Fairly substantial computer upgrades = no performance increase? :(

Farout Foolio

Pretty straightforward situation, I've upgraded my computer entirely, it's technically not the same computer before.

Old system:

Win xp home sp3
2 gigs ddr2 ram
Some crummy dell mobo
intel dual core 2.3
8600 gt
400 W power supply

New system:

Win xp home sp3
4 gigs ddr2 ram
Asus P5Q mobo
Intel Dual core 2.8
9800 gtx
600 W power supply
Entirely new HD with a fresh install of everything pertinent.

And just to nip it in the bud I am very, very sure that I have up-to-date drivers for
my hardware, and the video card has the power supply line plugged in.

Problem? Like the title says, I have enjoyed approximately a 0% increase in the performance
of my computer whilst the playing of the video games.
Did I do something wrong?

OremLK

I'm assuming you're using the same monitor/screen resolution?

I'm not sure how it's even possible that you're getting the same performance. Have you checked the BIOS to make sure your RAM and CPU are running at the right speeds? What model is your new 600W PSU?

wasted pixels

Also, what games are you playing, and how are you benchmarking performance?

dispatch.o

Your CPU wasn't exactly a huge upgrade. Unless you're using a 64 bit OS it wont use the full 4 gigs of ram(mostly).

What you should notice is increasing resolutions and newer games with bells and whistles don't drop frames if you turn up the goodies.


I don't know if that power supply will be able to take care of all your shit, at the very longest of shots your video card may be underclocking for want of power. 600W should be fine in theory and all, but there's a difference between bobs shack of shitty parts 600W and an Antec or Coolermaster.

Farout Foolio

Yes, I'm using the same screen size/resolution
The power supply is a Coolermaster.
The benchmark I'm using is FPS, I'm getting pretty much the same values for all my games that I did before.
i've tested it on most graphics intensive games I play, hl2. left 4 dead, crysis, a couple others.
I think crysis actually runs worse.

What's this chicanery about BIOS checking?

ApexMirage

your HD is the same?

Farout Foolio

Farout Foolio wrote: »

Pretty straightforward situation, I've upgraded my computer entirely, it's technically not the same computer before.


Entirely new HD with a fresh install of everything pertinent.

Nope.

And what was that about a 64 bit OS? I never really understood the difference.

OremLK

dispatch.o wrote: »

Your CPU wasn't exactly a huge upgrade. Unless you're using a 64 bit OS it wont use the full 4 gigs of ram(mostly).

What you should notice is increasing resolutions and newer games with bells and whistles don't drop frames if you turn up the goodies.


I don't know if that power supply will be able to take care of all your shit, at the very longest of shots your video card may be underclocking for want of power. 600W should be fine in theory and all, but there's a difference between bobs shack of shitty parts 600W and an Antec or Coolermaster.

The RAM and CPU upgrades are virtually irrelevant for gaming in this case, but he should see a big improvement in frame rates from the video card upgrade alone. Something is fishy here. I wonder if the GPU or PSU is defective... for instance, if the GPU is not getting enough power, that could be the problem.

Anywho, to enter the BIOS you usually press DEL or F10 or something right after you first hit power. Check your motherboard manual for info on how to set memory speed and put it on the appropriate MHZ/CAS latency.

dispatch.o

Check the video card, the 9800GTX probably has two pci-e power connectors, and if only one is plugged in it will underclock and still "work".

... You didn't go from an Nvidia 8600GT to an ATI 9800 did you?

Link the cards on newegg.com or something if you can...

OremLK

dispatch.o wrote: »

Check the video card, the 9800GTX probably has two pci-e power connectors, and if only one is plugged in it will underclock and still "work".

Very good point. Checking the specs, yes, these cards do require 2x 6-pin PCIe connectors to be plugged in.

Also, CoolerMaster is not actually a very good power supply brand. Is this the model you have? Because a lot of people appear to have had trouble with it.

bowen

Well... those upgrades aren't nearly as significant as one would believe. You're unlikely to see a FPS upgrade in almost all of those games. Turning off Vsync might help you see.

