PC Gaming

[undamned]

I've been playing some ARPG's on a P4 2.66Ghz PC w/ 512MB RAM and a NVidia Quadro NVS 55 (PCI, 64MB). The other day I got towards the end of Ys: Oath in Felghana and all of a sudden my framerate dropped from 25+ to 5-. It was during a boss battle, which appearantly requires way more processing than any part of the game previous.

Since then I migrated my game to a different machine, a little Celeron 2.66Ghz PC w/ 512MB RAM and a ATI HD 2400 (256MB RAM) PCI graphics card. My framerate has stabilized for this game (probably from the nicer graphics card), but on some other seemingly benign 3D games my framerate is horrid (10ish).

My question for you PC gamer / HW dorks (heh) is: What do you think is the main bottleneck in the second system?

My guesses are:

- Celeron processors stink on 3D games
- Low system RAM is hurting the buffering of textures, etc.
- PCI bus isn't fast enough to handle much 3D

Changing out processor and upgrading RAM seems the most realistic solution, being as my motherboard only has PCI slots and the small form factor of my case inhibits huge power hungry 3D cards and a larger power supply.

Any thoughts?
-ud

[Udderdude]

With 3d games the main bottleneck is usually the 3d card, but the low RAM and celeron processor aren't helping. I would suggest finding a PC with an AGP slot and getting a decent AGP card while they're still around, they've almost all been phased out in favor of PCI-E.

Or if you don't want to be cheap, just buy a new PC with a PCI-E slot and get a decent PCI-E card.

[quoth09]

First off Celeron's are horrible CPU's. They are budget CPU's. In fact, your Celeron there is almost the same CPU as that P4, aside from the cache size. Intel back then started recycling their early P4s into Celerons later on, so you would think it would be the same speed, but the bus speed isn't the same, depending on the processor line.

The NVidia Quadro NVS 55 (PCI, 64MB) is pretty outdated. I don't know the requirements for that Ys game you are playing (looks like it came out in 2005?), but none the less, other games, depending on how old they are, it is probably a factor. Also, the RAM on that card is likely to be 64-bit.
The ATI card is not much better, even though it has 256MB of RAM on it - that really means nothing. It is part of the whole line of DirectX 10 cards that were released slightly post hype of Vista to fill the 3D requirement, and are pretty much crap. The DirectX 10 cards have only started getting good in the last year or so. The 2400 can't even really play any DirectX 10 games at a decent frame rate, though your Ys game is not a DirectX 10 game.
Basically put, the HD 2400 is a budget card, and very low end these days. It's less than half as powerful as my GeForce 7600 GT KO that I only paid around $100 for about 2 years ago.

They still actually make PCI cards for newer cards somewhat, or at least they did a year or so ago. Though they are not the fastest solution bus speed wise, they still work just like AGP and PCIe cards.

Like I said, I don't know what else you are running there, so I have no idea if 512MB of RAM is enough for what you are trying to do, but most games these days, and even for the last few years, rely more on the video card than the RAM.


Depending on your money situation, I present you with 2 different options here to fix your situation:

The first being, pull that ATI card out of the Celeron system, and put it in the P4 system, and also pull the RAM out of the Celeron and put it with the P4 if you can (if the slots are available and it happens to use the same type/speed RAM). Kick the Celeron to the curb.
Scrap it for parts on eBay or somewhere after.
This is obviously all to do with if you have the technical prowess to swap out parts, etc.

If you don't know anyone that can do the above, or etc. sell them both, and get another system, namely have someone build you one. Call up a computer store that will build custom PCs and tell them what you want, and price around. Don't buy a system pre-built from a major chain, that is by Sony, HP, or whatever other companies are out there these days. You will likely run into the same problem down the line.

Have one built from scratch - yeah sure you can get micro ATX cases and boards that are small, and look cute, but computer hardware is not about being cute.

You can have a nice gaming machine built for under $600 these days, and when it comes time to upgrade later on, there is a whole lot more options open to you when you do.


BTW - I just noticed that have Phoenix listed as your location - I'm going to assume Phoenix, AZ? There is a Fry's located there (3035 W. Thunderbird Road), go there and tell them what you are looking to do, if I recall, they have services in store to build systems to spec. Don't let them convince you into buying one of their pre-built things.

