Getting low FPS? dont have 400$ for top end cards? check this out

[XCNuse]

Okay so some of you know i've always been on the low end specs compared to alot of the guys here with 2000$ top end machines

anyways, this is the 3rd graphics card i've gotten, 32 mb on the old computer (which died) got roughly 30 FPS on that old machine, got a dell with a 128mb nvidia FX 5600, and just last night i received a 256mb FX 5500 (not really sure why i got it, but hey, so far im lovin it)

so i figured well hey.. its 256 mb, after looking at all these cards.. well i thought it was gonna be a few hundred dollars.. i was wrong.

My 128mb 5600 with the specs i run (windowed at 1024x768 not quite at full settings and no AA, i got roughly 45ish FPS with about 10 cars in view, keep in mind my dynamic LOD is up at 1! so that saved alot of FPS) during a normal start from the rear of an FV8 race at the oval i hit 20 FPS, and with dynamic LOD up at 1, not only did i not see but about 5 cars in front of me, they looked like blocks at that..

so i installed the 'new' 256mb 5500 into my computer, with same settings, i got nearly TWICE my average FPS 80+..
obviously you can do the math, 128+128=256 which seems right.. well let me say this; when i got my dell 4600 last year, the FX 5600 128mb edition costed about 120$ or so.. checked out the price of the 256mb 5500... 64$ as of last night on amazon.com

nearly twice the speed for half the price, if you dont think you can afford a brand new graphics card (which i know many of us dont want to/cant) i EXTREMELY encourage you to get this card if you have a 128 or lower mb video card, so far.. for its price i believe you could say this card is nothing short of amazing

[system specs for those interested: (2004 Dell Demension 4600i)
2.8 GHz Pentium 4
512 mb RAM
windows XP home SP1
Dx 9.0c
page file @ 636 mb available
256 mb Nvidia GeForce FX 5500]

[general LFS settings (as of use of 128mb 5600)
user lod: 0.80
dust lod: 0.80
mirror lod: 0.10
mip bias -1
disable/enable (from trees to rubber) all on mirror besides rubber
HVS on @ 24 depth
-------------------------------
minimum sleep of 1ms
multiplayer speedup at 180 m
dynamic lod 1]

[jmkz]

the amount of video card memory says NOTHING about the video card's speed. It's not the extra 128Mb which is making the difference for you, but the improved core on that FX 5500; the lower price is possible due to great competition and large yields


if you solely play LFS than it's not a bad buy, but if you plan on playing any other recent game, that FX 5500 will not be sufficient to run them smoothly at 1024x768 even at low/medium detail.

[XCNuse]

well lets also keep in mind what video card your showing off lol..
the price of your card is almost the price of my whole computer

either way im posting this for a reason as i said, for people that dont have alot of money to spend.. this card would be worth buying

im not saying its the best thing, but so far its the best card i've ever seen for this price.. just found one online for 45$ too

[jmkz]

don't pay attention to my signature, it's not relevant here:) and it's filled with fake specs ;)

this card would be worth buying

only if you play solely LFS on your PC:)

if you are looking for an interesting upgrade, hit Ebay or other 2nd hand market places and hunt down Radeon 9700/9800 Pro; those cards go for $50-70 and are a lot faster then that $45 offering (we're talking 200-400%! faster:))

[pb32000]

Indeed 256mb makes no difference to the speed. In fact people should be a bit wary if upgrading to a similar speed card with 256mb ram as often they will perform worse than the 128mb version unless you use BIG resolutions. Radeon 9xxx series springs to mind, stick with the 128mb versions there.

O/T, hehe fx-60 lol ;)

[jmkz]

NEW ATHLONS ARE imminent. AMD has been sending out the FX-60 chips, dual cores that clock at 2.6GHz.
They are in the hands of at least one INQ friendly box slinger now, so it is only a short period of time before they are in the hands of users.


http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=27644

;)

[XCNuse]

lol argue all you want, im just saying for me.. its a good low priced card
since i dont know.. much less care.. that much about how a computer works anyway lol

[seggons]

Very intresting/informative read XCN. :up:

jmkz, did you copy my sig, or have I inadvertenly copyed yours? :tilt:

[-wes-]

We are not having a go , we just want the masses to be informed of the truth.
Anyway general rules when buying g cards;

More pipes are better
higher core speed is better
higher memory speed is...

sometimes old cards are still faster than new budgit cards.

given the same series (eg ati 9xxxx) more pipes are better than faster core speed. 9800 has 8 pipes but has a slower core than the 9600 which has 4 pipes.

for budgit cards stick to 128mb versions, more memory wont help you.

never buy a card that ends in LE or SE. ever. mmmk?

just looked at ati's x1300 card. yuck. Please dont buy it. Perfect example of a 'new' but bad card.

good luck!

[P5YcHoM4N]

On all cards prior to the latest and greatest (gefo6 and up, Radeon x and up) 256mb over 128mb has no difference in speed, and in some cases is slower as the memory is usally at slower speeds. The same with my Ti4200. It's only the 64mb version, but it scores higher then the 128mb version in most games. Only losing in 3DMark03.

But really, the gefo5 range... gah, worst-nVidia-cards-EVER!
I was a nVidia fanboy (and still am partly, really want to jump back over), but when I had the choice of a gefo5 or the rad9... sorry nVidia, but it doesn't even come close.

never buy a card that ends in LE or SE. ever. mmmk?

Well yeah, it's in the name Lame Edition, Shit Edition.

As for the part about the new x1xxx range, it is the same with range, they do up and down the price charts. But the lower end is usally so cut down, it's not really worth the money as the older range cards a better. But most people just think "It's new it has to be better".

[XCNuse]

.. to many numbers lol computer accessory companies ... actually.. dont you just hate it when your fooled by a commercial or something where you think its better .. but its really not lol

either way, graphics cards are getting pretty advanced, i'd say now would be a good time to get one, have some pretty fast ones for low prices

what sucks is everyone here with 400-600$ video cards.. in a few years at this rate those probably wont be worth but about 100$ or less :S

[P5YcHoM4N]

.. to many numbers lol computer accessory companies ... actually.. dont you just hate it when your fooled by a commercial or something where you think its better .. but its really not lol

either way, graphics cards are getting pretty advanced, i'd say now would be a good time to get one, have some pretty fast ones for low prices

what sucks is everyone here with 400-600$ video cards.. in a few years at this rate those probably wont be worth but about 100$ or less :S
I know very well what you mean. But for the few years of fun they give you. It's so worth it. I didn't really need to drop my Ti4200, nor was the MX440 I had before it under preforming in most of the games I had at the time. But I really wanted a new card, and after seeing the joke that was the gefo5 range, I dug deep and got my 9700pro. Still use it today (with a nice Zalman cooler, so it makes no noise, right now I have unhooked all but my proc fan and the PSU fans and I can't hear the PC, and I can play LFS with only a 2c temp rise, so no need to plug them back in yet), and it can play EVERY game I have thrown at it in 1280x1024, but as I now use dualscreen and both in 1024x768, I play all my games in that just so it doesn't cock up my second screen.

But now would be a sucky time to buy a new card if you use AGP. As it is [un?]offically unsupported by nVidia and ATi. Unless you buy some old model stuff, you'd need a whole new rig D: Unless you already have a chip that fits into a PCI-E board. Which is why I'm putting off a overhaul and going to drop in better cooling and just OC to the max :D

[Stellios]

At that speed of card, 256mb isnt really needed. When you get to the top and cards it makes a difference, but on a £40 card, it should really give you a slight FPS increase, but nothing huge.

Yeah, i paid £220 for my graphics card, and its now worth half that, but if you want the performance, then you pay the price. The new 7800GTX 512mb card is a record high at £500, but give it a month after it has been made mainstream in shops it will probably drop by £50-75. Its just a premium you pay for getting good hardware on release.

As for APG quoted above, ATi have rumoured that they are going to be making an AGP version of the X1800 series, but theres no further information as of yet. AGP isnt totally dead yet, but in a years time it will be.

[jmkz]

jmkz, did you copy my sig, or have I inadvertenly copyed yours? :tilt:

I just doubled yours;)

[P5YcHoM4N]

At that speed of card, 256mb isnt really needed. When you get to the top and cards it makes a difference, but on a £40 card, it should really give you a slight FPS increase, but nothing huge.

Yeah, i paid £220 for my graphics card, and its now worth half that, but if you want the performance, then you pay the price. The new 7800GTX 512mb card is a record high at £500, but give it a month after it has been made mainstream in shops it will probably drop by £50-75. Its just a premium you pay for getting good hardware on release.

As for APG quoted above, ATi have rumoured that they are going to be making an AGP version of the X1800 series, but theres no further information as of yet. AGP isnt totally dead yet, but in a years time it will be.
I've not heard this yet, but I do hope it is true. As AGP never hit it's bottle neck, just Vista runs faster on PCI-E (as it uses the GPU to render the GUI or some such is what I was told), this is their way of making a forced change over, as companies on all sides benfit if you want Vista (which I'm staying well away from tbh).

