Framerates again....

[blearsy]

OK i'm sorry to bore you to death with the same problems time again but I wonder if anyone could try and sort out my bottleneck and/or low fps problems.

Firstly i'm running an Intel pentium E6600 Duel core 3.06ghz processor
MSI N10 MDIGD3H Graphics card
with 3.0 gb of RAM
WinXP home SP3

I've followed Kromaatikse's very informative guide but only manage around 16-18 FPS with settings at most settings at medium/TSX off/Anisotropic x8 and MLAA+MSAA x8.

I'm a reasonable noob with computer specs but i'm told that my setup 'isn't bad' by my computer shop. Is there anything I could improve to get that magic HD feeling that we all see on youtube?

Thanks

[AndyM77]

Reduce or turn off the MLAA / MSAA as this is likely causing a "hit" on performance. See what the framerates are like with them lowered and then readjust to suit.

[jimmyshand]

I've got a similar spec to you and have managed to find a few tricks to get the best compromise. I'll post tomorrow with full details, got to get to bed, going surfing at 7am!

[gptech]

.........Firstly i'm running an Intel pentium E6600 Duel core 3.06ghz processor
MSI N10 MDIGD3H Graphics card
..........

Do you mean a MSI N210...? If it's based on the nVidia 210 GPU it's a very low powered card I'm afraid---Kromaatikse has suggested you need a bandwidth of 50GB/s to fully utilise TSX, the 210 offers 8....

(EDIT: if jimmy is still using the 9600GS, he has a card with about 38GB/s bandwidth)

[blearsy]

.........Firstly i'm running an Intel pentium E6600 Duel core 3.06ghz processor
MSI N10 MDIGD3H Graphics card
..........

Do you mean a MSI N210...? If it's based on the nVidia 210 GPU it's a very low powered card I'm afraid---Kromaatikse has suggested you need a bandwidth of 50GB/s to fully utilise TSX, the 210 offers 8....

(EDIT: if jimmy is still using the 9600GS, he has a card with about 38GB/s bandwidth)

Yes Sadly your right its a N210 and I would suggest this may then be the problem!!

Anyone got a suggestion of a good replacement card that would fit this mobo and the above setup?

[gptech]

What's your budget?

[blearsy]

What's your budget?

To be fair its on quite an old mother board so I don't know if that would be restrictive. (Asus P5N-MX)

But would be willing to spend around the £100 mark (I'm not sure on prices really and its pay day tomorrow so hey lets blow it!!)

Also would you say the rest of the system is sufficient? I don't want to end up with a supermega graphics card and a cpu etc that can't cope!!

[Easilyconfused]

The rest of the system is sufficient. It is very similar to my desktop at home. That gets pretty reasonable performance with my Nvidia GT430 card. I can't push all the sliders up to maximum but at acceptable graphics detail I get 32 - 35 fps on the E6500 processor system. 4GB Ram / Win 7 Pro

[gptech]

At the moment RW is optimised to use 2 cores, so your CPU shouldn't hold you back, 3 GB of RAM with XP (32 bit I presume?) is fine, so you can add more or less any GPU you want. Bear in mind if you go for a 'way over the top' card it'll still be usable in any future PC/upgrade.

I'd recommend sticking with nVidia to avoid any potential 'driver files not deleted properly' issues, and in my opinion the lowest card you should look for is a 440---70 quid should get you one of those.
Moving up market a bit to the 450 brings you into £90 territory, the 460 raises that to £120

Sitting between the 450 and 460 in both price and performance, is the 550---which would be my choice.

http://www.cclonline.com/product/54750/ ... d/VGA0165/ would seem to fit the bill

Recommended PSU for that is 400W, and you'd need to be able to supply power via a 6 pin PCI-e connector.

[ttjph]

It's worth using Windows Task Manager plus a utility like GPU-Z or Nvidia Inspector to see whether the CPU or the video card is the bottleneck.

Kromaatikse has kindly added information to his FAQ on which settings affect which, with the result that I have been able to turn up quite a few of the 'eye candy' options without reducing my framerate, as my CPU is the bottleneck and the video card had power to spare.