[undamned]

The first being, pull that ATI card out of the Celeron system, and put it in the P4 system, and also pull the RAM out of the Celeron and put it with the P4 if you can (if the slots are available and it happens to use the same type/speed RAM). Kick the Celeron to the curb.
Scrap it for parts on eBay or somewhere after.
This is obviously all to do with if you have the technical prowess to swap out parts, etc.

Yeah, I'd love to pop the HD 2400 into my P4, but I've spent about 20 hours resolving hardware conflicts regarding graphics cards on that machine. It has a legacy ATI onboard video chipset which hoses Catalyst when it detects that you have an older chipset than that version is meant for (it sees the old ATI chipset before the HD2400). I've tried everything, even removing the Windows cab files which contain the onboard drivers and making the onboard chipset look like a vanilla graphics chipset in System Manager.

I tried running an NVidia 6200 (256MB) PCI and it wouldn't even boot. The Quadro became my default as I think it worked the first time I plugged it in.

computer hardware is not about being cute.

Yeah, Fry's is cool. I kinda fumble my way through PC stuff and come out winning more often that not

Thanks for the lowdown on all that stuff. I always thought Celerons were wimpy in some way. Ebay seems to have quite a few sellers of P4 chips w/ 1MB cache and a compatable socket/bus-speed for my Celeron system (I'm an IBM fan and I love that machine, so I'll be hard pressed to part w/ it, heh). I already ordered RAM for my wife's PC and this one, so that will at least resolve any RAM limitations.
-ud

[Ed Oscuro]

on some other seemingly benign 3D games my framerate is horrid (10ish).

Which ones, aside from Ys (which I think is a 2006 release, or maybe 2007)? Just the rough year of release is good to know.

Anyway, there's a whole ton of upgrade and complete replacement options available right now, many at great prices. The question is really: What's your budget?

You can still do a bit with an AGP slot, but even that's completely obsoleted these days.

One final thought...I'm sure you tried this, but you did try inserting the new card and disabling the onboard video component of the chipset before installing Catalyst drivers, right? That sounds odd to me, but I've got little experience with integrated video stuff, and less with ATI up to now.

[quoth09]

on some other seemingly benign 3D games my framerate is horrid (10ish).

Which ones, aside from Ys (which I think is a 2006 release, or maybe 2007)? Just the rough year of release is good to know.

Anyway, there's a whole ton of upgrade and complete replacement options available right now, many at great prices. The question is really: What's your budget?

You can still do a bit with an AGP slot, but even that's completely obsoleted these days.

One final thought...I'm sure you tried this, but you did try inserting the new card and disabling the onboard video component of the chipset before installing Catalyst drivers, right? That sounds odd to me, but I've got little experience with integrated video stuff, and less with ATI up to now.

I agree, computer parts (especially memory and storage) is so cheap now it's not even funny.

Unless you are doing Dual, Triple or Quad SLI, there isn't much difference in terms of performance between an AGP and PCIe card. There is a lot more bandwidth available there yes, but overall in benchmarks, the tests are pretty close. Obviously that only applies or becomes even somewhat of a concern if you still have an AGP only board.

I ended up not being able to post my reply here before, something about my reply, I guess some term in it the forum did not like, so it was just a blank post. Either way, ended up PM/emailing him, told him the same thing about disabling the onboard video. Seems the Catalyst drivers are seeing the onboard video regardless of what he has in there. Haven't heard back from him yet though.

[undamned]

on some other seemingly benign 3D games my framerate is horrid (10ish).

Which ones, aside from Ys (which I think is a 2006 release, or maybe 2007)? Just the rough year of release is good to know.

"Xanadu Next" and "Zwei!! 2."

Either way, ended up PM/emailing him, told him the same thing about disabling the onboard video. Seems the Catalyst drivers are seeing the onboard video regardless of what he has in there. Haven't heard back from him yet though.

Ok, now it makes sense why it wasn't working. My motherboard options are not "Enabled / Disabled" for onboard video. They are "Onboard / Auto" which based on terrible amounts of time messing with this issue, has proven to me that it's more of a priority selection than it is an absolute disabling of one video source or another. I think I'm just hosed as far as getting around the Catalyst thing. I even checked for hard disable via jumpers on the motherboard, but nothing was present.

