AMD Athlon 64 3200+ not performing?
OK, system specs first
AMD athlon 64 3200+
1.024GHz RAM
160GB HD
Radeon 9250 Pro PCI card
Now, I don't think my computer is running as fast as it should be. I believe I am meeting the minimum requirements for the games I am trying to play, notably Doom 3. I am averaging between 10-30 FPS while in game, with the lowest possible graphics settings, and I don't think this is ANYWHERE near where it should be.
Also, I have looked into overclocking, but it appears that I can't edit FSB, CPU clock or anything in BIOS? My BIOS is Phoenix Award BIOS 2.40.
Why aren't my games running like they should? All my drivers are up to date, I have just reinstalled Windows, and D3 is the only game I have on it. My PC is also showing that I have only ~760MB of ram free when nothing is running, and I don't believe windows XP eats up 200+MB of ram.
Thanks in advance for your help.
AMD athlon 64 3200+
1.024GHz RAM
160GB HD
Radeon 9250 Pro PCI card
Now, I don't think my computer is running as fast as it should be. I believe I am meeting the minimum requirements for the games I am trying to play, notably Doom 3. I am averaging between 10-30 FPS while in game, with the lowest possible graphics settings, and I don't think this is ANYWHERE near where it should be.
Also, I have looked into overclocking, but it appears that I can't edit FSB, CPU clock or anything in BIOS? My BIOS is Phoenix Award BIOS 2.40.
Why aren't my games running like they should? All my drivers are up to date, I have just reinstalled Windows, and D3 is the only game I have on it. My PC is also showing that I have only ~760MB of ram free when nothing is running, and I don't believe windows XP eats up 200+MB of ram.
Thanks in advance for your help.
0
Comments
that is your issue! that card is a little out dated!
I have done a miniumum spec write up for a game called BFME2 "The Lord Of the Rings Battle For Middle Earth 2" it might give you an idea what is good for a standard system these days... As this game will be running all the new Current tech. it will be out in March of 2006.
Also in most cases XP will eat 300MB of Ram especially after service PK 2 updates
To make it obvious, the spec's will be higher than BFME, Definitely. And it will probably be higher than most RTS games out there at the moment.
I'm going to talk about the major areas that will affect performance below. But before that, you need to know what kind of computer you have. Go to Start > Run > type "dxdiag" in the dialogue box, minus the quotes. On the first tab it shows the information of your CPU, RAM, and DirectX version. On the third tab is your graphics card information, including make, memory amount, and driver versions.
How can we estimate BFME2’s system requirements? Well by taking a look at current games and looking at the computer market in general. And of course compare to BFME
Processor
While for most games the video card affects performance much more than the processor, the CPU is by no means useless. Since BFME2 is an RTS game that requires more AI than FPS games, a decent CPU would be prerequisite to run this game.
At the moment, we have no idea how much processor power BFME2 will need. The basic underlying game mechanics would probably not need that much, since the principles rarely change from BFME - the number of objects and the size of the map are probably similar to previous games, and even a more complex AI would not take that much CPU power. However, the new lighting and shadows utilized by BFME2 does require pretty powerful CPUs, and taking Doom 3 for example, in which the CPU's primary purpose was simply to feed data for the graphics card to process, the minimum required CPU would probably be no less than 1.5GHz. And it would most likely take a Pentium 4 CPU clocking at over 2.4GHz or an AMD CPU clocking at least 1.8GHz to ensure decent performance.
CPUs that are pretty much hopeless:
Intel Pentium III or earlier
Intel Celerons clocking at less than 1.2GHz (I'm unfamiliar with earlier Celerons - do these even exist?)
AMD Duron
CPUs that should be able to run, but not well:
Intel Celeron (Note: all recent low-end Intel CPUs are Celerons. The ones I'm talking about are less than 4 years old, and runs on the Pentium 4 core.)