[KiDCoDEa]

im also waiting on m2 and fx60 and its freakin delayed.
512mb 7800gtx is a blast, as expected, and came out yday.
good taste for hw anyway :thumb:

[Mazz4200]

Well, if no-one else is gonna say it, i will

Good on ya XCNuse :thumb:

I've got a similar spec to you, only different names, AMD 2600+/ ATI Radoen 9250 , and i'm only getting half your fps

Mind you, i'm a computer numb nuts, so i've probably got half a dozen other things running in the background that i'm not aware of, and i think i've got everything up to max in LFS ??, (i like things to look pretty !)

[5th Earth]

Somewhere int he graphics oiptions for LFS it actually tells you how much video memory the game is using. IIRC it's only around 32 MB, maybe less. I know other games can use a lot more, but as many other have said, i think more than 128mb is probably overkill.

[Forbin]

It's in the Graphics menu. Starting in 12th with 11 AI's on Blackwood, all in FO8's, I'm getting a texture memory usage of 26 MB with all details cranked up.

BTW, framerate before the light turns green is 21 FPS with 8x AA and 16x AF at 2048x1280 on the following system:

AMD Barton 3000+ (2.1GHz, 512KB L2 cache)
512MB PC3200 (slow timings)
GF 6800GT 128MB

Jaggies? What jaggies? :D (see attached)

[Krane]

GPU memory is needed if you use AA and high resolutions. But IIRC 128 vs 256 difference starts to kick in somewhere like what Forbin used (1600x1200 8xAA and higher) then you see better performance with a 256 or even 512 :x card....

[BlueLine]

I only lose 5 fps average going from lowest possible settings at 640x480 to highest settings at 1280x1024 with full AA and AF. I have a geforce 6600gt that I bought for $120.

Once you get past a certain point, the video card you're using doesn't make much difference with LFS. A lot of people will be better off with a CPU upgrade instead.

[jmkz]

Jaggies? What jaggies? :D


here: (see attached)

:D

[Simon Savage]

Okay so some of you know i've always been on the low end specs compared to alot of the guys here with 2000$ top end machines

anyways, this is the 3rd graphics card i've gotten, 32 mb on the old computer (which died) got roughly 30 FPS on that old machine, got a dell with a 128mb nvidia FX 5600, and just last night i received a 256mb FX 5500 (not really sure why i got it, but hey, so far im lovin it)

so i figured well hey.. its 256 mb, after looking at all these cards.. well i thought it was gonna be a few hundred dollars.. i was wrong.

My 128mb 5600 with the specs i run (windowed at 1024x768 not quite at full settings and no AA, i got roughly 45ish FPS with about 10 cars in view, keep in mind my dynamic LOD is up at 1! so that saved alot of FPS) during a normal start from the rear of an FV8 race at the oval i hit 20 FPS, and with dynamic LOD up at 1, not only did i not see but about 5 cars in front of me, they looked like blocks at that..

so i installed the 'new' 256mb 5500 into my computer, with same settings, i got nearly TWICE my average FPS 80+..
obviously you can do the math, 128+128=256 which seems right.. well let me say this; when i got my dell 4600 last year, the FX 5600 128mb edition costed about 120$ or so.. checked out the price of the 256mb 5500... 64$ as of last night on amazon.com

nearly twice the speed for half the price, if you dont think you can afford a brand new graphics card (which i know many of us dont want to/cant) i EXTREMELY encourage you to get this card if you have a 128 or lower mb video card, so far.. for its price i believe you could say this card is nothing short of amazing

[system specs for those interested: (2004 Dell Demension 4600i)
2.8 GHz Pentium 4
512 mb RAM
windows XP home SP1
Dx 9.0c
page file @ 636 mb available
256 mb Nvidia GeForce FX 5500]

[general LFS settings (as of use of 128mb 5600)
user lod: 0.80
dust lod: 0.80
mirror lod: 0.10
mip bias -1
disable/enable (from trees to rubber) all on mirror besides rubber
HVS on @ 24 depth
-------------------------------
minimum sleep of 1ms
multiplayer speedup at 180 m
dynamic lod 1]

Are you kidding me or somthing! your System specs are exactly the same as mine right down to the Graphics card that i got after i braught my PC! Only difference is yours is a dell and mine is an Emachine

[Stellios]

GF 6800GT 128MB

Jaggies? What jaggies? :D (see attached)

I take it you have the Asus 6800GT/TD 128mb then?

Turn your AF up dude, it looks 20 times better again.

[XCNuse]

:S what are you trying to say simon?
theres a whole lot more stuff that goes into how a computer performes, i know that much.. what i said is just the basics, theres tons more stuff that i have no clue about

btw this thread is getting interesting lol

[W1LLSD4D]

Once you get past a certain point, the video card you're using doesn't make much difference with LFS. A lot of people will be better off with a CPU upgrade instead.

That's one of life recurring questions: cpu or gpu upgrade? And one I'm at right now as I don't know what might benefit me most?

Athlon XP2400+ & GF4 Ti (4200)
512Mb ram (2100 - old board)

Toying with should I upgrade to a 6600GT (AGP) or ditch the lot, save up & buy new board, memory (faster & probably a gig) and a 6600GT (though now a pcie version) - that would be six months off

Any suggestions/comments??

[rcpilot]

Memory does play a big part in games with 'top of the line' graphics engines, but I don't think it would matter that much in LFS considering the graphics seem to be straightforward 'put a texture or two on a polygon and call it a day.'

[xaotik]

so i installed the 'new' 256mb 5500 into my computer, with same settings, i got nearly TWICE my average FPS 80+..
obviously you can do the math, 128+128=256 which seems right..

As stated by others, the memory amount likely has nothing to do with that. However, what probably affected it is the bits of the memory interface - your previous card was probably running 64bit mem, alot of manufacturers of budget priced vga cards do that. And also the clocking of the GPU and memory differs from maker to maker (and the max overclocking frequency attainable as well).

[P5YcHoM4N]

That's one of life recurring questions: cpu or gpu upgrade? And one I'm at right now as I don't know what might benefit me most?

Athlon XP2400+ & GF4 Ti (4200)
512Mb ram (2100 - old board)

Toying with should I upgrade to a 6600GT (AGP) or ditch the lot, save up & buy new board, memory (faster & probably a gig) and a 6600GT (though now a pcie version) - that would be six months off

Any suggestions/comments??
If you want to find which will help you more. OC.

Take your card up to ~300/600 (300 core, 600 memory), I had that card and that is what I got, so it's something to aim for, should be easy as most go way past that.

Take bench marks, see what you get. Then do the same at stock speeds.
Now OC your chip, take benchmarks, see what you get, then OC both chip and card and see what you get. Depending which has the biggest boost (ignoring the final one, that was just for the cat killers), should sugest which would make the better improvment.

LFS is a proc eating game, so the biggest bottle neck currently is that. As I can play with full AF and AA (16x AF, 8x AA), and only lose about 2-5fps. So as you do, I play with that. But the AI have a big hit on CPU, which is why so many of you get such a big hit when you race with the AI on. Online your PC isn't driving 11 other cars, so your FPS will be better as it hits the proc less ;)

But then, me the hater of sound have unhooked every fan I can in my PC. Bring sound down lower then the sound one of my monitors makes (yes, it makes noise, I think it's due to die soon), and my proc runs a little toasty, but in LFS with 12 AI, on a 10 lap race, I only see 2-3c increase in a closed case, if I open the side up to let the air flow. It's a tad less. But then, my cooler might have something to do with that :D

[BlueLine]

Toying with should I upgrade to a 6600GT (AGP) or ditch the lot, save up & buy new board, memory (faster & probably a gig) and a 6600GT (though now a pcie version) - that would be six months off

Any suggestions/comments??

Going to PCIE is probably the smarter choice. That is, if you can stand to wait 6 months :)

[P5YcHoM4N]

Going to PCIE is probably the smarter choice. That is, if you can stand to wait 6 months :)
The only benefit is that PCI-E cards are cheaper then AGP versions of the same card. But it'd be best to wait until next year to change, as some new toys are coming out soon, which will change prices and standards. The funny thing is, the only reason why they are changing is for OC'ers. Most "normal" people will never use all of the power of their hardware, same with gamers. But OC'ers and people trying to get that faster score on SuperPi always want more power, and hardware companies know this, so they make it for them, and then the sheep of the world will buy it because it's new.

When I was in college for one of the subjects we had to build computers (I got kicked from the class for being too fast as I made one in 30 minutes and started on another, they expected it to take us half of the day to make one, when I started my thrid I was told to go do something else D: ), and they was all top of the line hardware. But it was only being used for word and such. Why word need a P4 @ 3.6ghz with 1gb of DDR2 and a PCI-E 6800GT I will never know. But that is the way people are.

[jmkz]

The funny thing is, the only reason why they are changing is for OC'ers.

no they don't, the day that happens I'll jump through a window:p OC'ers are only a very small part of PC users (1-2%) and have no impact on the decisions of large companies like Intel, who set the standards.