Thanks for the tips/help, anyways, guys!
-ud

[quoth09]

Hmmm, I haven't played either of those games. Played Zweii!! 1 a long time ago, but didn't even know there was a 2.

Onboard / Auto...ouch. What the hell were they thinking?

What brand/model # is your computer / motherboard?

[jonny5]

not sure if your BIOS allows you to alot RAM to the onboard GPU, but if it does you should have an option in that heading to disable it

try that

[undamned]

What brand/model # is your computer / motherboard?

IBM x305. It's a blade server

not sure if your BIOS allows you to alot RAM to the onboard GPU, but if it does you should have an option in that heading to disable it

try that

Mmm, good idea. I should try that.
-ud

[quoth09]

What brand/model # is your computer / motherboard?

IBM x305. It's a blade server

not sure if your BIOS allows you to alot RAM to the onboard GPU, but if it does you should have an option in that heading to disable it

try that

Mmm, good idea. I should try that.
-ud

That explains the issue of not being able to turn off the video - it's a server. You didn't mention that before. Some don't have that option at all. Servers aren't really meant for running games. Yeah sure, they can do it, but the fact it only has 2 or 3 PCI slots in there via a riser card (not to mention they are 64-bit, not 32), and not even an AGP port in there, should tell you that this machine is not really meant for what you are trying to do with it. They don't even put 64-bit PCI slots in normal desktops.

There is no jumper on the motherboard either, as the manual shows nothing. I'm also going to take a stab here and guess there is not even a mention in the BIOS about knocking down RAM allocation.

Honestly, if you want to keep on doing what you are with it, I would suggest getting a newer Nvidia PCI card, rather than an ATI one, as that is going to be your only way around avoiding Catalyst detecting the on board (because you won't be using Catalyst on an Nvidia card).

Yeah, sure the hard drive is fast (SCSI I'm assuming as well), and I'm sure the machine is fast and stable, like they should be. I'm also guessing because it is a server it has a P4 with a very nice cache, making it even faster.

Honestly, do yourself a favor, sell the server (you should get a nice chunk of money for it) and get a normal system for gaming, or something along those lines. Servers are great for data transfer and doing other high CPU tasks, but they don't work the greatest for other apps.


If I was in your situation and I didn't want to get a new machine: on the Celeron machine I would just get another video card and try that first; that is going to be your major issue right there anyway - I looked up that card a bit more (HD 2400), and it is honestly pretty weak, even on DirectX 9 stuff and prior. It's weaker than even a 7300 Geforce.
Do some research prior to buying a card also - look at benchmark testing sites, as they do good jobs comparing cards, and show you what the card can do at different resolutions on whatever commercial games there are out there. Also, see if you can find other people that are playing the same game you are; ask them what kind of performance they are getting, and then ask them what kind of set up they have.

You could also pull the Celeron out of there and put a P4 that is compatible with that board in there, like you mentioned above; IF you are wanting to keep that system. You mentioned something about it being small is why I say that. I would only do it if the price of a replacement CPU is cheap though. Honestly the Celeron isn't going to have as much of an impact as that card is. The Celeron may be a budget processor, and I may not like them, but they aren't trash either. They did get a bit better supposedly around the post P4 era, b/c like I said before, they were using P4's essentially.

Also, I would up the RAM (to at least 1 or 2GB) as well.

Take it one step at a time and see where you are at, but honestly I think the card and that processor are going to be your 2 main weak links. You should easily be able to replace them BOTH for around $100 to $150, depending on what you get, and be pretty happy. Finish it up with some RAM as well, since it is so cheap now; take advantage while prices are down.


I say that price range because I don't know the bus speed or model of your processor, so I'm assuming it's not into the range of collector's market of processors and parts, where people spend stupid amounts of money on an older system when they could pull out the board and CPU and end up costing less. Pentium 3 100mhz and Pentium 4 533 bus CPU's were like that for the longest time, probably still are.


Either way, best of luck whatever you decide to do.

[undamned]

Take it one step at a time and see where you are at, but honestly I think the card and that processor are going to be your 2 main weak links. You should easily be able to replace them BOTH for around $100 to $150, depending on what you get, and be pretty happy. Finish it up with some RAM as well, since it is so cheap now; take advantage while prices are down.