OremLK

bowen, that's simply not true about the video card. He should be seeing much higher FPS in games like Crysis, depending on the resolution/graphics settings.

Edit for cite: Tom's Hardware GPU charts, Crysis @ 1680x1050 on High settings
9800GTX: 29.4fps
8600GT: 7.7fps

bowen

OremLK wrote: »

bowen, that's simply not true about the video card. He should be seeing much higher FPS in games like Crysis, depending on the resolution/graphics settings.

Edit for cite: Tom's Hardware GPU charts, Crysis @ 1680x1050 on High settings
9800GTX: 29.4fps
8600GT: 7.7fps

bowen wrote: »

You're unlikely to see a FPS upgrade in almost all of those games.

Him not seeing a large upgrade might just be his imagination. He may be pushing more through it than he was under his old card. For instance he may have been running Crysis at 1024x768 at low on his old card and then pumped up to 1280x1024 at high and then his FPS dropped by 2.

Did he also not admit that he didn't reformat to a fresh, clean install of Windows? I imagine if this hasn't happened that this should be the first thing to be done to resolve the issues. But yes, that power supply is fuck awful, and replacing it (RMA it because it won't provide you with proper power, mine didn't) should be the first priority.

OremLK

I can see what you're saying, but he said earlier that he's comparing the FPS which I took to mean he turned on the FPS display using the games' consoles or options menus. And that he is using the same monitor and screen resolution.

Normally I would agree with you though, user subjectivity would be the simplest explanation... but I think he's ruled that out pretty well.

urahonky

I think this happens to me all the time. I upgrade my machine, so I go ahead and up the settings on all my games and I end up angry that the game runs the same even though I've upgraded everything. Be sure that you are using the same everything.

bowen

Yeah I think we're all operating under the assumption he's running same resolution and quality settings. But it might just be easily answered from the "hey I've got a new system lets pump this shit up" and noticing no increase.

I am also guilty of this.

Fantasma

Hi,

I do not see the full Ram memory specification, is this ram 667 or 800 ?, the clock speed is higher if you are using a DDR2 800.

Get an application called TweakNow PowerPack Professional so that you can tweak the system.

Dixon

Yeah so the jump to 64-bit allows you to use more then 2.5 gbs of RAM. Vista will tell you it can see all 4 gbs but there not actually all available.

Of course even if you did stay with 32-bit OS you should still see a difference in games the 9800gtx and 8600gt aren't even close in terms of performance. I've used both cards before

Grobian

Fantasma wrote: »

Get an application called TweakNow PowerPack Professional so that you can tweak the system.

Actually don't do that, because I will go out on a limb here and say that all of these applications do nothing.


/edit: the amount of usable RAM is dependent on how much memory your video card has. I think it's 4GB - video card memory - some number needed for hardware addressing.

Movitz

Just checking to be sure.

Vsync is off when you look at your FPS right? Otherwise it will never go above your monitors refresh rate. If you run a game at 1024 on a 50 MHz monitor it will be 50 FPS with both your old 8600 (which is a pretty decent card) and also with the new one since it's already capped by your monitor.

I know this is probably not the case but why you see no performance increase is beyond me and it might be something simple like that.

FunnyFreak

Dixon wrote: »

Yeah so the jump to 64-bit allows you to use more then 2.5 gbs of RAM. Vista will tell you it can see all 4 gbs but there not actually all available.

You can use up to 3.5 gigs of RAM with 32-bit Vista.


To topic writer: did you change any of the settings for the games you played or are you running everything at exactly the same settings as before?

urahonky

Movitz wrote: »

Just checking to be sure.

Vsync is off when you look at your FPS right? Otherwise it will never go above your monitors refresh rate. If you run a game at 1024 on a 50 MHz monitor it will be 50 FPS with both your old 8600 (which is a pretty decent card) and also with the new one since it's already capped by your monitor.

I know this is probably not the case but why you see no performance increase is beyond me and it might be something simple like that.