They push for upgrades because they like to make a living, so they'll keep pushing the Ghz up and introduce new motherboards / power supplies and cases as they need it to keep on selling new/faster/more feature rich products

BTX is a standard introduced by Intel because their current line up of CPU off give too much heat for ATX cases to handle

[P5YcHoM4N]

no they don't, the day that happens I'll jump through a window:p OC'ers are only a very small part of PC users (1-2%) and have no impact on the decisions of large companies like Intel, who set the standards.

They push for upgrades because they like to make a living, so they'll keep pushing the Ghz up and introduce new motherboards / power supplies and cases as they need it to keep on selling new/faster/more feature rich products

BTX is a standard introduced by Intel because their current line up of CPU off give too much heat for ATX cases to handle
All the major players love to send their products to OC'ers to put them through their paces. My current CPU was a hand picked by AMD for OC'ers chip. Chosen to scale well and run cool, so more people will be willing to buy it. A friend of mine (who used to be first on the OC tables in my sig for UK OC'ers, got the 2600+ to 3ghz) used to get so much stuff sent to him for evaluation, and genearlly push it to the limits. But that stopped when he stopped pushing for high scores.

OC'ers only have a small stand point in respect to the whole of PC users. But most PC users would think that a 3ghz Celeron was fast. If you cut out the morons and people who shouldn't be allowed to touch computers, and people who cannot build computers, you can probably get rid of 90% of the market. Which brings things into prespective. Most computer uers are idiots (as proven by the morons on this comp sci course who don't even know if their PC uses Windows or not), and they have no infulance on the markets. What does is people who want the high scores on things like the orb, or get the fastest clock speeds to win the WR, which if I remember has gone to finland, pissing off a lot of Americans even more, as they was pissy when Japan took it from them.

Most of the well know OC'ers have strong bonds with big compianies, and they do influance what is or isn't added. The last time I ever looked over an OC'ers forum, someone was sent a sample Venice core (yes, that long ago), and he had to scale it as far as he could on Air so AMD could see what it can throw down, and thus decied the price range for the chip.
After that he chucked on a vapo and took it higher.

Intel just genearlly suck though, that's why they need such bizzar ways of getting rid of heat. They can't beat AMD with the P4, and it is costing them greatly. And how the tables have turned. Once upon a time people used to scream "ZOMG INTEL ARE LYK WELL COOL RUNNING LYK LOLZ" now people scream "ZOMG INTEL ARE LYK WELL HOT RUNNING LYK LOLZ".
The biggest market base is gamers, Intel have lost that to AMD, and they are trying hard (too hard some might say) to win it back. Intel went down hill after the PIII, the Centreno is probably their best chip since then (as it is the PIII revisited). More so the Yona (I'm sure that's wrong), that core is amazing, and clock for clock kicks everything elses ass on the market. Just the only mobo's that support it seem to be on VIA, which sucks =/ Not sure if that has changed sence I last looked.
But if the mobo support gets better for that chip. AMD will be so screwed in the ass. I so want one of them chips :o

[jmkz]

All the major players love to send their products to OC'ers

that might well be, but the OC'ers are not the reason why AMD/Intel keep releasing newer hardware or why they "push" the current boundaries further.

btw an XP 2600+ @ 3Ghz is nothing;) how about an XP2000+ @ 3Ghz with home made cooling? http://www.madshrimps.be/gotoartik.php?articID=142

[P5YcHoM4N]

that might well be, but the OC'ers are not the reason why AMD/Intel keep releasing newer hardware or why they "push" the current boundaries further.

btw an XP 2600+ @ 3Ghz is nothing;) how about an XP2000+ @ 3Ghz with home made cooling? http://www.madshrimps.be/gotoartik.php?articID=142
Well no, not the main reason, but they help. Plus thanks to idiots who watch what OC'ers do and try it at home, they wreck their hardware and have to buy more :P

And that is impressive, for a home build, top marks for the setup. But then the rad looks like he just pulled it out of a truck. This guy was using pre-fab, which is never as good as home build :p

[sturje]

Thats quite interesting, generally you'll find a card with 256mb ram will run slower than its counterpart with 128mb.

[Forbin]

here: (see attached)

:D
That doesn't count. It's in the mirror. :P

I take it you have the Asus 6800GT/TD 128mb then?

Turn your AF up dude, it looks 20 times better again.
As I said, I'm running 16x AF and 8x AA.

[Flying Squirrel]

From what I found, the CPU is the biggest factor in LFS. If you want higher framerates, up the CPU. LFS doesn't really care so much about what video card you use. I started off with an ATI 7200 graphics card and an AMD 1.2Ghz processor when I first found LFS. Running AI, the thing got bad. I quickly upped both to an AMD 2400 and ATI 9500. I had the processor first, and that actually made the biggest difference by far. The new video card didn't add much. I play lots of other games, so what makes LFS run fast isn't my only concern. I have since upgraded to an ATI 9800 Pro as they have gotten quite cheap.

I never buy the $400 ones. It always seems stupid. I always aim for the best bang for the buck. When that top of the line $400 graphics card drops down to $100-$150 in the future, then I'll consider it.

A good place to check out is www.tomshardware.com (http://www.tomshardware.com) They have good reviews on graphics cards and processors and directly compare brands and models to one another on a variety of benchmarks. The place is a good tool for finding out which brand and models are better. Then you can check out pricing on www.froogle.com (http://www.froogle.com) or www.pricewatch.com (http://www.pricewatch.com) or www.ebay.com (http://www.ebay.com) to find out which of the models turns out to be the best bang for the buck. Spend some time comparing and searching, and you'll find yourself a setup that's both fast AND cheap.

Oh by the way, $2000 for a computer system?! Not if you know what to look for. I can build you a low end top of the line system for under $1000 or a budget gaming system for under $500. It's all about picking and choosing the right parts and the needed parts when focusing on gaming performance. There's places you should spend a little extra and places you can certainly skimp. With a bit of online time researching components and doing some price searching, anyone can build or upgrade their current systems to decent specs for little money. I think the most I ever spent on a full system was $1300, but that was 6 years ago and PCs were a little more costly back then. I guess I spent $1600 on my laptop, but they're different. You pay for the smaller size and portability. As well, laptops are generally less upgradeable, so you kind of have to go to the top end level to not get outdated too quickly. PCI-Express fixes this some as laptops can now upgrade their graphics cards, so it's not as big of a problem. Now-a-days, I can't see spending over $1000 on any decktop system. If you are, you're either paying for a brand name, or are paying too much for components or on stuff that doesn't really make a difference.

[jmkz]

A good place to check out is www.tomshardware.com (http://www.tomshardware.com) .

don't mind Flying Squirrel he's confused, that sentence should read "A good place to avoid is TomsHW"

the videocards and CPU reviews on there are biased, and because of that offer little useful info; too many times in the past their reviews have been of base with what other review sites got from testing. If you want reliable reviews www.anandtech.com www.techreport.com www.hardocp.com

[Batterypark]

...or on stuff that doesn't really make a difference.

...on stuff that wouldn't really make a difference to you, that is.

[jmkz]

if you want to enjoy great sound on your PC (which adds another dimension to the whole experience I assure you) you need a quality soundcard $200 and quality 5.1 Speakers $300.

So that $1000 "top of the line" PC you're talking about, is really not quite top of the line at all:p

[P5YcHoM4N]

if you want to enjoy great sound on your PC (which adds another dimension to the whole experience I assure you) you need a quality soundcard $200 and quality 5.1 Speakers $300.

So that $1000 "top of the line" PC you're talking about, is really not quite top of the line at all:p
I wouldn't agree with 5.1, my 2.1 Megaworks which cost me £100(~$200) sound amazing as it is, only downside is I still need a sound card, so I get a lot of white noise from them >.<

[jmkz]

I wouldn't agree with 5.1,

most likely you've never played Doom3/Quake2/FEAR/Half Life2 or seen any DVD on your PC ;)

either that.. or you're deaf ;-)

[W1LLSD4D]

Thanks for the suggestions/comments.

Think I'm going to hang on in there & save some pennies for a mass upgrade of components rather than tinker with things right now :scratchch

[P5YcHoM4N]

most likely you've never played Doom3/Quake2/FEAR/Half Life2 or seen any DVD on your PC ;)

either that.. or you're deaf ;-)
I've just got my speakers setup for 2points with fake 5.1 that comes with the drivers. But I've never used 5.1, so I can't really compare it :p

Maybe one day when I have some more green, I'll jump over to what ever is nice and big (probably 7.1) :D

But I have played err, three of those games, and watched DVD's. But then my onboard wouldn't work with 5.1 anyway. It took me all day to get 2.1 working (and even now anything direct centre front doesn't play, only sides, so no Third Person view in LFS for me)

[jmkz]

uhm 2.1 = 2 small speakers (L/R) and one BASS right:-)
5.1 = 4 speakers at each corner, one in front + one BASS

it adds a whole new dimension to game and movie immersion, with sounds sweeping around you; the only game supporting 7.1 is Battefield 2 btw

[pb32000]

I wouldn't agree with 5.1, my 2.1 Megaworks which cost me £100(~$200) sound amazing as it is, only downside is I still need a sound card, so I get a lot of white noise from them >.<

most likely you've never played Doom3/Quake2/FEAR/Half Life2 or seen any DVD on your PC ;)

either that.. or you're deaf ;-)

I quite agree with Psychoman, the megaworks 2.1 sounds great. I have it and i had a (albeit lower quality) 5.1 system before that which just annoyed me. For me 2.1 is fine, mainly as i wanted to listen to music, but also as i have nowhere near enough room for 5.1. (And yes I have played most of those games).

