Company of Heroes runs like crap on my PC

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Fri Jan 02, 2009 7:06 am

So I built up a new PC a few months ago, and I finally got around to installing Company of Heroes Gold Edition.

Even though I bought some pretty budget parts, I thought I should be well over the minimum system specs for the game.

I even passed all the checks in the game's built-in system checker, which automatically adjusted all the graphics settings to all the highest detail.

When the game ran at about 5-6 fps at those settings, I dropped everything down to the lowest settings and 1024x768, but it still looks like it's dropping a few frames.

This is the first time I built my own computer so maybe someone can tell me where the bottleneck is. I've been really excited to finally play this game, but this system performance is disappointing. Here are the specs:

Motherboard/video: Asus P5N-EM HDMI, onboard NVIDIA GeForce 7100 / nForce 630i
CPU: 2.5GHz Pentium Dual Core E5200, overclocked at 2.97 GHz
RAM: 3GB PC-5300 DDR2-667, running at around 665 MHz
HDD: Seagate 250GB, 7200rpm
OS: 32-bit WinXP SP3

Should I be using DDR2-800 or faster memory? Or a separate video card? I thought this one onboard should already be good enough... Even a new CPU? The E5200 FSB is only 800.

I'm pretty sure I installed all the motherboard drivers too..

Daigohji · Post by **Daigohji** » Fri Jan 02, 2009 7:41 am

It's the graphics chip. Onboard graphics aren't designed for gaming. With graphics cards, the second digit in the model number roughly denotes the performance level of the card within it's series. So 7100 means it's the lowest performer within the 7 series GPU range. To play CoH well you'd probably need at least a Geforce 7800 of some description. I'd go with a 9800 GT at the moment though. That will run pretty much anything on the market to date with a good framerate at high settings and a moderate resolution.

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Fri Jan 02, 2009 9:01 am

Thanks, I suppose the mystery is solved and I still won't be playing this game for another couple of months, unless a 9500GT will be good enough... I guess I would want to play CoH, C&C3, and C&C RA3. I don't want to spend another huge wad of cash just to get these three running, will a 9500 be up to the task?

(can you also tell I've never bought a video card in my life? Nor ever needed to - the newest PC game I have played so far is C&C RA2)

worstplayer · Post by **worstplayer** » Fri Jan 02, 2009 9:48 am

Considering 8600 is perfectly capable of running those games (in 1024x768 or lower), 9500 should be enough.
Of course, unlike 9800, it won't be sufficient for next generation of 3D games.

Generally with nVidia GPUs, whatever800 will be good for another 2 years, 500-600 are just enough for current generation, 300's are barely enough to run previous generation games, and 100's should be called 3D retarders rather than accelerators.

Divide by 10 and it also applies for GTX series.

Daigohji · Post by **Daigohji** » Fri Jan 02, 2009 6:01 pm

Looks like a 9500 GT would be able to handle CoH:

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/760/4/

I think the newer C&C games are a lot more taxing though. New RTS games are as bad as FPS for raping hardware.

Just remember that the letters after the model number can also indicate a huge performance difference. GTX is top end, GT is a good price/performance ratio, GS is a slightly gimped GT, etc. As for manufacturer, look for BFG or possibly XFX. If the card has OC at the end of the name it means it's factory over-clocked.

indstr · Post by **indstr** » Fri Jan 02, 2009 7:08 pm

An nvidia geforce 9500GT should be up to handling anything that's out right now. Maybe not with settings maxed out, but it will certainly be playable at medium detail.

At first I really thought you were talking about an old ATI Radeon 9500 that you had laying around somewhere. (A card from about 5 years ago)... And honestly, that card is probably faster than the 7100 you have. It's actually probably a lot faster. So there you go with how suck your onboard graphics are.

It irks me that Nvidia decided to go with the same numbering scheme that ATI had on their radeon 9000 series. Freaks me the fuck out really

Edit: Hey hey, did a bit of research...
http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php ... &card2=455

Indeed, the mainstream 9500 card from 2002 (it wasn't even high end at the time) has twice the memory bandwidth and 50% more fillrate than your onboard 7100 that you just bought. So uh, fuck that shit dude

kengou · Post by **kengou** » Fri Jan 02, 2009 7:19 pm

Whenever you do get CoH working, feel free to pm me for a game.

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Fri Jan 02, 2009 8:18 pm

Thanks for that comparison site indstr, and the rest of you for your input. I think I may go for a fanless 9600GT - either ASUS EN9600GT Silent or a Gigabyte GV-NX96T1GHP.

It should be good enough (at an order of magnitude better than my 7100), but I don't want to get something too powerful, because my PSU will become a problem.

I am using a micro ATX case with a tiny little PSU (currently only 170W, dimensions 5" x 4" x 2.5"), and the only other PSU I can find at a local shop in a compatible size goes to 350W. I have several gutted ATX towers in my basement, but I would prefer to keep the mATX form factor if possible because I do move this system around from time to time.

Most of the 9800GT boards I found have minimum PSU requirements of 400W

Can I also get some input from you guys if this is accurate, or if I can get away with 350W (in particular, max 12A on 12V)? The performance of the Asus is a bit below the Gigabyte, but it seems the Asus consumes less power under load.

edit: crap, looks like I will have to get a full size ATX power supply and run it outside of my computer case...

indstr · Post by **indstr** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 3:27 am

iatneH wrote: I am using a micro ATX case with a tiny little PSU (currently only 170W, dimensions 5" x 4" x 2.5"), and the only other PSU I can find at a local shop in a compatible size goes to 350W. I have several gutted ATX towers in my basement, but I would prefer to keep the mATX form factor if possible because I do move this system around from time to time.

