frusterating performacec issues with my custom rig... any help?

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bobstos

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#1 bobstos
Member since 2003 • 2964 Posts
First off, let me describe to you my computer to the furthest extent I can, in hopes that the information provided will provide some insight as to how to increase performance. Corsair CMPSU-650TX 650w PSU Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe nforce-570 AMD X2 6000+ 3.0GHz (2 cores) Nvidia Geforce 9800GTX 512MB running at 795/1200 4GB OCZ SLI-READY DDR2 800 (2x2GB) Creative X-Fi Soundblaster Fata1ity edition Seagate 7200RPM SATA HD, 160GB LG Flatron Wide 19'' 5000:1 contrast/ 2ms response Now I purchase Far Cry 2 the other day, and after experimenting with graphical settings I settled with high setting enabled on everything, physics was very high, textures was very high, geometry is very high. I can get anywhere from 60fps to down around 15 when the action is intense. Now, this is perfectly playable for me, it's a little choppy at times but nothing I can't deal with. Then I watch a graphical comparison video on youtube and this guy had the EXACT same rig as me, save his processor was only 2.75GHz. He was breezing through ultra high mode no sweat. no slowdowns, to graphical glitches, no nothing. how is he able to do this? all my drivers are up to date to the best of my knowledge, and that includes BIOS, chipset, sound, video, windows is up to date. what is holding back my performance? what are some steps I can take to increase my overall fps? my HD stays defragged constantly, I am protected with AVG anti-virus 8.5 home edition, I use CCleaner/registry optimizer constantly... I simply can't think of anything else I can do. Could someone please help me out? how do your systems perform compared to mine? what are you doing to get that performance? how can I improve the performance of my computer? any help would be greatly appreciated.
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-GeordiLaForge-

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#2 -GeordiLaForge-
Member since 2006 • 7167 Posts
He may have been gaming at a lower resolution, he may have had AA disabled, he may have forced lower graphical quality in the control panel, etc.. I haven't played Far Cry 2, but your rig seems pretty balanced. I wouldn't worry about it. Also, you may want to try disabling the on access protection that AVG provides. That may help a you out a bit...
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neatfeatguy

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#3 neatfeatguy
Member since 2005 • 4415 Posts

I agree with Geordi, you're computer is running things as it should.

Don't fall for that crap on youtube about how some guy's "mediocre" computer that runs games flawlessly.

I used to have a very similar setup - I had that same MB, my CPU was a Athlon 64 X2 5600+ (Windsor) and I had 2x 8800GTS 512 in SLI. I could run Crysis @ 1680 x 1050 on a mix of medium to high settings (no AA/AF) and get around 34fps on average. I wanted to do better so I learned how to overclock and I ended up getting my CPU going from stock 2.8GHz to 3.15GHz. I was then running Crysis with all high settings (no AA/AF) at an average of 40fps.

That MB is really good for overclocking. However, getting the older AMD Athlon X2 chips to overclock isn't the easiest of things to do. I could get my old CPU to boot at 3.3GHz, but the second core was never stable over 3.15GHz no matter the settings I used. If you honestly feel that your computer is letting you down (which it seems to be running just as it should be), then look into overclocking your CPU.

If you get a good 200-300MHz added in speed, you'd most likely get a good 10-20% boost in performance on most games.

I found that overclocking the GPUs usually doesn't garnish much benefit if you're not able to push the clock speeds up by a good 200MHz or so and even then you'd only get maybe a 1-5% boost in gaming performance. I leave my GPUs alone and just overclock my CPU.

Do a bit of research and become familiar on what to do for overclocking and with the BIOS - which was pretty easy to do with that MB because of the detailed User's Manual that came with it. I have yet to find another MB company (not sure about current ASUS boards, I haven't bought one since I had the M2N-SLI Deluxe) that gives such a good manual out; especially when it comes to the BIOS.

Here's two links for 3DMark06 for my last computer setup that used the parts I listed above. The first one is for my stock settings and the second one is from when I had the CPU overclocked to 3.08 (I didn't save the results from my 3.15).

Before overclocking

After overclocking

I scored about 10% better after overclocking to 3.08 - and I think at 3.15 I scored about 12% better then stock speeds. This is just on 3DMark06, the improvements in games differed - I saw from around a 10-25% boost in performance. Most games I played my computer didn't have too much trouble with and the added fps didn't really matter.

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andyroo08

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#4 andyroo08
Member since 2004 • 2082 Posts

Is the game updated to the latest patch?