8800GT Disappointing Me :(

C

CantCookToast

n00b
Joined
Jan 7, 2008
Messages
24
Hey HF...

Specs:

ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe
BFG GeForce 8800GT OC 512MB (Brand New)
2GB Corsair DDR2
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ @ 2.1GhZ
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This is a fresh install of Windows XP Pro.

In Call of Duty 4, looking at the sky, I can't get much above 140fps. In normal game situations, I get between 60-120fps, but I dip down as low as 30 when in a firefight or intense situation.

I have tried the following:

- Checking temperatures (seem normal)
- Custom configs (no luck)
- Omega Drivers (*slight* improvement)
- Disabling everything unnecessary in the background (I usually only have NOD32 in the background anyway)
- Disabling Vertical Sync, Glow, Smoke Edges, Shadows, etc.

I'm using the SoundMax HD Audio onboard sound (which I hear puts a HUGE stress on the CPU)...Could this be part of my problem?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
What resolution do you game at?

and 2.1ghz is a bit slow for modern games IMO, it may be bottlenecking your card.
 
I'm not sure if the FPS you mentioned are before or after you turned off all those effects. But if before, we'll have to smack you. If after, then it's meaningless. 60FPS is great. Heck, I'm pretty happy with anything over 30FPS since that seems to be the barrier between smooth and choppy for me.

So how bad is your FPS if you turn on the effects you want? And at what resolution?
 
I play about 50-60 fps with full everyting at 1680x1050
 
ring.of.steel said:
What resolution do you game at?

and 2.1ghz is a bit slow for modern games IMO, it may be bottlenecking your card.
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I've tried both 1024x768 and currently at 1280x1024. And I was wondering about my chip :(

belmicah said:
60-120 FPS disappointing? On a brand new game?

You ARE joking
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Not when 99% of people I know with this card and a similar setup are in the 400's. I spent $315.00 on a card for a reason.

Ravynmagi said:
I'm not sure if the FPS you mentioned are before or after you turned off all those effects. But if before, we'll have to smack you. If after, then it's meaningless. 60FPS is great. Heck, I'm pretty happy with anything over 30FPS since that seems to be the barrier between smooth and choppy for me.

So how bad is your FPS if you turn on the effects you want? And at what resolution?
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Those FPS numbers were AFTER I turned the effects off. If I turn on the effects I want, it doesn't go above 100, and still sags to the low 30s at times.
 
I run COD4 at 1680x1050 with everything maxed out smooth as butter, albeit with 0xAA but 16xHQAF. I dont see a problem with your performance if you are playing with AA.
 
I'm sorry but you are going to be laughed at sir. 60-120 FPS is disappointing for you? In a brand new game when you are running a 2-year old CPU at 2.1GHz?

What led you to expect any better than that with an 8800GT? COD4 is a remarkably smooth and forgiving game as far as framerates but what you are getting are pretty normal results.

Your problem is that your CPU is slow. Period. The 8800GT is fine, no tweaks you do will change anything. If you want to improve your FPS overclock your CPU and your videocard.
 
CantCookToast said:
I've tried both 1024x768 and currently at 1280x1024. And I was wondering about my chip :(
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At those resolutions your cpu is the bottleneck
CantCookToast said:
Not when 99% of people I know with this card and a similar setup are in the 400's. I spent $315.00 on a card for a reason.
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To be honest with you $315 doesnt buy you the ultimate high end card, 400fps in call of duty 4 on an 8800gt i cant see.
CantCookToast said:
Those FPS numbers were AFTER I turned the effects off. If I turn on the effects I want, it doesn't go above 100, and still sags to the low 30s at times.
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Its all depending on what part of the game your in, and as i said earlier it seems that your cpu is being stressed.
 
Endurancevm said:
I run COD4 at 1680x1050 with everything maxed out smooth as butter, albeit with 0xAA but 16xHQAF. I dont see a problem with your performance if you are playing with AA.
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Yeah I have AA at 4x. My only real concern is the fact that it dips down to 30 when things get heavy. I don't like that.

