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What's enough for 1080p?

M

Mad Lion

Weaksauce
Joined
Mar 14, 2011
Messages
119
I've got a Q6600 at 3.2ghz, 8 GB of DDR2 RAM, and a 5850 that I've managed to overclock to 875/1200... basically slightly better than 5870 clocks.

I'm about to go from a 1680x1050 monitor to a new 24" 1080p monitor. What kind of performance problems am I about to have? How do I get the best of the new higher resolution (i.e. what to turn down, what to leave up etc.)?
 
1920x1080 is enough for 1080p. :p

Seriously though. Keep AA and AF down and it should be fine.
 
To be honest that setup shouldn't have a problem moving to 1080p. My video card is not as good as yours and it does just fine on 1080p. Like Deja said, keep AA and AF down and you will be just fine.
 
5870 won't bottleneck you in most games at 1080P. With the latest and greatest like BF3 you will have to turn down AA and some other special effects.
 
When I use 1 monitor, my 5870 does just fine at 1080, you can max AF and most settings for that matter. AA at 4x most of the time, if not drop to 2x.
 
KickAssCop said:
Need new CPU and VC for 60 fps vsync-ed gameplay.
Click to expand...

He's not going to need a new CPU going from one monitor to another.

If he is happy with his current framerates, it won't get any worse at 1920x1080 due to the CPU. That's just crazy talk.

Video cards seem to scale surprisingly linearly with pixel count, so if you are GPU limited you can do the following to predict your future frame rates:

(1680x1050)/(1920x1080) ~0.85

So multiply your current frame rates by 0.85 and that's your predicted framerates at 1920x1080. It's not going to be a perfect prediction, but it should get you close enough to make some educated guesses at what you need.

If the predicted framerate is insufficient for you, get a new video card :)

If you are not GPU limited, this method will not work.

Here's how I suggest proceeding at that point.

Use a program like MSI afterburner to track your GPU utilization. Track it when running a few different games, making sure that vsync is off and figure out a rough estimate for your average GPU load while playing games. If it is pinned at 100% or damned near it, you are GPU limited, and the .085 factor above is useable. If it is lower than 100% then you are limited by something else (CPU, RAM speed, Bus Speed, etc., but usually CPU)

If this is the case, then you may not see much reduction in framerate going to a higher resolution at all, as CPU load is typically mostly independent of resolution.

Again, to make an educated guess at your predicted speed, take your average framerate and divide by your GPU utilization (if it's 75%, then divide framerate by 0.75). This should give you an estimate of what your GPU is able to do if not CPU limited.

Then multiply your non-CPU limited predicted FPS, by the 0.85 from our first example, to get the predicted non-CPU limited FPS at 1920x1080. Once you have done this, the lower of the two numbers (your current FPS, and your non-CPU limited prediction for 1920x1080) should be close to your future FPS.


Hope this helps.
 
needmorecarnitine said:
Are you guys sure he needs to keep AF down? I thought that maxing out AF was easy for most videocards for quite a while now.
Click to expand...

Depends on the game. 16x could be tough for some cards in some games, but 4x should generally be ok. AA usually kills FPS more than anything else. Also, many games have a few settings that dramatically affect FPS (HBAO in BF and DOF in Metro 2033 come to mind).
 
needmorecarnitine said:
Are you guys sure he needs to keep AF down? I thought that maxing out AF was easy for most videocards for quite a while now.
Click to expand...

It's all about experimenting depending on the game. Finding a nice balance sort of thing. While 16X AF is usually no performance hit, I sometimes have to turn mine down to 8X if I'm enabling 2X or 4X AA. Then again, my CPU is quite a bottleneck to my GPU right now. *sigh*
 
I run a 5870 at 1920x1200 without much problems although I'm not playing metro or BF3. I play Batman AC and have to keep AA/AF off to stay above 50fps. Sit on your OC'd 5850 until the 7850 comes out and see where the chips fall.
 