For under £100 the megaworks is intense, and does greatly improve gaming on a smaller budget than 5.1.

edit: Yes also a good sound card is usefull but not neccessary, I have an Audigy 2 ZS but I dont really notice a difference in games (direct digital output to Megaworks at 24bit/96khz), I bought it for its ASIO2 capabilities, but thats another matter ;)

[P5YcHoM4N]

uhm 2.1 = 2 small speakers (L/R) and one BASS right:-)
5.1 = 4 speakers at each corner, one in front + one BASS

it adds a whole new dimension to game and movie immersion, with sounds sweeping around you; the only game supporting 7.1 is Battefield 2 btw
Yeah, it is 2 with 1 sub, but when sound is direct in the centre both speakers don't seem to play it, and all the sound is sent to by sub, which sucks as all I get is a vibrating ass >.<

[Anarchi-H]

I have some megaworks 2.1, and I'm pretty disappointed with them. They are loud, but mids are flat, bass is pretty muddy and doesn't go down to that sub-sonic-shake-stuff-off-the-desk sort of range.
High frequency response is ok, but nothing ground breaking.
Sound stage is ok, but all but the best produced tracks lack presence.

I have a £30 set of Altec ACS-33s (2.1) that I bought nearly 5 years ago, and they beat the Megaworks 2.1 hands down for quality, but you can't crank them up too much.

[jmkz]

I have marked the error in your text in bold just so you know ;)

I quite agree with Psychoman, the megaworks 2.1 sounds great. I have it and i had a (albeit lower quality) 5.1 system before that which just annoyed me.

get a HQ 5.1 and you'll never want to go back to 2.1 :)

[pb32000]

Tbh once worn in properly, I find them really good. You get the occasional resonating frequency in the bass, but otherwise play nicely all round. Played through the audigy of course. Mine shake the room with the bass, try playing AOE3 or something with really bassy explosions, and you will see what I mean.

[P5YcHoM4N]

I have some megaworks 2.1, and I'm pretty disappointed with them. They are loud, but mids are flat, bass is pretty muddy and doesn't go down to that sub-sonic-shake-stuff-off-the-desk sort of range.
High frequency response is ok, but nothing ground breaking.
Sound stage is ok, but all but the best produced tracks lack presence.

I have a £30 set of Altec ACS-33s (2.1) that I bought nearly 5 years ago, and they beat the Megaworks 2.1 hands down for quality, but you can't crank them up too much.
I don't know, I find this are pretty damn good. Though the sub is a bitch under my desk, as I can't hear it unless I put my head under the desk, or crank it to 3 bars, which gets people downstairs banging on my door >.<

The only problem I seem to have is a high pitch screaching noise, at first I though the speakers might have been screwed, so I turned everything down, still does it, plugged in headphones, still does it :( it gets very annoying, very fast, as you'll be listening to what is being said then "BZZZZT" you have your ears raped :(

[Anarchi-H]

Tbh once worn in properly, I find them really good. You get the occasional resonating frequency in the bass, but otherwise play nicely all round. Played through the audigy of course. Mine shake the room with the bass, try playing AOE3 or something with really bassy explosions, and you will see what I mean.

I've had mine for about a year and a half now. I mainly listen to music, but watch the occasional DVD with them too.
Listening to the intro track on 'Speakerboxx' by 'Big Boi', the bass is there, but not quite as thunderous as it should be. I've tried them in different rooms, and from different sound sources and I get a similar pattern everywhere.
Afriend has a set of ADA890s from Altec, and they sound just like my Sennheiser HD25 monitor phones do, except with a little less clarity. Unfortunately, Altec stopped making these a while back.

[P5YcHoM4N]

As for APG quoted above, ATi have rumoured that they are going to be making an AGP version of the X1800 series, but theres no further information as of yet. AGP isnt totally dead yet, but in a years time it will be.
That rumor was false:

Link (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=27780).

:( Sucks so much.

[JetroPag]

I only read the first post, but i don't think the cause is the extra memory.

I have an old Ati Radeon 9700 with 128 mb of mem and my average fps is around 60.. screen res. is 1280x1024.

All my settings are as high as possible and i have 2x AA and 8x anisotropic filtering.. Not bad for a three years old gfx card. :D

[WGooden]

I only have PCI for now until I get my new pc.. so would I see an improvement going from a geforce2mx 32mb to the 128mb fx5500 ?

[P5YcHoM4N]

I only have PCI for now until I get my new pc.. so would I see an improvement going from a geforce2mx 32mb to the 128mb fx5500 ?
Yes. A lot. On PCI you'll benifit from a 256mb fx5500 too, as PCI is so slow it can store textures in the vram.

[Greboth]

Im running a GeForce 128Mb in my comp, i reli cant remember anythin else about it, just looked it up from where buoght it from and all the specs have changed, but it came with computer and i get about 80fps sinlge and drops to about 50 - 60 online when ive raced 10 people, som im all happy :thumb: i keep trying to see how many people online will take to get it down to 20 fps lol

[mrodgers]

W.Gooden, what's your processor speed? Not the fastest if I remember correctly. On my P4 2.5 I went from onboard to 256 mb PCI and it didn't get me ANY frame rate increase. But what it did was give me no difference between minimum graphics settings to maximum graphics settings. Before the gfx card, I had to run minimum settings and in wheels view with 35-45 FPS. Cockpit view would drop me to 10-15, unplayable. Now I maxed the settings and am back in cockpit view, but still get 35-45 FPS. If I minimize graphics, even dropping resolution and color to 800x600x16, I get no increase, so it's now my processor bottlenecking the system. My point, if you are running OK with a crappy looking game because you are at minimum settings, then the gfx card would help to run it looking better. But it won't be an "OMG, this is so fantastic change!"

[audimasta]

Hi guys... I bought a Gainward GeForce 6600GT 256MB online yesterday, and i'll be getting it tomorrow....I'm just a little worried about my processor... Its a Celeron 2.8 GHZ, and I have heard that Celerons are some of the worst gaming processors :shrug:

How much Increasy in FPS do you think i'll have from my old Sapphire Radeon 9250 256 mb....? WIth no cars on screen i did around 40 fps, with cars on screen i had between 10 - 25....

768RAM

[WGooden]

W.Gooden, what's your processor speed? Not the fastest if I remember correctly. On my P4 2.5 I went from onboard to 256 mb PCI and it didn't get me ANY frame rate increase. But what it did was give me no difference between minimum graphics settings to maximum graphics settings. Before the gfx card, I had to run minimum settings and in wheels view with 35-45 FPS. Cockpit view would drop me to 10-15, unplayable. Now I maxed the settings and am back in cockpit view, but still get 35-45 FPS. If I minimize graphics, even dropping resolution and color to 800x600x16, I get no increase, so it's now my processor bottlenecking the system. My point, if you are running OK with a crappy looking game because you are at minimum settings, then the gfx card would help to run it looking better. But it won't be an "OMG, this is so fantastic change!"


hmm its an athlon that runs alittle above 1ghz.. its about 5 years old lol. My fps are similar to yours.. I always use no mirrors, and every thing on its lowest settings. Although offline my fps are alot better.

[B2B@300]

hmm its an athlon that runs alittle above 1ghz.. its about 5 years old lol. My fps are similar to yours.. I always use no mirrors, and every thing on its lowest settings. Although offline my fps are alot better.

Bummer dude I thought you were gonna have your new PC by now :(
If your going to get it in the next few months I wouldn't do anything with your current system :shrug: from a 1Ghz cpu I don't think you'll get a huge jump (especially in online servers with 20 connections) If circumstances have changed and your not going to be getting your new PC for quite some time then I'd look at upgrading some stuff... how much money can you get :D

[bbman]

Hi guys... I bought a Gainward GeForce 6600GT 256MB online yesterday, and i'll be getting it tomorrow....I'm just a little worried about my processor... Its a Celeron 2.8 GHZ, and I have heard that Celerons are some of the worst gaming processors :shrug:

How much Increasy in FPS do you think i'll have from my old Sapphire Radeon 9250 256 mb....? WIth no cars on screen i did around 40 fps, with cars on screen i had between 10 - 25....

768RAM
I'd say about 80 without any car in sight and about 40 with many cars...

[audimasta]

I'd say about 80 without any car in sight and about 40 with many cars...

Thx. I'd be happy with that. I know two guys though, that has the same card...Their doing 90-110 fps all the time and around 60 in the starts. But they have Pentium 4 processors...

