Well this was certainly a depressing discovery...

C

Cali3350

Supreme [H]ardness
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Mar 22, 2002
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I was tired of FarCry running so "so-so" on my system so i decided to test what a new card would do. I UNDERCLOCKED my 9700Pro to 290/300 and then OVERCLOCKED to 345/345. I got the same FPS both times. FarCry is limited to ~25-35fps on my system in large areas or with lotsa ai fighting going on. A new vid card does nothing :(
 
A new vid card does nothing
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I'm gonna have to say that you're wrong on that one. You mentioned that it was "with lotsa ai fighting" and you know what.....that isn't ALL your video cards fault. Enemy AI work is still done largely on the CPU.....and so 9 times out of 10 a faster video card might NOT increase performance in those certain areas. When you made the above comment you really didn't have a lot of ground to go on. All you did was take the same card and under/overclock it. The problem with that "method" is that nothing else about the video card is changing.....and overclocking your video card isn't gonna increase performance in a highly CPU intensive test. Take the botmatch test in Unreal2k3.....it is LARGELY cpu limited.....as you're mainly just watching the AI duke it out. Overclocking your video card will have little to no effect in that botmatch test.....but far more in teh flyby, you get what I'm saying. By overclocking your card by 50+MHz and saying that "A new vid card does nothing" you really aren't speaking the truth. Yank out that 9700 and throw in an X800 and I can gaurantee you that you WILL see differences.....things just aren't as simple as you're making them sound.

No hard feelings, I just wasn't sure that you had been fair enough when you were doing your "testing" with Farcry.
 
cornelious0_0 said:
I'm gonna have to say that you're wrong on that one. You mentioned that it was "with lotsa ai fighting" and you know what.....that isn't ALL your video cards fault. Enemy AI work is still done largely on the CPU.....and so 9 times out of 10 a faster video card might NOT increase performance in those certain areas. When you made the above comment you really didn't have a lot of ground to go on. All you did was take the same card and under/overclock it. The problem with that "method" is that nothing else about the video card is changing.....and overclocking your video card isn't gonna increase performance in a highly CPU intensive test. Take the botmatch test in Unreal2k3.....it is LARGELY cpu limited.....as you're mainly just watching the AI duke it out. Overclocking your video card will have little to no effect in that botmatch test.....but far more in teh flyby, you get what I'm saying. By overclocking your card by 50+MHz and saying that "A new vid card does nothing" you really aren't speaking the truth. Yank out that 9700 and throw in an X800 and I can gaurantee you that you WILL see differences.....things just aren't as simple as you're making them sound.

No hard feelings, I just wasn't sure that you had been fair enough when you were doing your "testing" with Farcry.
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Well, yes i realize that in some situations it will be higher, and no dont worry i certainly dont take offense. My problem is that these are the lowest areas of the game, and i find it depressing my system already cant break 30 fps sometimes (going up the volcanoe it doesnt even break 15!).

If i were to assume that my flashlight would no longer bog the game down to the amount it does, would that be a correct assumption? :)
 
Cali3350 said:
Well, yes i realize that in some situations it will be higher, and no dont worry i certainly dont take offense. My problem is that these are the lowest areas of the game, and i find it depressing my system already cant break 30 fps sometimes (going up the volcanoe it doesnt even break 15!).

If i were to assume that my flashlight would no longer bog the game down to the amount it does, would that be a correct assumption? :)
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Well using Anandtech as a reference you can see that at 1280x1024 resolution with no AA/AF the 9800XT (using THEIR setup) is averaging about 59FPS. Using the same setup, the X800Pro is pumpin' out over 87FPS.....and the X800XT is blazing ahead with just over 113FPS. :D

Keep in mind that numbers like these are all averages.....but if you're averaging 87-113fps I highly doubt the game is gonna dip down below 20fps or lag horribly to any great extent. Again, i haven't used the cards so don't assume I'm speaking from experience, I'm just using common sense.

