Boosting gaming performance

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prankster959

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Alright first of all my stats:
MSI 915P Neo2 Platinum or something motherboard
LGA 775 intel 2.8E ghz CPU (one of the first ones released, I got it right when it came out last year)
512mb x2 dual channel Kingston Value Ram at I THINK 4-4-4-10or15 timings (it doesn't say but I'm reasonably sure)
2 SATA 80 gb western digital hard drives in a raid 0 config
Windows XP SP 2
Pci express

And here's the punch, a 7800gt. Yes 400 dollars on something that probably won't help my computer anymore than a 6800gt. So my question is what's a cheap effective way to boost performance? I ran 3dmark05 and I only got 3000 as opposed to the 7300 I should get with the XFX card I have. I wouldn't want my hardearned dollars to go to waste so I researched a little bit and I'm considering getting a nice cooler for my CPU and raising it to 3.4 ghz and buying new gold OCZ ram at 3-3-3-8 timings in a dual channel config.

Also my cpu seems somewhat handicapped in tests. It got about a 1500 in the 3dmark05 test as well as less than satisfactory results in some others including PcMark04 and Sandra Lite. And to remove the possibility, I have to spyware/malware on this computer. McAfee, Ad-aware, and Spybot Search and Destroy protect me. I don't even mind a 6000 in 3dmark05, I just want to be able to play games at a good framerate and high settings in 1024x768 resolution.

My goal would be to play Battlefield 2. I can play it at decent settings but the frame rate drops randomly making it unplayable. I assume this is the ram or the CPU or both. My drivers and BIOSes are all updated for everything.

I would also consider screwing my Intel platform and going for an AMD but that would cost alot of money. The goal here is 200 dollars or less. So what do you guys think?
 
I'm pretty sure that will only make a slight difference. I've never heard of a game that needed more than 1 GB. But if I get the new ram I don't necessarilly have to replace my old ram, since I have 4 DIMM slots. But wouldn't that mess with the performance if I have 2 dual channel ram configs running at different timings?
 
CPU basically isn't a factor in 3DMark, so you're scoring almost a third of what other 7800 owners score probably means you have AA (and possibly AF) forced on via the drivers (3DM is mean to run with the drivers set to "app. pref.", and 05 runs at 1024x768 4xAF).

Yeah, BF2 loves RAM, but you can also try lowering texture quality to Medium to avoid stuttering with only 1GB. I'm sure there are BF2 tweak and performance guides around (Anandtech, Firingsquad, Gamespot Hardware, etc.). More memory probably won't hurt with future games, though.

A discrete soundcard may also help considerably. Consider picking up a Creative Audigy 2 ZS, basically the only choice for a reasonably-priced, gamer-oriented sound card at the moment. Buy.com had them for as little as $36 after rebates recently, but the rebates may have expired, and in any case they're all sold out. CompUSA has the Audigy 2 ZS Platinum for about $80 after rebates (and before tax), which I believe is close to what Buy.com was selling it for. Or you could wait for the ~$130 version of the new Creative X-Fi, their next-gen sound card (after the Audigy 2). Current benchmarks show the X-Fi isn't much faster than the Audigy 2 ZS in real-life games, though. The X-Fi is said to sound better overall, if that's a factor. But, if you're impatient, and especially if you'll make use of some of the connections in its front-bay module, you probably won't regret picking up the Aud 2 ZS Platinum at CompUSA. And CUSA has a 21-day return period for new items, so it's relatively minimal risk (well, except that they might put you on their blacklist of ppl who return things :p).

If you're an audiophile, then read some reviews (3DSoundSurge's Audigy 4 review, Digit-Life's Audigy 2 ZS and X-Fi reviews) to see if the X-Fi still resamples everything like the Audigy 2 ZS. While my A2ZS is still back-ordered at Buy.com, so I can't relate first-hand impressions, apparently the A2ZS doesn't sound as good as it can because it fiddles with every incoming sound, distorting it a touch (whereas something like the Chaintech AV710 and its superior Wolfson DAC on the 7/8 output supposedly sounds better with music, though the card probably won't be as fast as an Audigy or X-Fi with games).

Edit: I linked some sound card benchmarks in a similar thread.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
prankster959 said:
I'm pretty sure that will only make a slight difference. I've never heard of a game that needed more than 1 GB. But if I get the new ram I don't necessarilly have to replace my old ram, since I have 4 DIMM slots. But wouldn't that mess with the performance if I have 2 dual channel ram configs running at different timings?
Click to expand...

Yeah, you'd want the second GB to be at least the same timings as your first pair. If you do get different timings, be aware that some RAM will refuse to run at some timings, even if the new timings are looser (for whatever reason, I have a GB pair that will refuse to boot at CL=2.5 when they are normally CL=2.0). And yes, a second GB will help a lot if BF2 is taking up that much memory. Swapping info across the IDE to disk is magnitudes less fast than just across the NB.
 
Although I wasn't really thinking about it.. yeah a sound card could make a diff. You could probably spring for the latest & greatest, but you would probably be in great shape just going to an Audigy based card & have some extra dough to throw @ something else.
 
prankster959 said:
How much of my CPU performance could my motherboard build in sound possibly eat up?
Click to expand...

I've been led to believe that it's under 2%. When I put in a dedicated sound card, I didn't notice any performance improvement anywhere, even in music playback.
 
If you get any sound card, stay away from the one you linked to, as well as any "Audigy LS" cards you might find. They use the ca0106 chipset, and I had quite a pain setting one up once.
 
Just to be more clear Battlefield 2 is NOT using all my RAM. I cited ram a possible problem because it might not be fast enough. I get this stuttering on every game.
 
Hmm...I guess you're right. Those benchmarks seem good, since they don't try to draw conclusions at 1600x1200, although I would've liked to see them run at 800x600. Guess I've been fooled.
 
prankster959 said:
How much of my CPU performance could my motherboard build in sound possibly eat up?
Click to expand...
You'd know if you followed my link (which included the 3DC article that Snyder posted). :p The short version is: surprisingly much in many cases.
 
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