I say that price range because I don't know the bus speed or model of your processor, so I'm assuming it's not into the range of collector's market of processors and parts, where people spend stupid amounts of money on an older system when they could pull out the board and CPU and end up costing less. Pentium 3 100mhz and Pentium 4 533 bus CPU's were like that for the longest time, probably still are.

Yeah, honestly, I'm kinda leaning toward keeping the server for a dedicated process (more on that later, when I'm done goofing around, heh) and using the IBM ThinkCentre 8183 as my gaming computer. Yeah, I totally know what you mean about people paying silly amounts of money to squeeze a few extra ounces out of their old system. The IBM desktop I have uses a socket 478 Prescott CPU which can be upgraded to a 3.4GHz and people will pay $200 on ebay for a 3.4GHz EE CPU when they could just get a 3.0GHz for $15, or better, take their $200 and buy a new dual core CPU + mobo.

I'm totally fine w/ a 3Ghz-ish Pentium 4 and, like you said, RAM is cheap, but as far as a graphics card, I'm kinda stuck in a certain range because of:
- PCI expansion slots
- Low wattage power supply (only 200W)

On hand I have:
- ATI Radeon 7000
- ATI HD2400
- NVidia Quadro NVS 55
- NVidia 6200

All of those were chosen for:
- DVI-D output
- Low power
- SFF

Now that I'm leaning away from the x305 and toward the ThinkCentre, I'm no longer bound to SFF cards so maybe that will open up some possibilities...

The ATI card is not much better, even though it has 256MB of RAM on it - that really means nothing. It is part of the whole line of DirectX 10 cards that were released slightly post hype of Vista to fill the 3D requirement, and are pretty much crap. The DirectX 10 cards have only started getting good in the last year or so. The 2400 can't even really play any DirectX 10 games at a decent frame rate, though your Ys game is not a DirectX 10 game.
Basically put, the HD 2400 is a budget card, and very low end these days. It's less than half as powerful as my GeForce 7600 GT KO that I only paid around $100 for about 2 years ago.

They still actually make PCI cards for newer cards somewhat, or at least they did a year or so ago. Though they are not the fastest solution bus speed wise, they still work just like AGP and PCIe cards.

Well, as far as better PCI cards, the next best I could find was the Radeon X1550: http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php ... &card2=506

Do you have any recommendations?

EDIT:

Looks like the GeForce 8400 GS PCI (VCG84512SPPB) is quite a step up...

-ud

[Ed Oscuro]

They don't even put 64-bit PCI slots in normal desktops.

I assume you mean PCI-X, because 64-bit PCI has been standard for the legacy slots for years.

My P6T has one 64-bit slot; three PCI-E slots point towards the future however, and will be fulfilling the role of the older PCI despite the completely different design.

Honestly, do yourself a favor, sell the server (you should get a nice chunk of money for it)

Wanna buy my Proliant 6500?

Admittedly that blade is newer and somewhat better, of course...

Another vote for getting a new desktop/tower.

[quoth09]

Well, as far as better PCI cards, the next best I could find was the Radeon X1550: http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php ... &card2=506

Do you have any recommendations?

EDIT:

Looks like the GeForce 8400 GS PCI (VCG84512SPPB) is quite a step up...

-ud

Ah, sorry, just now seeing you edited your post.

Looks like you have done some research, more than I have on what PCI video cards they make new...looks like they have really toned them down now. I have a 7600 GT KO PCIe, and honestly I am still impressed with it for it's age. Yeah sure it can't run all the games from the last year or so very well, but anything before that is awesome. I mean I can max out Half-Life 2 on my card @ 1600x1200 and get a good frame rate. If I turn off all the AA and crap I can do 1920x1440 easy.

I couldn't find a review on that ASUS 8400 GS, but I found one for a similar card by XFX, here on their PCIe version:
http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews.php? ... gs_256mb/1

That looks like it performs lower than my 7600GT KO.

It looks like that 8400 GS is the last PCI based card that Asus has made, also keep in mind that card only has 64-bit RAM, which is going to be the main bottleneck, also the GS line of cards anyway is budget based.

The last PCI based one that Evga has made is the GeForce 6200.

Looks like most companies have dropped the format, which isn't surprising, however I found some others you may be interested in:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814187059
That will outperform the 8400GS, even though it has less RAM.

