Why is this not as quick as i thought?

Bond007ukBond007uk
edited June 2004 in Hardware
Hi

Tis is my rig:
P4 2.4Ghz, Gigabyte GA-81848E-L, 1Gb PC2700 DDR, 80Gb WD HDD, MSI 52x CDRW, NEC 2500A DVD+/-RW, Soundblaster Audigy 2, Sapphire ATI Radeon 9800XT 256mb, Win XP Home, cable 1.5mb internet

Now i dunno why but even with a rig like that i don't think its running as fast as it should, Far Cry can run with nearly everyting maxed now in 1024x768 but gets into slow downs, DeusEX IW will play in same res with everything maxed but it seems a little slow in places.

I run Fraps with DeusEX and gives me 20fps!!

What is slowing me down? where is the bottleneck? Does Faster Ram make a difference to FPS? Would a 3.0Ghz CPU give me a boost?

Comments

  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited June 2004
    What are your BIOS settings for the CPU and RAM. It sounds like you've got your system underclocked. We don't know what experience level is. Do you know how to access the BIOS?
  • shwaipshwaip bluffin' with my muffin Icrontian
    edited June 2004
    Have you installed the latest video card drivers?

    They are available from ati's site?
    http://www2.ati.com/drivers/wxp-w2k-catalyst-8-01-040421a-015419c.exe
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited June 2004
    Also, what version of 2.4 P4 do you have, the 400 fsb, the 533 fsb, the 2.4C Northwood 800 fsb or the 2.4A Prescott P4? If it's the 800 fsb 2.4C, then you are running the memory asynch with the fsb because the memory for the 800 fsb P4's needs to be pc3200 to run synchronously with the fsb of the proc.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited June 2004
    Shwaip, I'm pretty sure this not a video card driver. Unless he's got remnants of another manufacturer's drivers on the hard drive, video drivers wouldn't slow him down that much. I think we need to look at CPU and DRAM settings first.
  • Bond007ukBond007uk
    edited June 2004
    My experience level is quite high, i built this machine myself. I have a P4 2.4Ghz (533fsb) which acording to the bois the frequency is at 133Hhz which would make 533 for the cpu.

    Memory is set at cat 2.5 which shows it is running at 333Hhz

    How do i know if its running memory asynch with the CPU?

    Installed XP from scratch, installed motherboad drivers and ATI 4.5 cats.
  • shwaipshwaip bluffin' with my muffin Icrontian
    edited June 2004
    It depends on if he ever installed any. If he's running the windows default driver, it could.
  • Bond007ukBond007uk
    edited June 2004
    So does anyone know how to give me more speed?
  • entropyentropy Yah-Der-Hey (Wisconsin)
    edited June 2004
    overclock that mother! ;D seriously though, i'm not sure how high a 2.4 with 533 will go .... and for games ... are the driver settings themselves too high? if you have those on high, and the games on high, it could cause some major slowdowns, even on a 9800xt. another thing - a card like that is most likely cpu/ram limited on your system
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited June 2004
    I agree with entr0py about overclocking your system. I imagine that 2.4/533 should be good for at least 2.8-3.0 and maybe more without having to raise vcore at all. Another thing that might help speed your machine up would be to close down some of the apps that XP and some apps always load after installing.
  • Bond007ukBond007uk
    edited June 2004
    So may ram too slow? Or my CPU bottlenecking my system?
    Was thinking of a P4 3.0Ghz with HT good idea? I understand i can't go higher unless i get PC3200 ram?

    Does ram effect frame rates?
  • edcentricedcentric near Milwaukee, Wisconsin Icrontian
    edited June 2004
    Well, not exactly. But when the ram and cpu are not running the same base freq (async) then things slow down a lot. However since I am not an Intel guy I can't tell you what the setting should be.
  • leishi85leishi85 Grand Rapids, MI Icrontian
    edited June 2004
    i don't know why u started the system with a 2.4gh 533mhz fsb version of p4 anyways.
    i really think that's what's slowing you down, as your video card is a 9800xt, and 1 gig of ram, but u could use more memory bandwidth.
  • Bond007ukBond007uk
    edited June 2004
    Didn't start with this older P4 i had to upgrade as my old mobo didn't like my 9800XT
  • shwaipshwaip bluffin' with my muffin Icrontian
    edited June 2004
    what settings are you running on that btw... ?x FSAA ?xAniso
  • CreepCreep Hell Icrontian
    edited June 2004
    What's your CPU throtle set at? I know those P4's slow down when they get too hot and will cause a bottle neck like your talking about. Us AMD users just buy bigger fans :) Disable VSync for starters. If you only get a FPS drop when running FRAPS then that means your system can't handle playing the game and making a video all at the same time. If you REALLY want to make a video of you playing hook your vid card up to a VCR and record it or buy a TV card. Then you could tape it, and loop it back into your PC and make an avi or mpg or whatever you like.
  • leishi85leishi85 Grand Rapids, MI Icrontian
    edited June 2004
    i think he just using fraps to get the FPS, not recording any videos.
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