First of all the machine you're running should be able to run everything at max including the high res pack but not self shadows or soft shadows. Soft shadows are a real frame killer.
Since you're running XP I assume it's the 32 bit version. If so that 1 Gb of RAM on the video card is eating into the system RAM and you're probably only using around 2.5 Gb of the system RAM.
Finally, your quad core CPU is probably only utilizing two cores as most games aren't optimized for quad cores.
All that said the biggest bang for the buck would be to clean up your machine. Run cleanup and defrag, go to blackviper.com and turn off all unessesary Windows services, make sure any and all automatic updaters are turned off and make sure you don't have any applications running in the background while gaming including your security package although you can leave the firewall on if you're not behind a router.
The next thing to do, if you are comfortable with it and have sufficient cooling, would be to overclock the CPU to get a little more out of it.
If all that doesn't do it for you then a new Core2Duo CPU and a 512 Mb video card would do wonders.
Overclocking in this situation is like saying "the car is stuck, quick, get me 10 guys to push it!"
when a single guy can easily push it if you shift it to neutral first.
the problem should not be solved by brute force because your system is more than capable of running AH. If it is horribly bogged down and you simply overclock it (rather than remedying the bog) it can become more and more bogged until even your overclock is nullified.
Don't overclock until it's does what it should on "stock" settings first. Chances are once you get to that point you'll be more than happy and won't want to bother anyway.
All that said the biggest bang for the buck would be to clean up your machine. Run cleanup and defrag, go to blackviper.com and turn off all unessesary Windows services, make sure any and all automatic updaters are turned off and make sure you don't have any applications running in the background while gaming including your security package although you can leave the firewall on if you're not behind a router.
A system clean up will not help much. His system is strong enough to run 50+ background processes without a sweat.
His bottleneck is most likely the CPU. AH can utillize dual cores best, and thus the more GHz, the merrier.
This means a 2,4 GHz quad is not an ideal processor for AH - and a cleanup will not change this.
Sure, it will not hurt either, but the results will be very minor, if noticeable at all.
A system clean up will not help much.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
anti-alising take alot of horse power to run.
so does an USB headset ........
bet if you dropped that 1600 x 1050 res back 1 or 2 clicks lower, you be chitten and a grinnin....... and might even be pegging out on your fps to whatever your monitor refresh rate is .....
IRQ 0 System timer OK
IRQ 4 Communications Port (COM1) OK
IRQ 8 System CMOS/real time clock OK
IRQ 9 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK
IRQ 9 SCSI/RAID Host Controller OK
IRQ 11 Intel(R) ICH9 Family SMBus Controller - 2930 OK
IRQ 12 Logitech-compatible Mouse PS/2 OK
IRQ 13 Numeric data processor OK
IRQ 16 Intel(R) G33/G31/P35 Express Chipset PCI Express Root Port - 29C1 OK
IRQ 16 NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT OK
IRQ 16 Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2937 OK
IRQ 16 Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller OK
IRQ 16 Intel(R) ICH9 Family PCI Express Root Port 6 - 294A OK
IRQ 16 Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2939 OK
IRQ 16 VIA OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller OK
IRQ 17 Intel(R) ICH9 Family PCI Express Root Port 1 - 2940 OK
IRQ 17 Intel(R) ICH9 Family PCI Express Root Port 5 - 2948 OK
IRQ 17 Realtek RTL8168/8111 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC OK
IRQ 18 Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB2 Enhanced Host Controller - 293C OK
IRQ 18 Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2936 OK
IRQ 19 Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2935 OK
IRQ 19 Intel(R) ICH9 2 port Serial ATA Storage Controller 1 - 2921 OK
IRQ 19 Intel(R) ICH9 2 port Serial ATA Storage Controller 2 - 2926 OK
IRQ 21 Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2938 OK
IRQ 22 Microsoft UAA Bus Driver for High Definition Audio OK
IRQ 23 Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2934 OK
IRQ 23 Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB2 Enhanced Host Controller - 293A OK
Bald summed it up.
Third would be to go into your windows services and disable some of the junk you really don't want or need. This is the hardest part -- finding out what you need and what you don't. Google is your friend, but don't take it all at face value, check several websites until you start recognizing which ones are more reputable than others.
Foz, is that example from before you started this thread, or are you STILL running 70 processes at idle?70 processes?? :O