[mrodgers]

I'm not an expert, audimasta, but I'd have to disagree with bbman. But I may be wrong, like I said, I'm not an expert. Since I have a P4, but only 2.5 GHz and you have a 2.8, but only a Celeron, I think we would probably be similar, maybe me taking a slight edge because of it being a P4. I've also heard Celerons are NOT good for gaming whatsoever. Upgrading your card, may allow you more AA/AF or higher resolution, ie, making it look prettier, but I'd say performance wise, your processor is the bottleneck as it is also in my machine. If I can't get any performance increase going from max AA/AF, max resolution (monitor hampered 1024x768x32) and max graphics settings in LFS, to minimum graphics and even dropping to 800x600x16, then you'd probably be the same. You could get it looking prettier than you have now, but you wouldn't gain FPS. I'm currently running a Diamond Radeon 9250 256 mb, but it is PCI (no AGP on the MB) and my bottleneck is still in the processor. But like I said first, I'm not an expert, especially with gfx cards, as this is the first one I've ever had that wasn't onboard and I just got it a few months ago.

[audimasta]

I'm not an expert, audimasta, but I'd have to disagree with bbman. But I may be wrong, like I said, I'm not an expert. Since I have a P4, but only 2.5 GHz and you have a 2.8, but only a Celeron, I think we would probably be similar, maybe me taking a slight edge because of it being a P4. I've also heard Celerons are NOT good for gaming whatsoever. Upgrading your card, may allow you more AA/AF or higher resolution, ie, making it look prettier, but I'd say performance wise, your processor is the bottleneck as it is also in my machine. If I can't get any performance increase going from max AA/AF, max resolution (monitor hampered 1024x768x32) and max graphics settings in LFS, to minimum graphics and even dropping to 800x600x16, then you'd probably be the same. You could get it looking prettier than you have now, but you wouldn't gain FPS. I'm currently running a Diamond Radeon 9250 256 mb, but it is PCI (no AGP on the MB) and my bottleneck is still in the processor. But like I said first, I'm not an expert, especially with gfx cards, as this is the first one I've ever had that wasn't onboard and I just got it a few months ago.

K, thx for the info. I'll let you know how it all turns out tomorrow :D

[bbman]

I'm not an expert, audimasta, but I'd have to disagree with bbman. But I may be wrong, like I said, I'm not an expert. Since I have a P4, but only 2.5 GHz and you have a 2.8, but only a Celeron, I think we would probably be similar, maybe me taking a slight edge because of it being a P4. I've also heard Celerons are NOT good for gaming whatsoever. Upgrading your card, may allow you more AA/AF or higher resolution, ie, making it look prettier, but I'd say performance wise, your processor is the bottleneck as it is also in my machine. If I can't get any performance increase going from max AA/AF, max resolution (monitor hampered 1024x768x32) and max graphics settings in LFS, to minimum graphics and even dropping to 800x600x16, then you'd probably be the same. You could get it looking prettier than you have now, but you wouldn't gain FPS. I'm currently running a Diamond Radeon 9250 256 mb, but it is PCI (no AGP on the MB) and my bottleneck is still in the processor. But like I said first, I'm not an expert, especially with gfx cards, as this is the first one I've ever had that wasn't onboard and I just got it a few months ago.
Then how comes that I can play LfS with all details to full at 1024x768x32 on an Athlon XP1800+ with a Radeon 9600 (no-pro, but 256 MB RAM) and 768 MB RAM with 45 FPS all the time (limited it to that) except for dropping FPS at big starts (I'm talking about 16 cars and above)?

[B2B@300]

I'm not an expert, audimasta, but I'd have to disagree with bbman. But I may be wrong, like I said, I'm not an expert. Since I have a P4, but only 2.5 GHz and you have a 2.8, but only a Celeron, I think we would probably be similar, maybe me taking a slight edge because of it being a P4. I've also heard Celerons are NOT good for gaming whatsoever. Upgrading your card, may allow you more AA/AF or higher resolution, ie, making it look prettier, but I'd say performance wise, your processor is the bottleneck as it is also in my machine. If I can't get any performance increase going from max AA/AF, max resolution (monitor hampered 1024x768x32) and max graphics settings in LFS, to minimum graphics and even dropping to 800x600x16, then you'd probably be the same. You could get it looking prettier than you have now, but you wouldn't gain FPS. I'm currently running a Diamond Radeon 9250 256 mb, but it is PCI (no AGP on the MB) and my bottleneck is still in the processor. But like I said first, I'm not an expert, especially with gfx cards, as this is the first one I've ever had that wasn't onboard and I just got it a few months ago.

The card you got there is low end and it's pci :shy: so that WOULD affect your performance as much as your cpu, I had a P4 2.6 and AGP 9600Pro128 it gave me 80-90 max and 30 - 40 min fps.
In LFS the CPU does have a big effect on fps but it's NOT the only thing that effects fps :tilt: infact in your case I'd be bold enough to say the bottleneck in your system for fps IS the pci low end video card.
Also in regards to celeron and P4 for gaming, while that used to be very ture, I'd think the gain from celeron to P4 is no where as big as it used to be... LFS isn't even optimised to use the P4 fully anyway shrug
Hope you get your system back up and running for this weekend :) at the moment thats your biggest bottleneck :D :(

[Jakg]

The card you got there is low end and it's pci :shy: so that WOULD affect your performance as much as your cpu, I had a P4 2.6 and 9600Pro128 it gave me 80-90 max and 30 - 40 min fps.
In LFS the CPU does have a big effect on fps but it's NOT the only thing that effects fps :tilt: infact in your case I'd be bold enough to say the bottleneck in your system for fps IS the pci low end video card.
Also in regards to celeron and P4 for gaming, while that used to be very ture, I'd think the gain from celeron to P4 is no where as big as it used to be... LFS isn't even optimised to use the P4 fully anyway shrug
Hope you get your system back up and running for this weekend :) at the moment thats your biggest bottleneck :D :(i always thought that only the very very top end cards were anywere near pushing the AGP specs? i only thought it went PCI-E now because of the rocessors changing pins!

[B2B@300]

i always thought that only the very very top end cards were anywere near pushing the AGP specs? i only thought it went PCI-E now because of the rocessors changing pins!

Mrodgers doesn't have PCI-E or AGP he's got PCI :x which is definately less performance than AGP or PCI-E :D but you are right there's no significant advantage to using PCI-E at the moment, but that's true for all the latest technology :shrug: which is why I personally avoid buying newly released top-end hardware :tilt: better to buy stuff that's been on the market for a few months, the price will have come down significantly and any problems with the initial release will have been found and fixed :razz:

[Jakg]

Mrodgers doesn't have PCI-E or AGP he's got PCI :x which is definately less performance than AGP or PCI-E :D but you are right there's no significant advantage to using PCI-E at the moment, but that's true for all the latest technology :shrug: which is why I personally avoid buying newly released top-end hardware :tilt: better to buy stuff that's been on the market for a few months, the price will have come down significantly and any problems with the initial release will have been found and fixed :razz:whoops, didnt see the bit bout PCI!

[mrodgers]

Yes, it's OLD technology PCI, not the PCI-E. Really stinks! The Radeon 9250 was the best that I thought I could get with PCI. I don't have an AGP slot and the PC was built before PCI-E. Like I said, I'm no way an expert on gfx cards, this is my first ever external card. I didn't even get an FPS increase upgrading to it from 8 mb shared onboard gfx. But like I said, it does allow me to turn on all the eye candy at my monitor's max res.

Hope you get your system back up and running for this weekend :) at the moment thats your biggest bottleneck :D :(
LOL, yea, that is my bottleneck right now. I'm on the old trusty Celeron 667 (you oldtimer RSC forum guys remember my questions on getting this thing to run S1 demo?) You would not believe how SLOW trying to surf the internet on dialup with this dinosaur is. To bad there isn't any servers for the old S1 0.3H version. I could pop the gfx card in this and probably race pretty good, since I was almost able to back then. Oh, well, no racing over the weekend or for a while until I can find a motherboard now. I just wish the MB went bad BEFORE I got this card. I'll have a lot more options out there that I wouldn't be able to afford.

[B2B@300]

Oh, well, no racing over the weekend or for a while until I can find a motherboard now. I just wish the MB went bad BEFORE I got this card. I'll have a lot more options out there that I wouldn't be able to afford.

Bummer :( I take it the 256MB stick from work didn't work...

[audimasta]

Hi :)

Something's wrong here.....I've installed my new card, and everything seems ok.... But i'm not having ANY increase in FPS in LFS compared to my old card! I did a test on 3D Mark 2001, and there it worked a lot better than my old card. But not in LFS...:( Its still the Gainward 6600GT 256MB. Any suggestions?

[WGooden]

well I see now that I have an agp slot.. its 4x though but I guess any card will still work with it. Going to get an agp card today not sure which one but Ill see whats under 60 bucks.

[B2B@300]

Hi :)

Something's wrong here.....I've installed my new card, and everything seems ok.... But i'm not having ANY increase in FPS in LFS compared to my old card! I did a test on 3D Mark 2001, and there it worked a lot better than my old card. But not in LFS...:( Its still the Gainward 6600GT 256MB. Any suggestions?

