rec.autos.simulators

by **Mike Beaucham** » Sun, 25 Apr 2004 09:11:39

Those games should be fine,
But I was talking about games like Far Cry mainly.. and obviously any other
future games..

--
Mike Beauchamp
http://www.racesimcentral.net/ - custom electro-theremins and stuff.
http://www.racesimcentral.net/ - mike's personal site.

> > Maybe another 512 of DDR would help? I know a lot of the recent games
are
> > really liking at least 1GB of ram..

> > --
> > Mike Beauchamp

> What games? I'm only really using F1C & Mods, NR2003 & Mods and GPL.
Did
> you mean any of those? And there doesn't seem to be any games on the
horizon
> except GTR.
> Do Mods take up more than RAM?
> I was thinking of popping for more RAM but on a Racesim Forum everyone
said
> 512 is more than enough for today's Race Sims and Mods.

> Thanks

> Rudeboy

by **Rudebo** » Sun, 25 Apr 2004 12:21:44

> > So for FPS I'd have to go to the 9800 series XT or Pro to
> > see a noticable difference?

> I don't have F1C, so I'm not going to make any promises. But the 4200
> isn't such a bad card when it comes to throwing pixels onto the screen at
> 1024x768. The 9800se does it with more style and a little more speed
> across the board on a 768Mb/1800MHz AMD box, but I was unimpressed
> generally by the uplift. I just think that for about 1.5x the money (in
> the UK anyway) you can get a much better bang for buck with the 9800Pro.
> It's a matter of looking at the extra money and the relative benchmarks
> available in other games and deciding what's best for you.

> http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031229/vga-charts-03.html

Thannks for the info. FutureShop has a proper ATI 9800 Pro on sale tomorow
for $299.00 CDN. Think I might pull the trigger.

Thanks for the chart it gives my Ti4200 51.4 FPS and the 9800 Pro 107.6 on
Unreal.

51.6 is right around where my F1C is on a good day so I'm hoping to break
100. Of course if my CPU is the bottleneck I'll know for sure.Still as you
say then I'll already have a servicable VidCard when I upgrade. ;-)

by **Doug Hoo** » Mon, 26 Apr 2004 04:23:00

The thing that will give you the biggest NOTICEABLE performance improvement
will be a 9800 pro. Get one ,even if it's a little more than you really want
to spend. You won't be dissapointed.

by **Rudebo** » Mon, 26 Apr 2004 07:13:16

First returns very disappointing. JGTC Mod still in low 20's at start.
Mosler still in low ***s. Just using the drivers that came in the box.
I'll try tweaking things and see if I can get an improvement (any ideas from
anyone would be appreciated). If that doesn't work I'll assume its a CPU
bottleneck. I'll have to assume that or I'll have wasted 300 bucks.

by **Rudebo** » Mon, 26 Apr 2004 07:15:21

I am disappointed. See above post.
Might be drivers/settings issue. Or a bottleneck at the CPU.
Any advice on set up would be greatly appreciated.

by **Dave Henri** » Mon, 26 Apr 2004 08:16:27

"Rudeboy"
What did your 3dconfig numbers change from? That is the real measure of
the video card. Now keep in mind, an entire system does the work, not just
the cpu or video. You may have to change some options, you may have to try
different screen resolutions. I have found my 9800 non pro gives me the
same or better numbers at 12x10 than 10x7.
I'd make sure you have the options turned off, at least to start with,
so no FSAA, no anistrophic and no vsync. Dig into your drivers properties,
move the mip map sliders away from the good picture side to the faster
framerate side. Make a change...go play..evaluate...make another change.
It's almost just like setting up a car.
Another way to compare framerates is to just practice as one car and
note the fps. If playing with a full field destroys the fps, then the cpu
is hurting you. Remember to experiment with 3dconfig. Try to get your
best numbers there first. And there are several tricks to get some
improvement inside the game. Turn off the HUD(the #2 key) that's about
20fps. Turn off the mirrors, another 20fps.

by **Eldre** » Mon, 26 Apr 2004 08:57:07

No way to check it in win98?

Eldred
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by **Eldre** » Mon, 26 Apr 2004 08:59:40

Wow - I just checked, and I didn't even have that *installed*... I'll see what
it gives me.
Thanks.