AMD Athlon
CPUs that probably won't run VERY well, but will run ok:
Intel Pentium 4 1.5GHz-2GHz
Intel Celeron 2.4GHz
Intel Pentium M ~1.1Ghz
Intel Celeron M ~1.2GHz
AMD Athlon XP 2400+ or lower
AMD Sempron 2200+
CPUs that shouldn't have problems:
Intel Pentium 4 2.0GHz - 2.66GHz
Intel Celeron 2.4Ghz - 2.8GHz
Intel Pentium M 1.2Ghz - 1.6GHz
AMD Athlon XP 2500+ - 3000+
AMD Sempron 2400+ - 2800+
AMD Athlon 64 3000+
Ideal CPUs:
Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz or above
Intel Pentium M 1.6GHz or above
Intel Xeon?
AMD Athlon XP 3200+
AMD Sempron 3100+
AMD Athlon 64 (any model)
AMD Opteron?
RAM
Even those among us who are not fortunate enough to be nerds know that RAM is important. Without sufficient RAM, frame rates and response speed will drop, while loading times will soar. While it probably has less of an effect that the graphics card on the frame rate, even having a top graphics card won't help you run the game if you only have 128MB.
The minimum requirements for BFME called for 256MB system memory. BFME2 will probably require twice of that - if you are lucky. Even if the minimum specs are put at 256MB, running with 256 or even 512MB would result in long loading times and performance that can hardly be called acceptable. A clean Windows XP SP2 system easily takes up 300MB of system memory without the additional help of programs eating RAM, and systems with 256MB RAM are highly unlikely to run any modern games.
I would count on 512MB up to 1Gig of ram even into the 1.5Gig range for a lag free game play.
Graphics card
The determining factor - your graphics card is the one that actually processes all the things you see on the screen, all the detailed models, all the pretty reflections, realistic plants, and awesome explosions. If you’re CPU or RAM is not up to par, it may take excruciatingly long for your left-click to register, or it may take fifteen minutes to load into a game, but the game would probably run. If your graphics card isn't up to par, however, the frame rate would drop to below that of a PowerPoint presentation, and if the graphics card is bad enough, it just crashes to the desktop.
One of the most misleading factors about graphics card is the amount of memory. Almost all game boxes put this for their minimum requirements, while companies release 256MB and even 512MB versions of their low-end graphics card, as though they were the flagship chips. "OMG my 512MB Geforce 6200A is going to PWN your puny 256MB X850XT PE lol" Sadly, the amount of memory has **** “pardon my mouth” to do with the performance of the card itself. While we can safely assume that a card with only 32MB of memory isn't going to have fast enough of a GPU (graphics processing unit) to run Doom 3, some graphics card show up with 64-128MB (Intel Extreme Graphics 2), or sometimes even 256MB (Geforce FX5200) of graphics memory, and yet they are going to run the game much poorer than a higher end 128MB graphics card like a 6600GT, and in the case of the Intel Extreme 2 and its fellow integrated graphics crap, it will again either run at less than 5fps with everything turned down to minimum, or just refuse to run altogether. I would rather have more capacitors on my graphics card than more memory.
So the first thing you must bear in mind is to ignore how much memory that graphics card has. Throw the concept of "more graphics RAM = better graphics card" out of the window. “I cant stress this enough” Even the rule that a graphics card with less memory than the minimum specs won't run the game is no longer true, since NVIDIA has released graphics cards which contain only 16MB memory, but by borrowing system memory, it can run faster than some 128MB cards, although the performance won't be ideal.
What kind of graphics card would be able to run BFME2? I'm talking about running BFME2 on at least 800x600, since I doubt many people would want to run a game at 640x480 at minimum settings. Or even getting the 1024x768 being your standard J
First thing, if in your DirectX diagnostics (you know, the dxdiag thingy) turns out a graphics card made by Intel, SiS or VIA, you can pretty much give up hope. These three would lag on BFME. The one exception is if you see something on the lines of "915G" or "GMA900" - that is Intel's latest integrated graphics, which is still slow, but is capable of running most games, and you would have a chance of running BFME2 on it. Same thing if it is made by Matrox or 3dfx. Secondly, in the third tab in dxdiag, on the first line, you could see the name of your graphics card. On the second line is the manufacturer. If your manufacturer is NVIDIA, and the name has the letters "MX" or "TNT" in it, your hopes are low. If your manufacturer is ATI, and the name has the word "Rage" in it, give up. If it has the letters "IGP" in it, you might have a chance, but you won't be able to run it at high settings.