Spare-Flair said:
I'm sorry but you are going to be laughed at sir. 60-120 FPS is disappointing for you? In a brand new game when you are running a 2-year old CPU at 2.1GHz?

What led you to expect any better than that with an 8800GT? COD4 is a remarkably smooth and forgiving game as far as framerates but what you are getting are pretty normal results.

Your problem is that your CPU is slow. Period. The 8800GT is fine, no tweaks you do will change anything. If you want to improve your FPS overclock your CPU and your videocard.
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As harsh as that came across, it makes sense, and that's what I was afraid of.
 
Run RivaTuner and check your temps. Also you should use the latest nvidia drivers, not omega. Try that first to see if that helps.

Also defrag your drive and check for disk access. I find my FPS slows if there is a lot of disk activity.
 
chrispycrunch said:
Run RivaTuner and check your temps. Also you should use the latest nvidia drivers, not omega. Try that first to see if that helps.

Also defrag your drive and check for disk access. I find my FPS slows if there is a lot of disk activity.
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Im sorry, but that wont help the op gain '400 fps'
 
ring.of.steel said:
At those resolutions your cpu is the bottleneck

To be honest with you $315 doesnt buy you the ultimate high end card, 400fps in call of duty 4 on an 8800gt i cant see.

Its all depending on what part of the game your in, and as i said earlier it seems that your cpu is being stressed.
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Well, 400's when looking at the sky, and then between 180-300 when in regular game.

And yeah, my CPU is definitely taking some heat.

As a CPU upgrade is a wee bit out of budget atm, are there any suggestions as to what I can do? I'm going to try disabling the onboard sound and see if that does anything. I'm also using a stock AMD heatsink because I was too cheap to buy one :p
 
CantCookToast said:
Yeah I have AA at 4x. My only real concern is the fact that it dips down to 30 when things get heavy. I don't like that.

As harsh as that came across, it makes sense, and that's what I was afraid of.
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I'm sorry if I'm harsh but the game is perfectly playable between 30-60 FPS. I have no idea how your friends are getting 400FPS in COD4 with 8800GTs as you claim, I have never seen that before and it is difficult to believe, even consider. You bought a BFG OC for $315? My BFG OC2 was $259 and I think it's a bargain with these old X2 CPUs (I have a similar setup to you, just overclocked). Trust me, I only get what you are basically getting in COD4.
 
chrispycrunch said:
Run RivaTuner and check your temps. Also you should use the latest nvidia drivers, not omega. Try that first to see if that helps.

Also defrag your drive and check for disk access. I find my FPS slows if there is a lot of disk activity.
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Thank you. Trying that now.

Spare-Flair said:
I'm sorry if I'm harsh but the game is perfectly playable between 30-60 FPS. I have no idea how your friends are getting 400FPS in COD4 with 8800GTs as you claim, I have never seen that before and it is difficult to believe, even consider.
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I've got screenshots :s ... I don't know how they do it either.
 
CantCookToast said:
Well, 400's when looking at the sky, and then between 180-300 when in regular game.

And yeah, my CPU is definitely taking some heat.

As a CPU upgrade is a wee bit out of budget atm, are there any suggestions as to what I can do? I'm going to try disabling the onboard sound and see if that does anything. I'm also using a stock AMD heatsink because I was too cheap to buy one :p
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A heatsink wont improve your fps on its own, and 300 fps in game is completly overkill. You could get a decent HSF and overclock your cpu, but why are you gaming at such a low resolution with nothing on?
 