I play Farcry (with my sig system) at 1280x1024 with everything cranked to ultra high.....and it's awsome. When I benchmark it I only average 45FPS.....but the key is that it's VERY consistent.....without any realy dips. The game does slow down a tad with teh flashlight on.....but only a LITTLE.....and you have to realise everything extra that's going on with that flashlight turned on.....so it ain't bad.

Overall the game is very demanding, but we're finally starting to see some hardware emerage that CAN run it quite well.....without ever having to worry about any stupid sub-24fps dips and such.
 
angrybusdriver said:
That FPS seems very low to me. I get 50-60fps in FC at 1280x1024. System is in my sig.
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Of course you do! You have a faster CPU and a faster GPU. What did you expect???
 
That FPS seems very low to me. I get 50-60fps in FC at 1280x1024. System is in my sig.
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Are you running at highest settings?

I have the same setup, but I seem to be getting only 25-35 fps.
 
It's hard to say EXACTLY how much the scores are being effected.....but angrybusdriver's system is faster in literally every regard.....so naturally his FPS is going to be higher.

angrybusdriver, you need to take some time to consider what you're saying.....that's like me (with my sig system) going up to my buddy with his Duron 750 and saying "Man, I get over 23,000.....what's the matter with you???"

No hard feelings.....but we DO have a point here you know. ;)
 
angrybusdriver said:
That FPS seems very low to me. I get 50-60fps in FC at 1280x1024. System is in my sig.
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Your CPU is alot faster than his. Farcry is a CPU intensive game to be sure. As far as the video card thing goes, I've got a friend with a 9700Pro and he has a 3.0C with an Intel i875 chipset and 1GB dual channel low latency ram like I do. I have an X800Pro for video. My system runs Farcry ALOT better than his does.

So a video card makes alot of difference. A review was done recently on some web site I think I found the link on the HardOCP home page, but they tested the X800Pro on a range of CPU's down to 2.0GHz (Intel) and the lower the CPU speed the worse the performance was in games like Farcry and UT2004.

The CPU is one factor. The video card is another. The CPU and the Video card are the TWO most important things for game performance. Ram is probably third. But if you have 512MB at least and or 1GB your doing fine in that area. A CPU upgrade and a Video card would make your machine pretty badass.
 
i haven't played far cry yet, becz I am waiting on my new video card, but everything I have been hearing about this game, it seems like the engine that Crytek created, if I am right about the company, is one that really pushes hardware we have to its limits. which is nice, becz it gives us a glimpse into what the future of gaming holds visual wise. I'm glad to see a company come out with a demanding engine, since we do have the hardware to run it. I hate when companies come out on old engines and then the video cards and CPU just burn the game up and take no real advantage of some of the features the video card has. Far Cry is a CPU limited game and very intensive on the GPU no doubts. I maybe wrong here, but I still can't wait to play the game.

Caliche
 
I wouldn't necessarily call Farcry "A taste of things to come" in terms of graphics, it does look good, but it's nothing revolutionary.

Your CPU is alot faster than his. Farcry is a CPU intensive game to be sure. As far as the video card thing goes, I've got a friend with a 9700Pro and he has a 3.0C with an Intel i875 chipset and 1GB dual channel low latency ram like I do. I have an X800Pro for video. My system runs Farcry ALOT better than his does.

So a video card makes alot of difference. A review was done recently on some web site I think I found the link on the HardOCP home page, but they tested the X800Pro on a range of CPU's down to 2.0GHz (Intel) and the lower the CPU speed the worse the performance was in games like Farcry and UT2004.

The CPU is one factor. The video card is another. The CPU and the Video card are the TWO most important things for game performance. Ram is probably third. But if you have 512MB at least and or 1GB your doing fine in that area. A CPU upgrade and a Video card would make your machine pretty badass.
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Wow.....finally someone ELSE in this thread is making some sense. :rolleyes:
 
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