuff in matched pairs.. The ideal set up for you would be to have 2X1gig of PC4000 (DDR 500).
You can find this type of performance RAM in many different flavors for pretty cheap.. Saw some of those Crucial Ballistix 2x1gig sales
for around $50.00. You can probably find cheaper.. I think you're pretty maxed out processor-wise.. You'd get better results from
overclocking (if you can) than you would with another processor (depending on whether you have socket 478 or 775).
As for Video Cards: what ever you do, don't listen to Krusty :lol
Nvidia as well as ATI have several viable choices...
Nvidia offers the 7950GT but it's frequently problematic and I wouldn't touch it with a 10ft pole.
After that, there's the 7800GT, 7800GS.
The 7600GT, 6800GT or 6800 GS are all acceptable but won't touch the performance of a the higher-end 7 series cards.
Case in point, I play with a 6800Ultra AGP on my garage system. I run everything maxed out with 8xAA at 1680x1050.
I keep V-sync on and it stays at a constant 59fps. Never dips...
As far as ATI is concerned, I think the HD3850 w/512 is actually the fastest AGP video card available..
You can find these for under $100.00 and I think this should be the card you get as it will
absolutely outperform anything Nvidia has to offer in the AGP realm..
Without a doubt, this should be your choice for video card based on cost, performance and logic.
Live long and prosper(http://www.interfaithbridges.org/may2007/images/vulcan.jpg)
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flyingelk, below is what you posted in the results thread:
Ok Here goes
ATI 9800 xt AGP 256 Ati Tool tray only Driver 4.12
P-4 3.4 system Ram 1.5 Gig
res 1680x1050 FR 13-14
windows XP Home SP 3
are you using the high res textures pack? and 1024 texture size? with this card?
if you dropped your resolution down ( ex.....1280 x 1024 or similar ) and dropped back to say 512 meg texture size.I bet you would see a tremendous increase in fps over your listed ----> res 1680x1050 FR 13-14
and also what Anodizer mentions about the 1.5 gig vs 2 gig ( or hck drop back to 1 gig so you can get the dual channel benefit might help....
I would go with the 3850 Ati vid card if I was going to upgrade to a newer card.......
Skuzzy mentioned your card would be "taxed" to try and run it at full or higher detail and higher texture size or using the high res texture pak...
but lowering them as I have mentioned, you are not going to give up a whole lot, and might even get better gameplay out of what you already have currently...
YMMV...but these are my thoughts
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Thanks Guys I really appeciate the input, I will try the Tweaks mentioned, my son plays some other applications on this box but AH is all I play. I will see if the Budget with allow card up grade or I may get the new Memory set up ,Yes Anodizer was correct the system is XPS Gen 2 system
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You're about 65% screwed. ;)
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You should use Catalyst 4.12 drivers with the 9800 cards. If you run the ATI Catalyst Control Center, you might have problems as it chews up about 15% to 20% of your video card's performance all by itself. On your older card, that could be very problematic.
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I cannot stress this hard enough. Installing the ATI Catalyst Control Center is absolutely the worst thing you can do to your computers video performance.
Skuzzy, what should DXDIAG report for the driver, if 4.12 is installed?
Before I uninstalled my video drivers, it reported this:
Main Driver: ati2dvag.dll
Version: 6.14.0010.6601
Date: 2/21/2006
Mini VDD: ati2mtag.sys
After uninstalling, and running Driver Cleaner, I reinstalled what is universally said to be catalyst 4.12,
and DXDIAG reported the following change:
Version: 6.14.0010.6497
Date: 11/30/2004 20:12:50
Am I doing something wrong? When I run gtester, I still don't see the water. :huh
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Am I doing something wrong? When I run gtester, I still don't see the water. :huh
Pyro posted in one of those (2) sticky threads that the Water effect either quit or stopped working and that he was taking it back down or reverting back to gtester instead of gtester1(gtester 2 )......this might be why you don't see it.......then again.it very well could be your card........ or the driver itself for your card....... have you tryed using ATI TOOL TRAY? ( or even CCC, although you will take a big performance hit, if you tried these and turn up some effects it might let you see the water although your fps will be extremely lower.also turn vsync off to help you obtain a higher fps for the time being maybe? ..........just throwing something out there for ya.that might stick <grin> )
good luck
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Thanks Skuzzy.