Spare-Flair said:
I'm sorry if I'm harsh but the game is perfectly playable between 30-60 FPS. I have no idea how your friends are getting 400FPS in COD4 with 8800GTs as you claim, I have never seen that before and it is difficult to believe, even consider.
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+1 IMO
 
ring.of.steel said:
A heatsink wont improve your fps on its own, and 300 fps in game is completly overkill. You could get a decent HSF and overclock your cpu, but why are you gaming at such a low resolution with nothing on?
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To see if it would change anything at all. I'm trying to see what I have to do to get high FPS like that.
 
there is no card in existence thats getting 400fps in COD4. With rig in sig, i get 40-80fps depending on whats going on with 16AF and 4xAA
 
CantCookToast said:
Definitely not.
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Then it's a bug because it's not a genuine result unless he is running an SLI setup. Check out most 8800GT reviews and their COD4 benchmarks, you'll see the results are normally 30-120FPS > 200FPS is simply not nominally realistic.
 
ring.of.steel said:
Tri ultras? With the most expensive CPU that money can buy?

:rolleyes:
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Well he did ridiculously include the caveat "looking in the sky". Sure if I played all my games looking at the sky where there are ZERO polygons to render I'm sure my framerates would skyrocket.

Not quite 400, but how about this:

http://www.puremayhem.com/phil/cal/dicknamic.jpg
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And what is his setup? That's also in indoors shot with nothing but two character models and a wall in front of you. Looks to be 1024x768 res without AA or AF.
 
Spare-Flair said:
Well he did ridiculously include the caveat "looking in the sky". Sure if I played all my games looking at the sky where there are ZERO polygons to render I'm sure my framerates would skyrocket.
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Unfortunately that's how most people that I've spoken to go about "benchmarking" COD4
 
Why in the world would you want 400fps? I would think at those speeds it would actually degrade your performance by making the gains and dips more noticable. Furthermore I have never heard of anyone getting 400fps in COD4 so don't sweet that.

You paid about half the price of the highest end video card on the market for about 90% of the performance. The 8800GT is one of the best values at a performance to cost ratio in the last few years. Although you overpaid a bit I would just be happy with extremely playable game with good settings and if you can get your processor to around 3Ghz you should be in very good shape.
 
CantCookToast said:
Unfortunately that's how most people that I've spoken to go about "benchmarking" COD4
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You're hanging out with the wrong crowd :D
Tell them to run a unified bench like 3DMark or the Crysis Bench (at the same settings) and compare it with yourself to see if your systems really are diffferent. That shot of your friend's looks like 1024x768 res without AA or AF as well. The 8800GT SHOULD beat the GTS most of the time.
 
Bomber18 said:
Why in the world would you want 400fps? I would think at those speeds it would actually degrade your performance by making the gains and dips more noticable. Furthermore I have never heard of anyone getting 400fps in COD4 so don't sweet that.

You paid about half the price of the highest end video card on the market for about 90% of the performance. The 8800GT is one of the best values at a performance to cost ratio in the last few years. Although you overpaid a bit I would just be happy with extremely playable game with good settings and if you can get your processor to around 3Ghz you should be in very good shape.
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Thank you. That cost was in Canadian dollars with 14% tax and shipping, so that's why it's a wee bit more expensive.

I don't know anything about overclocking unfortunately. Are there any good tutorials around?
 
Toaster, if i was you ild just give up on the 400fps idea, its not needed and it would make your monitor tear and ghost like hell, just crank up the AA and the ingame settings and enjoy what your card is capable of.
 
CantCookToast said:
Thank you. That cost was in Canadian dollars with 14% tax and shipping, so that's why it's a wee bit more expensive.

I don't know anything about overclocking unfortunately. Are there any good tutorials around?
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My fellow Canuck, you should have bought from NCIX when they were selling the BFG OC2s for $259 :)

If you really want to improve your FPS, you'd need to overclock both your CPU and your videocard. It should be fairly straightforward, just google your motherboard and overclocking. For the 8800GT, get rivatuner, ntune and ATITool. Try to get the core, shader, and memory clock to around where my BFG card is in my sig.
 
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