Most of the 9800GT boards I found have minimum PSU requirements of 400W Can I also get some input from you guys if this is accurate, or if I can get away with 350W (in particular, max 12A on 12V)? The performance of the Asus is a bit below the Gigabyte, but it seems the Asus consumes less power under load.

edit: crap, looks like I will have to get a full size ATX power supply and run it outside of my computer case...

Hmmm... You're definitely going to need more than 170W to push any modern graphics card. I haven't done much graphics card research the past 3 years (I still have a Geforce 7800 GS which is an AGP card), but I when I got it, it "required" 350W and I think I only had a 330W power supply, and it still ran fine. So it's not so much the wattage but whether your power supply runs at a constant voltage. And yes, the 12V rail does matter, but not as much as people say. As I recall, my 330W PSU at the time, had less amps than what people were telling me it "needed" on the guru3d forums, but it still ran fine.

Although I'm sure it put a strain on that PSU (which later started causing my PC to lock up

)... But, that was like 2 years later and also after I bought a new CPU/motherboard as well. So there you go.

did a little search though, I'm not sure if this is a bad indication..
http://74.125.45.132/search?q=cache:zZY ... cd=7&gl=us

Apparently there is at least one 9600gt card that "requires" 26A on the 12v which is wayyyy more than the spec you are quoting. So I highly doubt it would even boot on that PSU. But.... I don't claim to know a lot about PCIe graphics cards these days. Also that looks like it was just typed by someone who doesn't know what he's talking about so ... I probably just typed this for no reason just to scare you

Best advice I'd tell you is to go to the http://www.guru3d.com/ forums, do a little research, start a thread & ask for advice, and then take it with a grain of salt because it's possible that these guys will tell you that you need a much beefier power supply than you actually do (they did to me anyway). I'm sure they will tell you that you need to get a namebrand power supply as well. They will probably tell you to spend more $ on a PSU than you spent on your whole computer. Which is just not economical for us normal people. So that's up to you. I think somewhere in the $50 range is reasonable for a PSU.
I highly recommend against going to your local shop, because you almost definitely can get a better deal and more what you want online. I'd start with Pricewatch - http://www.pricewatch.com/power_supply_ ... ro_atx.htm and see if you can find a micro-atx psu with more wattage.

Just do a bit of research, start a thread on guru3d, and the answers will come to you.

P.S... A better graphics comparison site is Tom's hardware's VGA charts -- http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gami ... -2,30.html
I pulled that old one though because it had data about the Radeon 9500.

Good luck, mr mega-Dreamcast guru

indstr · Post by **indstr** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 3:29 am

iatneH wrote: edit: crap, looks like I will have to get a full size ATX power supply and run it outside of my computer case...

Hey.... The ghetto way is always a fantastic way to go.

It's what all the supergun owners do with their PCB's anyway, right? Haha

Maybe you can figure out some way to jam it in there huh? Do they not have some kind of oddly shaped/slim but long power supply that would fit in a micro atx case but actually supply more wattage like a full size? Heeh.

Anyway ... good luck

ED-057 · Post by **ED-057** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 5:09 am

here's a handy reference for video card power consumption
http://mark.zoomcities.com/images/gfx/G ... rtby3d.png

the GeForce 9500GT might be a good choice if you want to stick with a smaller PSU, as its pretty far down the chart considering its performance level

indstr · Post by **indstr** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 12:43 pm

ED-057 wrote:here's a handy reference for video card power consumption
http://mark.zoomcities.com/images/gfx/G ... rtby3d.png

the GeForce 9500GT might be a good choice if you want to stick with a smaller PSU, as its pretty far down the chart considering its performance level

Holy crap, you're right.... I had to scroll waaaayy down that list to find it, it's down there with a Geforce 3.

iatneh, as you can see, the amount of power cards actually consume is much less than what is "required" of them.

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 8:37 am

Well, I went for the boring solution, to work around the 500W ATX PSU I got, I ended up moving everything into an ugly standard old ATX case I had kicking around, so there was not much hacking to be done.

I went with the Asus EN9600GT SILENT after all, even if only because the hunter chick on the box is hottttter than the rest. Unfortunately, any benefit of reduced noise from the passive cooling is entirely offset by having to install extra case fans. Somehow I couldn't find a 50mm fan for the back of my case, so I had to drill some extra holes for fitting in a 60mm fan. The partial blockage makes that fan even noisier, so now this system is just about as loud as the old beater I was using last year.

Anyway, the video card made all the difference for playability. I ran the CoH benchmark with all the highest available graphics options, in 1280x1024 with 4xAA, and I got around 65 fps average, versus the 5 or 6 fps with my onboard video.

I also ran the benchmark for World in Conflict, I guess I might be playing that on medium settings, although the framerate wasn't too terrible on high settings.

Thanks all for the help.

Elixir · Post by **Elixir** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 9:32 am

Thread's a good example of why PC gaming is ugly.

indstr · Post by **indstr** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 4:17 pm

Good stuff, iatneH... I'm glad it worked out for ya. Nothing wrong with a ghetto case man

FatCobra · Post by **FatCobra** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 5:56 pm

You have an on-board graphics chip, which is fine for the boring everyday stuff but no good for gaming. Get a proper videocard ASAP.

indstr · Post by **indstr** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 7:03 pm

FatCobra wrote:You have an on-board graphics chip, which is fine for the boring everyday stuff but no good for gaming. Get a proper videocard ASAP.

Thanks for the help, but maybe you should read the entire thread before you post ....

wtf?