GTL performance only so-so. What to change?

Hi all, I just got GTL (late, but cheap :-) My rig is a bit oldish already and I don't want to invest in a complete new unit right now (house renovation first...) Could you give me an idea what would be the bottleneck in my system? I'm running an XP2600+ (non-oc) with an Rad 9600 something ATM I'm on 1024x768, boiled down eye-candy and getting appr. 28-42 fps. I will change to a 19" TFT very soon and then run GTL at 1280*1024 Any input? TIA Jens

"Jens Schumacher" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]... | Hi all, | I just got GTL (late, but cheap :-) | My rig is a bit oldish already and I don't want to invest in a complete new unit

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| right now (house renovation first...) | | Could you give me an idea what would be the bottleneck in my system? | | I'm running an XP2600+ (non-oc) with an Rad 9600 something | ATM I'm on 1024x768, boiled down eye-candy and getting appr. 28-42 fps. | I will change to a 19" TFT very soon and then run GTL at 1280*1024 | | Any input? | | TIA | Jens

The way I see it, GTR, GTL, rFactor, LFS, and NetKar Pro (to a lesser extent) are heavily video-card dependent. My guess is that it's your video card. Try getting even a 6800 GS (I know nothing about ATI cards, except that a 9600 is rather old) and you'll notice the difference. Alanb

Jens, I have GTL, & if comparison is any help, I have a p4 system 2.4 ghz (400) with pc3200 ddr ram (1 gig) with a decent 200 gig 7200 rpm (8meg cache) harddrive, and a geforce *6600* GT 128 meg version (not the best by a long shot) and I get near same rates as you that is UNTIL I do a offline challenge with more than 7 or 8 cars. some of the downloaded tracks are bad FPS hogs, couple of the originals bring me to 3 or 4 fps. seems the papy converted tracks do pretty well by following the suggestions in the manual page 30 (i bought early import version) "Maximising Game Performance" except if I went below 1024 x 768 res, I think it was slower... Im saving for the biggest cpu I can plug into this OLDER motherboard, (533 mhz fsb is best it can do) and should be 3.2 ghz should help me some. I hear many got help by adding more ram and ram built into vid cards... FYI, Im not buying another vid card until my next system since AGP is technically dead now it seems... best of luck Jens Schumacher wrote:

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> Hi all, > I just got GTL (late, but cheap :-) > My rig is a bit oldish already and I don't want to invest in a > complete new unit right now (house renovation first...) > > Could you give me an idea what would be the bottleneck in my system? > > I'm running an XP2600+ (non-oc) with an Rad 9600 something > ATM I'm on 1024x768, boiled down eye-candy and getting appr. 28-42 > fps. > I will change to a 19" TFT very soon and then run GTL at 1280*1024 > > Any input? > > TIA > Jens

Jens, Looks like your video card is your primary bottleneck. As someone else suggested, a 6800 GS would be a nice match for that system and would give you a significant boost in performance over your 9600 (I have a XP2500+ and recently upgraded from 9600 to 6800 GS). If you want to go with ATI instead of Nvidia, I'm thinking a X800 GTO would be another good choice. Also, if you are running with less than 1gb of ram, you will want to have at least that much to avoid stutters. You didn't mention if you were running GTL in DX7, DX8 or DX9 mode. With your 9600, you will want to stick with DX7 or DX8 (DX8 looks much nicer!). I am now able to run in DX9 with my 6800 GS (wich is unlocked and overclocked to > 6800 GT specs). I usually run offline with about 15-17 AI cars, and framerates are fine on all of the standard tracks. A few of the add-on/converted tracks could use a bit of optimization though... -CK

Hi, On 6 Jul 2006 07:37:53 -0700, [email hidden] wrote: >Jens, > >Looks like your video card is your primary bottleneck. As someone else >suggested, a 6800 GS would be a nice match for that system and would Will consider that... >give you a significant boost in performance over your 9600 (I have a >XP2500+ and recently upgraded from 9600 to 6800 GS). If you want to go >with ATI instead of Nvidia, I'm thinking a X800 GTO would be another >good choice. Also, if you are running with less than 1gb of ram, you >will want to have at least that much to avoid stutters. Need to check whether I got 512 or 1G. Don't remember how much I installed those days. I don't have problems with stutter though. > >You didn't mention if you were running GTL in DX7, DX8 or DX9 mode. I run DirectX9. Haven't tried the other optins yet. >With your 9600, you will want to stick with DX7 or DX8 (DX8 looks much >nicer!). I am now able to run in DX9 with my 6800 GS (wich is unlocked >and overclocked to > 6800 GT specs). I usually run offline with about >15-17 AI cars, and framerates are fine on all of the standard tracks. >A few of the add-on/converted tracks could use a bit of optimization >though... Sounds good. I now know what to focus on, thanks to all of you. Jens

Hi, Will consider that... Need to check whether I got 512 or 1G. Don't remember how much I installed those days. I don't have problems with stutter though. I run DirectX9. Haven't tried the other optins yet. Sounds good. I now know what to focus on, thanks to all of you. Jens