For other cards, here is a brief list:
Cards you can expect to run the game, but only at low settings and resolutions:
Geforce 3 Ti
Geforce 4 Ti
Geforce FX5200/5500/5600XT/5700LE
Geforce 6200A/6200 "Turbocache"
Radeon 8500
Radeon 9200SE/9200/9250/9600SE/9550
Radeon X300SE/X300 "Hypermemory"
Radeon Xpress200
Cards that might be able to run the game at decent settings and resolutions:
Geforce FX5600/5700/5600 Ultra/5700 Ultra
Geforce 6200/6600LE
Radeon 9550/9600/9600 Pro/9600XT/9800SE
Radeon X300/X300PE/X550/X600 Pro/X600XT/X700SE
Cards that should be able to run the game at pretty high settings:
Geforce 5800/5900ZT/5900XT/5900/5900 Ultra/5950 Ultra
Geforce 6600/6600PE/6600GT/6800LE
Radeon 9800/9800 Pro/9800XT
Radeon X700/X700 Pro/X700XT/X800
Cards that should be able to run the game with most settings on high
Geforce 6800/6800GT/6800 Ultra/7800GTX
All SLI systems
Radeon X800 Pro/X800XL/X800XT/X850XT
All Crossfire systems
Here is my estimations of the computers that might be able to run the games at [insert_settings_here] settings. I've attempted to balance the memory, graphics card, and CPU.
Look at the graphics card first. You can have a 2GHz CPU and still turn the graphics very high if you have a very good video card. If you are running a 3.6GHz CPU but have only a Geforce 2 MX, you still won't run, or will lag like hell.
The estimated minimum-specs computer
Intel Pentium 4 1.7GHz/Celeron 2.2GHz/AMD Athlon 2000
256-512MB DDR/Rambus memory
Geforce 3 Ti200/FX5200 or equivalent (MX don't count)
2GB Hard disk space?
56kb internet connection?
The estimated "recommended" specs computer (i.e. guaranteed lag free on 800x600 with low settings
Intel Pentium 4 2.2GHz/AMD Sempron/Athlon 2400+ or equivalent CPU
512MB DDR memory
Geforce 4 Ti 4200/FX5700LE/ATI Radeon 9550/9600SE or equivalent video card
1mbps or better internet connection?
Medium settings
Intel Pentium 4 2.5GHz/Celeron 2.8GHz/AMD Athlon XP 2800+/AMD Semrpon 2800+ or equivalent processor
512MB-1GB DDR memory
Geforce 5700Ultra/6200/Radeon 9600XT/X600 Pro/X600XT or equivalent
High settings
Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz/AMD Athlon XP 3200+/Sempron 3200+/Athlon 64 2800+
1.5GB DDR memory
Geforce 5950 Ultra/6600 GT/Radeon 9800 Pro(XT)/X700 Pro(XT/X800
Max or nearly there
Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz or above/AMD Athlon 64 3200+ or above
2GB DDR memory
Geforce 6800GT or above/Radeon X800XL or above/All SLI systems
He is indeed correct. Your graphics card is the bottleneck here.
Now that I do know I have PCI-E slots, what recommendations would you make in the $200 range for a card that will run at least 60fps constantly with the newest games like Q4, etc?
Thanks for your help
ditto
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130258
or you could try an x800gto like this which is a little cheaper...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102601
EDIT:// TODAY ONLY COMP USA HAS A 256MB X800XL pci-e for $199!!!---in store only!!!
I didn't expect that GC to perform like it did, but I was actually surprised. Doom 3 runs at a constant 60FPS at high settings @ 1024x768, as did HL2, Quake 4, and anything else I wanted to run.
As for Xmas, I don't believe I will need a graphics card upgrade anymore, and, in the event that I do I can always just pick up another 6600 and get down with SLI.
I've decided my sound card is next, I have a SB Live! 24-bit (hey, it was cheap) and its worked well so far, but an Audigy 2 is on my wish list, as well as a 19in LCD.
Only have 1GB of RAM tho, think I should double it? How much of an effect on performance do you guys think this would make?
If you:
A) Install a copy of Windows XP 64-bit
B) Upgrade to Vista when it comes out
C) Run drafting programs or do a lot with large graphics files
then I'd say at least double your RAM. For gaming alone, 1GB is fine right now.