You mentioned you had the following:
Celeron 2.8GHz
768MB
Old card ATi 9250 256MB 40fps (single car) 10-25fps (with other cars)
New card Nvidia 6600GT 256M

You haven't mentioned what bus your cards use PCI, AGP or PCI-E? and what are the fps you get now? What is the operating system you have installed? Did you change any settings in LFS in regards to graphics?

Some other questions that come to my mind regarding performance on your setup... does your motherboard support dual channel memory configs? as im guessing you must have 3x 256M or 1x 512 and 1x 256?

[B2B@300]

well I see now that I have an agp slot.. its 4x though but I guess any card will still work with it. Going to get an agp card today not sure which one but Ill see whats under 60 bucks.

To be safe tell them that your agp is 4x, i think it does matter...
Best of luck though :)

[audimasta]

You mentioned you had the following:
Celeron 2.8GHz
768MB
Old card ATi 9250 256MB 40fps (single car) 10-25fps (with other cars)
New card Nvidia 6600GT 256M

You haven't mentioned what bus your cards use PCI, AGP or PCI-E? and what are the fps you get now? What is the operating system you have installed? Did you change any settings in LFS in regards to graphics?

Some other questions that come to my mind regarding performance on your setup... does your motherboard support dual channel memory configs? as im guessing you must have 3x 256M or 1x 512 and 1x 256?

Ok. Sorry that I was a bit short on information :)

Bot of my cards are AGP cards, and as i said i'm getting the same FPS now as I did with my old card (40 single car, 10-25 more cars). I did not change any graphic settings:

Res: 1152*864 (32 bit)
Half Texture sice: Yes
HVS: On
Simple Car: Off
Haze effect: Yes

I don't know if my motherboard support dual channel memory configs, but i'm using 1*256RAM and 1*512RAM.

Really appriciate the help :D

[bbman]

Maybe AGP Aperture Size is set to the old card or the AGP-Port is set to 4x instead of 8x... :shrug:

[B2B@300]

Yep that does seem abit odd that your not seeing ANY increase in performance then :( you still didn't mention OS (is it WinXP? cause it is memory and cpu hungry)
Things that come to mind to try or invetigate :tilt:
1. Is the memory you have both the same rating? (if one is slower than the other you might be better off without the slower one)
2. Check in your bios setup for AGP settings and see if they are correctly configured.
3. How many other programs are running when you use LFS? Try closing down as many as you can through the task manager.
4. Check you computer for trojens, viruses, spyware, adware, etc...
5. Play with some settings in LFS try:
under Graphics -
Disable rubber - all
Disable flags - all
Disable trees - all
Simple wheels - mirror or all
Shadow type - low res or off
Enable dither - no
Half texture - no
Mip filter - no
HVS - on
Z-Buff - 16 or 24
Simple track - off
Haze effect - Yes or No
under Misc -
Multiplayer Speedup - yes
Multiplayer car Draw - 150m or less
6. If you change all the settings for your video card to get best performance is there any increase in fps over settings from max quality?

Thats about all I can think of at the moment... and its 1am so bed time :D

Hope you get some improvement, I wouldn't have thought the poor performance was just due to the Celeron :shy:

[WGooden]

wow, i hate compputers.. Im trying to get this card working (geforce fx5500 256mb agp) and ive got the drivers and everything installed but its not working, and it says in the device manager 'the device cannot find any free input/output resources to use' Can anyne help me possibly quickly.


I have agp 2.0 and it says it works fine with it, I know its supposed to even on the nvidia site it said it should work. I dont know what i/o device its talking about. pleease help

[B2B@300]

wow, i hate compputers.. Im trying to get this card working (geforce fx5500 256mb agp) and ive got the drivers and everything installed but its not working, and it says in the device manager 'the device cannot find any free input/output resources to use' Can anyne help me possibly quickly.


I have agp 2.0 and it says it works fine with it, I know its supposed to even on the nvidia site it said it should work. I dont know what i/o device its talking about. pleease help

Tell me the exact manufacturer and model names of you motherboard and new card and I'll see what I can dig up. Also what other cards do you have in your system? maybe try take some out and then see if the video card installs...

[WGooden]

amd ahtlon thunderbird agp 2.0 4x 256mb sdram

evga geforce fx 5500 256mb agp 4x/8x

[WGooden]

in the device manager under properties and in the resources tab it tells me whats conflicting with the card.. and I have no idea wtf it means but it sounds like have to to flash bios or something.

It says

Memory Range 00000000 - 00FFFFFF used by:
Motherboard resources
Memory Range 00000000 - 00FFFFFF used by:
System board extension for ACPI BIOS
Memory Range 00000000 - 0FFFFFFF used by:
Motherboard resources
Memory Range 00000000 - 0FFFFFFF used by:
System board extension for ACPI BIOS
Memory Range 00000000 - 0001FFFF used by:
System board extension for ACPI BIOS

[B2B@300]

amd ahtlon thunderbird agp 2.0 4x 256mb sdram

evga geforce fx 5500 256mb agp 4x/8x

You've given me enough info for the video card but not the motherboard, open the case and read the info directly off the motherboard (it's the largest board in the case :D ) I need the manufaturer and model number as a minimum.

Do you know how to get into the cmos setup? Sometimes there is an option to reallocate system resouces on restart...
found this on evga support...

6) Check the video card IRQ. First make sure your bios has an IRQ assigned to the Video card. Check your motherboard manual for more information on the bios. Most (if not all) modern motherboards will have this on by default. Make sure there is NOTHING in the PCI slot adjacent to the AGP slot. Go to your control panel and find the "System" icon (it will be under "Performance and Maintanence" if you are in the default Catagory view) . From the System Properties go to the "Hardware" tab and click on the "Device Manager" button. Now type ALT-V and then "N" to view resources by connection. Scroll down until you find the listing for the video card. Take note of what IRQ it is on. Now see what other devices are on that same IRQ. Inform us of all the devices on that IRQ. You may be able to disable them without affecting the PC by right clicking on the device and clicking DISABLE. Make sure you know what those devices are before you disable them.
With XP you cannot change IRQs if you have an ACPI PC. A reinstall of XP might be required if an IRQ conflict is determined to be the problem.

If you can follow the instructions above and see if there is an IRQ assigned and if there is a conflict...
The conflicts you list above are memory conflicts which possibly can be resolved by clearing the cmos (bios settings) then rebooting. See your motherboard manual for how to do this (its normaly done via a jumper on the motherboard).
Hopefully you can get the motherboard details and i can investigate that side of things too...

[WGooden]

i cant find anything on the motherboard, i looked in sisoft and cpuz but it shows nothing. system bios us american megatrends inc. 0aavwp02 but that probably doesnt help. Under mainboard it says MP APIC as 'NO'

[B2B@300]

i cant find anything on the motherboard, i looked in sisoft and cpuz but it shows nothing. system bios us american megatrends inc. 0aavwp02 but that probably doesnt help. Under mainboard it says MP APIC as 'NO'

Is your PC a brand computer like a Gateway? If so what's the brand and model?

[WGooden]

yes its a Gateway.. I see a version 400071 on here.

[B2B@300]

yes its a Gateway.. I see a version 400071 on here.

Goto this link http://support.gateway.com/support/default.asp and click on the find my serial# tell me what it finds... (of course with the gateway pc in question :))

Sorry m8 I'll probably miss you today, as I've got to goto sleep shortly (4am start tomorrow :( it's gonna kill me I haven't done day shift for months and are used to sleeping in till late :D) Anyway from what you've said and what I've read about similar problems on several forums, I'm afraid it sounds like the most likely solution will be to clear your bios setting (clear cmos jumper on motherboard) then format your hard drive and reinstall everything from scratch, as it appears that is the only way XP will reallocate resources correctly with mortherboard of the ACPI type. Which is not a 5min job :(

[WIGGA]

The best card do you get cheap is the Asus N6600GT 256MB!
It cost only 150€ and it is a very fast card!

[audimasta]

Maybe AGP Aperture Size is set to the old card or the AGP-Port is set to 4x instead of 8x...

Hmm..Maybe? Is there anyway i can check this? Or change it?

Yep that does seem abit odd that your not seeing ANY increase in performance then you still didn't mention OS (is it WinXP? cause it is memory and cpu hungry)
Things that come to mind to try or invetigate
1. Is the memory you have both the same rating? (if one is slower than the other you might be better off without the slower one)
2. Check in your bios setup for AGP settings and see if they are correctly configured.
3. How many other programs are running when you use LFS? Try closing down as many as you can through the task manager.
4. Check you computer for trojens, viruses, spyware, adware, etc...
5. Play with some settings in LFS try:
under Graphics -
Disable rubber - all
Disable flags - all
Disable trees - all
Simple wheels - mirror or all
Shadow type - low res or off
Enable dither - no
Half texture - no
Mip filter - no
HVS - on
Z-Buff - 16 or 24
Simple track - off
Haze effect - Yes or No
under Misc -
Multiplayer Speedup - yes
Multiplayer car Draw - 150m or less
6. If you change all the settings for your video card to get best performance is there any increase in fps over settings from max quality?