Thanks for the replies, folks.

In Crysis Warhead, my average fps went down from 43 to 40 in the Ambush benchmark (enthusiast settings, DX10). They went down from 44 to 41 in the Crysis 2 Times Square bench on extreme settings with DX11 and high res textures.

Basically, 8.5% just like the one poster said. Not enough to worry about for me, I'm digging the higher res.
 
jbz7890 said:
Depends on the game. 16x could be tough for some cards in some games, but 4x should generally be ok. AA usually kills FPS more than anything else. Also, many games have a few settings that dramatically affect FPS (HBAO in BF and DOF in Metro 2033 come to mind).
Click to expand...
16x AF should have no impact on any decent card. even on my 8600gt its usually not more than 1fps going from no AF to 16x AF.
 
If it's a 2GB 5850 , like my old one, the extra frame buffer and such are a non-issues at that resolution.
 
Mad Lion said:
Thanks for the replies, folks.

In Crysis Warhead, my average fps went down from 43 to 40 in the Ambush benchmark (enthusiast settings, DX10). They went down from 44 to 41 in the Crysis 2 Times Square bench on extreme settings with DX11 and high res textures.

Basically, 8.5% just like the one poster said. Not enough to worry about for me, I'm digging the higher res.
Click to expand...


yeah... Looks like you are dealing with a combination of CPU and GPU limitation.

In your old configuration, the CPU was probably holding you to the 43 and 44, and in your new configuration the GPU is probably holding you to the 40 and 41.

At least that's my guess without any further info.
 
Yeah, I have a feeling that even if I got a better video card (say a 6950/6970 or even a 7950/7970), I would be feeling the CPU limitation hard. The Q6600 is an excellent CPU, particularly at 3.0ghz or more (I'm at 3.2), but it's showing it's age.

I don't think I'll be upgrading this rig anymore (aside from maybe an SSD). Eventually, I'm just going to have to do an all-new build.

But I don't think I'm there yet. I can play Crysis 2 and Skyrim, just not on ultra settings. When a game comes out that I have to dumb down to mid or lower settings, that's when it will be time.

Related question; I had to overvolt my 5850 to 1.72 to get to 875 mhz on the core. Is this a reasonable voltage to use 24/7? Or should I go through the process of overvolting it and cranking the clocks only when I'm about to game?
 
With a Q6600 behind it, I wouldn't even mess with the voltages and frequencies...leave it at factory settings.
 
Mad Lion said:
Related question; I had to overvolt my 5850 to 1.72 to get to 875 mhz on the core. Is this a reasonable voltage to use 24/7? Or should I go through the process of overvolting it and cranking the clocks only when I'm about to game?
Click to expand...

Meh, I don't see it as being a problem. The downside is probably that it will be hotter at idle than at stock settings, and the fans will run a little louder.

If it's not loud enough to bother you, or if there isn't much of a difference, I wouldn't worry about it.
 
It makes a difference going from 725 to 875 core clocks, believe me. Also, going from 1000mhz memory to 1200 helps also.

I'm not COMPLETELY cpu limited; cranking the card still makes a difference, just maybe not as much as it would if I had a 2500k.
 
What kind of difference, though? Are you going from choppy framerates to smooth? Does oc'ing allow you to play a certain game that you weren't able to at factory clocks? Boost AA and other in-game settings?
 
Well, I just ran some benches of Crysis 2 on ultra settings, with high-res texture pack. Without AA, I can still get 38-39 fps. Not much of a hit. The fact that going from Extreme to Ultra only lowers fps by one or two means I'm definitely CPU limited.

I'll have to see just how much the overclocking helps, but it's definitely noticable when it keeps my minimums closer to 30.

edit: I also lowered my voltage from 1.174 to 1.162 without any change. Still stable at these clocks. That's good news. Both of those voltages are stock voltages for 5870's, which is why I chose them. I'm happy to run at the lower one.
 
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