Also these 2:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... 9%20series

Any 3 of those would be better choices for your money.
I have never bought anything by Sparkle before, so I can't vouch for their products, however that is the highest vid card that I could find for PCI, and the 9400's were not bad cards, especially the GT versions.

They don't even put 64-bit PCI slots in normal desktops.

I assume you mean PCI-X, because 64-bit PCI has been standard for the legacy slots for years.

No, PCI, as in standard 32-Bit PCI in Standard. ASUS P6T is less than 6 months old. Just because it has them on board does not mean it is standard all of the sudden; same goes with some of the other features that board has, depending on the version of it you have (SCSI, 14x USB?). Also the price class is above standard, so you can't compare that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Local_Bus#Card_keying

PCI-X is 64-bit of course though. They make cards that are 64-bit supporting, but will work on 32-bit standard slots as well; I have a Firewire 800 card that does this.

Wanna buy my Proliant 6500?

Admittedly that blade is newer and somewhat better, of course...

Lol, awesome system there, I bet that would be great for running a Quake II server,
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/serv ... index.html

[undamned]

Update.
-ud

[OmegaFlareX]

I built myself a new rig earlier this year so I thought I'd chime in. Was previously using a laptop so I had to start completely from scratch.

- Intel C2Duo E8400 @ 3 ghz
- Gigabyte P45-UD3R mobo
- 4GB Corsair XMS2 RAM (DDR2 800mhz)
- Evga 512MB 9800GT
- 500GB WD Caviar Black
- Cooler Master Cosmos-1000 full tower (it's huuuuuuuge, but it's slick as hell and keeps everything inside super-cool; highly reccomended)
- Corsair 520-watt modular power supply
- Vista HP 64-bit
- Samsung DVD-RW drive
- Logitech 2.1 OEM speakers

Not including the new monitor, was around $1100 after tax/shipping. But performance is waaaaaaaay beyond what my 2007-ish laptop is capable of, and will absolutely crush everything mentioned in this thread so far. =) All of the above parts are awesome high-quality, and the best thing is that the CASE was the most expensive component ($189). Meaning stuff is really cheap right now. That 4 gig DDR2 kit was only $66. Hell, even some current-gen video cards (GeForce 260 GTX) are only $179-ish and can run circles around what I bought.

[Ed Oscuro]

I've started thinking about chucking out my own E6600 and other stuff.

On the CPU front, I agonized over E8400 Core 2 Duo versus the ACTUALLY CHEAPER but much higher-performance in multithreaded apps Q8400, but as the quad core is slower (2.66GHz versus 3), has 2MB less L2 cache (4 versus 6), and is a 95w part as opposed to the E8400's 65W TDP, the E8400 seems the better choice. I don't see the point using (I assume) 50% more energy to cut down the time it takes me to unzip stuff in 7-zip or potentially get better framerates in certain games (most of the stuff I play is actually pretty old).

800 MHz RAM (going to 1066MHz, aka PC 8500 with 2.0v and 5-5-5-15 timings, not bad at all). This Crucial-brand RAM will replace my Corsair XMS2 Dominator 1GB sticks (2GB total) to bump me up to 3GB, with 2GB in one slot and 1GB in another (1GB and 512MB sticks). It's actually a cheaper option than the Corsair RAM seems to be, plus I could only find a 1GB kit with the timing and voltage options I wanted from Crucial that would also fit alongside a 2GB kit.

There's a Geforce 280 available on Newegg for $215, so I'm going to get that as a drop-in replacement for my 8800GTS 640MB.

Also would be a good time to replace my old ScanJet 5500c, which actually seems to fetch a good value secondhand, with the cheaper (lol) but much newer and generally better all-around Epson Perfection V30.

I would like to upgrade other stuff 'n' things but this will do for now. $563 and I stand to make back at least $180 on just the scanner and the Core 2 Duo E6600, and I could add the RAM and GeForce to that (I might end up handing off the GeForce to somebody who could use it though). Not shabby at all, and I stay within my power budget for the most part.

The GeForce GTX 280 can blow away the power consumption of the GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB by about 200W, but my PSU can handle that and I won't be pushing it as far as I could.

Of course, I also need to get the Core i7 machine working...that will blow away anything I can retrofit on the LGA775 platform, but it'll also increase the energy bill most impressively ;)