Thats about all I can think of at the moment... and its 1am so bed time

Hope you get some improvement, I wouldn't have thought the poor performance was just due to the Celeron

"You still didn't mention OS (is it WinXP? cause it is memory and cpu hungry)"

Yep its XP.

"1. Is the memory you have both the same rating? (if one is slower than the other you might be better off without the slower one)"

I tried to take out the slower one (256MB) but then my comp. wouldnt start up....So i had to put it back in again. :shrug:

"2. Check in your bios setup for AGP settings and see if they are correctly configured."

I've been into the BIOS, but i couldnt find anything related to AGP settings....Maybe this could have been easier through MSN? :D

"3. How many other programs are running when you use LFS? Try closing down as many as you can through the task manager."

I have closed all the programs i know i can shut down, but still quite a lot programs are running. But they don't use much comp. power.

"4. Check you computer for trojens, viruses, spyware, adware, etc..."

I'm doing that all the time....Norton Internet Security and AD-Aware is used regulary.

"5. Play with some settings in LFS try:
under Graphics -
Disable rubber - all
Disable flags - all
Disable trees - all
Simple wheels - mirror or all
Shadow type - low res or off
Enable dither - no
Half texture - no
Mip filter - no
HVS - on
Z-Buff - 16 or 24
Simple track - off
Haze effect - Yes or No
under Misc -
Multiplayer Speedup - yes
Multiplayer car Draw - 150m or less
"

This made my gain aprox 2 fps average with no cars on screen.

"6. If you change all the settings for your video card to get best performance" is there any increase in fps over settings from max quality?

Nope.

But because i got a better result on the 3D mark test than my old card, it feels like its LFS that can'd detect my card or somthing. Or is it just my stupid Celeron that just can't do it? Bah.... Hate this. But thx for the help :D

[bbman]

You have to set this values in the Bios and/or your graphics card drivers...

[mrodgers]

audimasta, my opinion still stands that it is your Celeron processor and just like me, you won't get any FPS benefit from min to max graphics options. The gfx card will just let you look at a prettier screen. I have the same with the 2.5 GHz P4. It will be interesting if I end up replacing the board and CPU in my system as I'd be stuck with still using my pci Radeon 9250 graphics since I'm broke. So, next week, I may be using an Athalon 64 3700 with the same graphics card and let you know.

[bbman]

Then how comes that I can play LfS with all details to full at 1024x768x32 on an Athlon XP1800+ with a Radeon 9600 (no-pro, but 256 MB RAM) and 768 MB RAM with 45 FPS all the time (limited it to that) except for dropping FPS at big starts (I'm talking about 16 cars and above)?
Once again, since you obviously didn't read it the first time... According to you, I would have to run LfS with all details off at 640x480, which just ISN'T TRUE...

[audimasta]

Maybe this wasnt a big suprise, but my AGP-port is set to 4X. I can see this in the nVidia control centre.... I have been in the Bios and tried to find out where to change from 4X to 8X, but i cant find it. Is it a guide or something that i can read to find it? Do you guys think that this is the solution? Sorry i'm not that much into this...

[tweaK_05]

I skimmed through all this, so if anything I say is a repeat, sorry, I'm lazy.

First off, LFS is all about them mhz. Video card memory has nothing to do with it, unless you are going from 32mb to about 128mb. Anything above 128mb on AGP is almost useless, I think the AGP bus can't use any more than 132ish mb. As for the PCI bus, It's something like 50mb. PCI-E is the future, as it's twice as fast as AGP, so it can use all of the 256mb and some. If you are only playing LFS, make sure you get a card with a high GPU speed, as that will make more of a difference than memory. The speed of the AGP slot is also important, when I had my old gateway, it only had a 2x slot. Came with a TNT2 32mb stock, but I took my Ti4200 128mb and set it up just for kicks... The 4200 actually did worse then the TNT2.

To who ever started this thread, the only way I can see you getting double the frames is if the FX5600 was on the PCI bus, and the FX5500 was on AGP. And since it's a dell, that is very well possible.

And last but not least, for my FX5700LE 256mb, my 9800pro blew up and that was the best/cheapest/best performance replacement I could find. Got it for $40 canadian :thumb:.
****I would never buy this card, or any other FX series card new.****

[TravisS]

First off, LFS is all about them mhz.
No no, LFS is all about the "power". I know you know that a 2 GHz Athlon 64 will absolutely destroy a 3 GHz Celeron in LFS.

****I would never buy this card, or any other FX series card new.****
No doubt! Unless, of course, you like wasting money :razz:

[mrodgers]

Once again, since you obviously didn't read it the first time... According to you, I would have to run LfS with all details off at 640x480, which just ISN'T TRUE...
I here you. I wonder how an Athalon XP compares with a P4 then? Also, you have to take into concideration your bus speed compared to mine or the Celeron. Mine is only 533 MHz. The final thing is my 512 MB ram compared to your 768 MB and what speed is your ram. Again, mine is the slowest DDR ram at 266 MHz. So it's quite possible you surpass me in specs because of the more ram and the AMD 1800 being faster than a 2.5 P4? I don't know. I've just read everywhere that Athalon XP's are better than Pentium 4's, but don't know what speeds would be the equivelents to compare. I do know I get the same performace as my brother-in-law who runs an Athalon mobile XP 1600 with nVidia onboard 32 MB graphics on a laptop. He has faster ram, but the same amount, 512 MB. So, to me it sounds like your XP 1800 is better than my P4 2.5. Which also tells me that you would smoke the Celeron 2.8, which leads me to continue my opinion that the Celeron 2.8 is the problem and he won't gain performance in FPS by upgrading graphics from the 9250 to the 6600GT. I'm curious, bbman, do you gain any FPS by just reducing ingame graphics or changing down to a lower resolution? Like I said, I don't even if I minimize everything and drop to 800x600x16. Still the same 35-45 FPS.

[Ebiggs]

Could you guys give me some tips on what I should do to up my fps? Starting in the rear on Blackwood with 12 cars (XR GT if it matters)I run like 10fps at 1280x768. I'd like to be at about 30fps in that situation at least. I know my computer is crap...AMD 1.2 CPU, 512MB RAM, ATI Radeon 9200 graphics card. I just bought the processor this month (it did have a 700Mhz. :Looking_a)

[tweaK_05]

No no, LFS is all about the "power". I know you know that a 2 GHz Athlon 64 will absolutely destroy a 3 GHz Celeron in LFS.
Yea, I was talking more GPU than CPU there :razz:

[TravisS]

I here you. I wonder how an Athalon XP compares with a P4 then? Also, you have to take into concideration your bus speed compared to mine or the Celeron. Mine is only 533 MHz. The final thing is my 512 MB ram compared to your 768 MB and what speed is your ram. Again, mine is the slowest DDR ram at 266 MHz. So it's quite possible you surpass me in specs because of the more ram and the AMD 1800 being faster than a 2.5 P4? I don't know. I've just read everywhere that Athalon XP's are better than Pentium 4's, but don't know what speeds would be the equivelents to compare. I do know I get the same performace as my brother-in-law who runs an Athalon mobile XP 1600 with nVidia onboard 32 MB graphics on a laptop. He has faster ram, but the same amount, 512 MB. So, to me it sounds like your XP 1800 is better than my P4 2.5. Which also tells me that you would smoke the Celeron 2.8, which leads me to continue my opinion that the Celeron 2.8 is the problem and he won't gain performance in FPS by upgrading graphics from the 9250 to the 6600GT. I'm curious, bbman, do you gain any FPS by just reducing ingame graphics or changing down to a lower resolution? Like I said, I don't even if I minimize everything and drop to 800x600x16. Still the same 35-45 FPS.

Ultimately in LFS the AMD PR rating vs P4 GHz doesn't quite match.
In "real world" apps a 2.5 GHz P4 would destroy an Athlon XP 1800+
In LFS, with the Athlon's much better floating point power (which makes me wonder... does LFS take advantage of SSE2? I'd think that would give huge gains to P4 performance) simply walks all over the P4.
The Athlon XP 1800+ uses a FSB of 266 MHz (DDR), or PC2100 RAM. That means that both your bus and the Athlon bus are running at the same speed (133 MHz) but yours is "quad pumped" to make 533 MHz while the Athlon is still only double data rate, or again, 266 MHz.
BTW, the slowest DDR is actually PC1600, which runs at 100 MHz (200 MHz DDR), which both the original Athlon and the first DDR based P4 used.

Ebiggs, honestly your CPU is still your biggest problem. I'd consider the 1700+ a real minimum, and that runs at 1.46 GHz. Not to mention it's an XP, which is then again some better then the clasic Athlons.