Really? I never knew that. So if I have my monitor set to 75hz (50hz would hurt my eyes!) my max is 75fps if I have V-Sync turned on?

bowen

That's the gist.

urahonky

Huh. Sweet. Not like I make it above 20 or 30 with the games I play anyway. :P

Farout Foolio

Just to clear up some questions, *yes* I'm using the same settings for said games. :P
My main benchmark tool has been Crysis, I use _everything_ set to medium and end up with a
FPS of 30 on average. (this was true of my old machine)
Yes, my power supply is the model listed above as 'horrible'.
Yes, I'm using a nice new HD with a fresh install of windows.
I use an lcd tv as my monitor, the refresh rate is 60Hz and the resolution is 1360 x 768
Also, I was mistaken. My card is the (nVidia) 9800 gt, not the gtx. I apologise for the mistake

losabio

Have you made sure that your memory is running at the correct speed? It seems like motherboards default to ultra safe settings in the memory department.

Wulf

Also, Crysis was pro-ported as one of the most CPU bound games of this generation right? So you really wouldn't be seeing a big increase from what amounts to a slight Overclock of your CPU.

Magus`

Without actual FPS numbers, I can't really say why you aren't seeing an increase in performance.

It could be you were hitting 60 FPS before and are still hitting it.

Numbers, man, numbers!

Farout Foolio

Why would I be complaining about performance if my framerate was 60?

Let my put it to you this way.

Crysis is unplayable above medium settings.

Yes, I know that's sort of Crysis's thing, but still, I have a framerate that floats around 10 on medium settings.

Feral

Farout Foolio wrote: »

My main benchmark tool has been Crysis, I use _everything_ set to medium and end up with a FPS of 30 on average. (this was true of my old machine)

Farout Foolio wrote: »

Crysis is UNPLAYABLE above minimum settings.

30 fps is unplayable?

Fantasma

I think you are expecting too much regarding Crysis, my machine is a Pentium D Dual Core running at 3.2 Gigahertz, 2 Gigabytes memory.

I tried the SLI technology using two NVidia 8600GT 512 megabytes video cards to try to make Crysis run smooth with maximum settings and I failed miserably.

OremLK

Guys. I have an AMD Athlon 64 X2 at 2.6GHz and an 8800GTS 320mb (this is the first generation 8800, not the G92, so it's worse than a 9800GT). I get over 20fps in Crysis on Medium settings at 1680x1050.

If he's getting 10fps, he has a real problem here.

Edit: My apologies, I wasn't even being accurate. Was relying on memory, so I just checked again--I get over 20fps in Crysis on High settings at 1680x1050. I fluctuate between 35-55fps at Medium.

vonPoonBurGer

Farout Foolio wrote: »

Just to clear up some questions, *yes* I'm using the same settings for said games. :P
My main benchmark tool has been Crysis, I use _everything_ set to medium and end up with a
FPS of 30 on average. (this was true of my old machine)
Yes, my power supply is the model listed above as 'horrible'.
Yes, I'm using a nice new HD with a fresh install of windows.
I use an lcd tv as my monitor, the refresh rate is 60Hz and the resolution is 1360 x 768
Also, I was mistaken. My card is the (nVidia) 9800 gt, not the gtx. I apologise for the mistake

Go higher than medium in Crysis or use a different benchmark. Looking at the benchmarks on Tom's Hardware, Crysis never goes much higher than 35fps on most settings. For example, check out this list of benchmarks at 1280x1024, no AA, no AF, "High" quality. The top of the line cards peak at 35fps. What makes those cards top of the line is that they generate the same number of FPS when you crank up the bells and whistles.

In statistics, this is called a cieling effect. The relative power of the old and new cards appears to be the same because the tool you're using to measure has a cieling of around 35. This makes Crysis a pretty terrible tool for assessing video card performance. People used to mock the old Quake engines and their propensity to generate frames far beyond what the human eye can perceive (most people can't perceive more than 30-60fps), but that behavior did have its uses.

Edit. Ok, wait, what?

Farout Foolio wrote: »

Yes, I know that's sort of Crysis's thing, but still, I have a framerate that floats around 10 on medium settings.

Before, you said it was 30. Now you're saying it's 10. Which is it?