Eldred
--
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by **Rudebo** » Mon, 26 Apr 2004 10:01:00

I crancked up the anistropic and the FSAA first thing. I've never had HUD
on. The Trinumber in 3DConfig is 40 million same as the Ti4200 but with
FSAA, Anistropic and Vsync turned on. I could turn them off but that's what
I thought I was paying the 300 bucks for. Ditto the mirrors. I like
mitrrors but could sacrifice them in a FPS pinch but again I could have done
that with the Ti4200.

by **Dave Henri** » Mon, 26 Apr 2004 10:05:39

>> "Rudeboy"

> I crancked up the anistropic and the FSAA first thing. I've never had
> HUD on. The Trinumber in 3DConfig is 40 million same as the Ti4200
> but with FSAA, Anistropic and Vsync turned on. I could turn them off
> but that's what I thought I was paying the 300 bucks for. Ditto the
> mirrors. I like mitrrors but could sacrifice them in a FPS pinch but
> again I could have done that with the Ti4200.

At 12x10x16 I get 50 to 51 million triangles with a non pro 9800.
Play around with it some, you should be able to find some more. And newer
drivers couldn't hurt either.

dave henrie

by **Rudebo** » Mon, 26 Apr 2004 10:31:53

> At 12x10x16 I get 50 to 51 million triangles with a non pro 9800.
> Play around with it some, you should be able to find some more. And newer
> drivers couldn't hurt either.

> dave henrie

I turned FSAA and Ani down to 2 X and Vsync off and got up to 3dConfig
number of 57 Tri.

The catalyst version is 3.4

I think I've found part of the problem. In the SMARTGART tabin Display P***
the AGP was at 4X and Fast Write is off. When I change it to 8x and Fast
Write On says I have to restart. When it reboots the AGP is at 8X but the
Fast Write is back to off. Tried changing and rebooting three times still
no dice. The 57 Tri number above was with the 8X activated.

Any ideas? Could I have old NVIDIA drivers or VGA drivers in my Registry
gumming things up?

by **Doug Hoo** » Mon, 26 Apr 2004 12:33:49

Did you do a complete clean uninstall of nvidia drivers (including cleaning
out all registry leftovers of nvidia crap) before installing ati drivers?
Sometimes a format -windows reinstall is a good thing- when was the last
time you did one?

> > The thing that will give you the biggest NOTICEABLE performance
> improvement
> > will be a 9800 pro. Get one ,even if it's a little more than you really
> want
> > to spend. You won't be dissapointed.

> I am disappointed. See above post.
> Might be drivers/settings issue. Or a bottleneck at the CPU.
> Any advice on set up would be greatly appreciated.

by **Dave Henri** » Mon, 26 Apr 2004 15:05:05

> I turned FSAA and Ani down to 2 X and Vsync off and got up to 3dConfig
> number of 57 Tri.

> The catalyst version is 3.4

> I think I've found part of the problem. In the SMARTGART tabin Display
> P***the AGP was at 4X and Fast Write is off. When I change it to 8x
> and Fast Write On says I have to restart. When it reboots the AGP is
> at 8X but the Fast Write is back to off. Tried changing and rebooting
> three times still no dice. The 57 Tri number above was with the 8X
> activated.

> Any ideas? Could I have old NVIDIA drivers or VGA drivers in my
> Registry gumming things up?

That always is a possiblility. But having Nvidiot drivers still onboard
would probably cause lockups instead of just low performance. But there
are some steps you can take. There used to be utilities that would dig out
the old nvidia drivers. One that I remember was Detonator Destroyer. I
don't think that worked with Windows XP tho. You might want to search for
an nvida/ati site like<I think it was called> guru3d.
Then look for a program that erases old drivers. Next use your find
button in the start menu to search for any files that begin with nv*.* and
erase them all. Finally IF YOU ARE BRAVE, back up your registry and search
thru it for any mention of nvidia and erase those.

You probably have to enable your fast write in the system bios before
windows boots. I've always had it off, so I don't think that is a biggie.
An older motherboard also won't get full benefit of the video card, but it
sounds like you have an 8xAGP capable board so it should be ok.

Finally how many background programs do you have running. There are
other utils like enditall2 that can shut down many background processes.
The fewer things the cpu has to take care of, the better.

dave henrie

by **Andrew MacPhers** » Mon, 26 Apr 2004 15:24:00

> Wow - I just checked, and I didn't even have that *installed*...

No, it's not installed by default. I helpfully forgot to mention that :-)

Andrew McP

by **Andrew MacPhers** » Mon, 26 Apr 2004 15:24:00

> I am disappointed

First thing I'd do is run some benchmarks like 3dmark2001/3 to check
whether your numbers compare well with similar machines on Futuremark's
database. Then at least you'll know if you're in the right ball park
generally.

To ease your disappointment I also suggest taking a look at some of the
techdemos available on the ATI site. No help in F1C, but great for showing
off what you bought. My favourite's the musical one... Pipe Dream.

Andrew McP

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