[TravisS]

Yea, I was talking more GPU than CPU there :razz:

Ah, yeah. Without lots of fancy pixel shaders, there's not much else to worry about other then raw MHz :tilt:

[tweaK_05]

Could you guys give me some tips on what I should do to up my fps? Starting in the rear on Blackwood with 12 cars (XR GT if it matters)I run like 10fps at 1280x768. I'd like to be at about 30fps in that situation at least. I know my computer is crap...AMD 1.2 CPU, 512MB RAM, ATI Radeon 9200 graphics card. I just bought the processor this month (it did have a 700Mhz. :Looking_a)

Are you just running default settings? If so, chances of you getting that many fps with that computer are slim to none. My second PC only gets 35ish there.

[tweaK_05]

Ah, yeah. Without lots of fancy pixel shaders, there's not much else to worry about other then raw MHz :tilt:
mmm pixel shaders :smileypul

[xapexcivicx]

mmm pixel shaders :smileypul
Gotta love em. 3.0 (same card as you :D...good stuff :D)

[Ebiggs]

Are you just running default settings? If so, chances of you getting that many fps with that computer are slim to none. My second PC only gets 35ish there.

No, I messed with the settings for a couple of hours yesterday hoping I could get something to work. I'm gonna give it a shot on my laptop today, 2.3Ghz, 256 RAM, not sure what it has for video.

Edit: Is the graphics card good for what I need (ATI Radeon 9200)?

[50-3]

hey i don't know wat your smoking but you can pick up a ATI radeon 256Mb card from as little as $70 AUD or $40 second hand. i put a nice comp runing 90FPS on strait and 70+FPS Group Drifting wich ended up costing $800, just don't buy a brand comp just get the componets and a case!

[HeerBommel]

hey i don't know wat your smoking but you can pick up a ATI radeon 256Mb card from as little as $70 AUD or $40 second hand. i put a nice comp runing 90FPS on strait and 70+FPS Group Drifting wich ended up costing $800, just don't buy a brand comp just get the componets and a case!

A 256 Mb card for $70 is a fake. Slow memory and slow card with a lot of empty space. The same type with 128 Mb costs $60 and you cant tell the difference. I have experience with the Ati 9600XT (S1) and now the nVidia 6600GT (S2). Both cards are good enough to present the top graphics in LFS.



I'm curious, bbman, do you gain any FPS by just reducing ingame graphics or changing down to a lower resolution? Like I said, I don't even if I minimize everything and drop to 800x600x16. Still the same 35-45 FPS.

Have a XP 64 3500+ (2200 mhz 1.3 nm version).

I use 1280 x 960 at 4AA and 8AF and got around 50 - 60 FPS. For LFS my configuration is very balanced. For shooters I could use a better card but in LFS my proc is in perfect harmony with the graphics card.

[bbman]

I here you. I wonder how an Athalon XP compares with a P4 then? Also, you have to take into concideration your bus speed compared to mine or the Celeron. Mine is only 533 MHz. The final thing is my 512 MB ram compared to your 768 MB and what speed is your ram. Again, mine is the slowest DDR ram at 266 MHz. So it's quite possible you surpass me in specs because of the more ram and the AMD 1800 being faster than a 2.5 P4? I don't know. I've just read everywhere that Athalon XP's are better than Pentium 4's, but don't know what speeds would be the equivelents to compare. I do know I get the same performace as my brother-in-law who runs an Athalon mobile XP 1600 with nVidia onboard 32 MB graphics on a laptop. He has faster ram, but the same amount, 512 MB. So, to me it sounds like your XP 1800 is better than my P4 2.5. Which also tells me that you would smoke the Celeron 2.8, which leads me to continue my opinion that the Celeron 2.8 is the problem and he won't gain performance in FPS by upgrading graphics from the 9250 to the 6600GT. I'm curious, bbman, do you gain any FPS by just reducing ingame graphics or changing down to a lower resolution? Like I said, I don't even if I minimize everything and drop to 800x600x16. Still the same 35-45 FPS.
TravisS explained my hardware pretty well, so there's nothing I could add to his explanations... Maybe, that my RAM runs with CL2... :shrug:
I think I tried it once... But the increase wasn't that much to really justify the ugly graphics if I remember correctly... :D Also, my 45 FPS are due to my capping the frames to 44, so I can't really tell how fast it would go... :shrug:

Maybe this wasnt a big suprise, but my AGP-port is set to 4X. I can see this in the nVidia control centre.... I have been in the Bios and tried to find out where to change from 4X to 8X, but i cant find it. Is it a guide or something that i can read to find it? Do you guys think that this is the solution? Sorry i'm not that much into this...
With my ATI, I can adjust AGP port speed in the drivers, but I don't know it for nVidia's... Maybe there's an option or a slider (or somewhat else) in the drivers too...

[WGooden]

Goto this link http://support.gateway.com/support/default.asp and click on the find my serial# tell me what it finds... (of course with the gateway pc in question :))





:) for the motherboard it has this listed
MSI Athlon motherboard - 1-GHz [Part #2512593]

Also im on windows ME so I couldn't try any of that with the IRQ. :/

[B2B@300]

:) for the motherboard it has this listed
MSI Athlon motherboard - 1-GHz [Part #2512593]

Also im on windows ME so I couldn't try any of that with the IRQ. :/

Hi m8 :)

Based on that here is a link from their support section for checking and updating the BIOS, at least have a look at the "How to install" link as that explains how to enter your BIOS setup screen and check what version you have :tilt: if it is earlier than 0aavwp13 then updating it may help with your problem. Be careful and follow the instructions.

http://support.gateway.com/support/drivers/getFile.asp?id=19164&uid=57338271

This is the WinME AGP driver for your motherboard also
http//support.gateway.com/support/drivers/getFile.asp?id=14546&dscr=AGP%20driver%20for%20the%20AMD%20Oxnard%20and %20AMD%20Keystone%20motherboards,%20version%204.03 d&uid=111917568 (http://support.gateway.com/support/drivers/getFile.asp?id=14546&dscr=AGP%20driver%20for%20the%20AMD%20Oxnard%20and %20AMD%20Keystone%20motherboards,%20version%204.03 d&uid=111917568)

And a utility for viewing motherboard info in ME
http://support.gateway.com/support/drivers/getFile.asp?id=14565&dscr=Motherboard%20.inf%20utility%20for%20motherbo ards%20with%20bios%20version%200AAVW&uid=111917570

Once you have updated the BIOS, unistall the fx 5500 drivers, rboot, then install the AGP driver (above), reboot, then reinstall the FX 5500 drivers again... hopefully it will work then :)

If it doesn't, then I think the only likely solution to getting your OS to reallocate resources correctly is to backup your data, format your hard drive and reinstall everything from scratch :shrug:

[mrodgers]

Hey B2B, what happened to me???? You were helping me out!!!! Now you're blowing me off to help WGooden!!!!! His computer is at least booting!!!! Hehehe, just kidding, I'm just sucking it up and gonna buy a new one. Good luck with the gfx card WGooden :thumb: .

Whoops, I get you and Modoff mixed up all the time. Had to change "Modoff" to "WGooden" up there, LOL :D .

[WGooden]

lol, oz thanks Ill try that out.. appreciate all this work you're doing trying to help me get this sorted. :thumb: :)

last night I tried taking out some stuff in the pci slots, and I also tried to see if the new ram i put in was affecting it, but still the same thing. Ok ill look at those links you posted in a little bit and see what happens.

[Jakg]

A 256 Mb card for £39 ($70) is a fake. Slow memory and slow card with a lot of empty space. The same type with 128 Mb costs £34 ($60) and you cant tell the difference. I have experience with the Ati 9600XT (S1) and now the nVidia 6600GT (S2). Both cards are good enough to present the top graphics in LFS.





Have a XP 64 3500+ (2200 mhz 1.3 nm version).

I use 1280 x 960 at 4AA and 8AF and got around 50 - 60 FPS. For LFS my configuration is very balanced. For shooters I could use a better card but in LFS my proc is in perfect harmony with the graphics card.have an 9600 XT, great card, full everything, aa anf af, and i still never drops below 50 fps!

[audimasta]

I have a SiS 962L mothercard, and have have checked SiS's homepage, but I cant find a driver update for it....Suggestions? :tilt:

[B2B@300]

I have a SiS 962L mothercard, and have have checked SiS's homepage, but I cant find a driver update for it....Suggestions? :tilt:

Sis is the chipset manufacturer, what you need to do is check your documents or take the cover off your PC and look for the motherboard manufacturer and video card manufacturer, then find there support section at there website for driver updates and BIOS updates.

Even if you just get whatever information you can find on the motherboard and video card then google that info you will find something...

[KurtG85]

Sorry if this is sort of off topic, but i have a laptop that i use to play lfs and it runs at 30-45 fps with all the graphics turned to their lowest, no mirrors etc. etc. Is there any means of upgrading a laptop to perform better? Even if its an external non portable device?

[Zoltuger]

i've upgraded from a 128MB geforce 5900xt to a 256MB 6800GS and there's no massive improvement, particularly when there are many vehicles on the screen.

[cohagen]

Uhmmm, does the latest 6.1 driver from ATI fix this problem or not?

EDIT: Ooops... posted in wrong thread! Was referring to this ATI bug where the game becomes absolutely unplayable because you upgrade your drivers.