Question.HD2900XT or 8800GTS

[Sobek]

I have a suspicion that the intense stuttering was being caused by a mass (silent) pileup occuring a ways back behind me. I noticed on another track while I was racing buggys that as I was nearing the end, the same thing happened...it started absolutely dying. Then as I rounded a corner I happened to notice car parts flying over the hill, tyres, framework, you name it, it was shooting out over this hill and hailing down on me... The whole time the game was completely chunking out. Do you have most settings maxed out too? I was reading that nice little fix that if you completely disable the driver models, multi-car races run a bucketload better. There was also a fix available on the Codemasters forums that disables the other cars' sounds entirely, providing yet another huge boost. I'm definitely going to try those.

It's annoying because even in a 1v1 rallycross, I get these occasional 'slowdowns' - The framerate stays perfectly fine, but things just kinda slow down, almost like someone were breifly tapping on the 'slowmo' button in a replay (though not THAT slow). It kind of reminds me of how some games react when they're not intended for use on multicore systems, where they speed up, slow down, stutter and generally have real troubles running smooth.

I've also been playing STALKER. With everything maxed out (same as my x1900), i'm seeing all of a good ~5fps improvement in all the same areas. Though I notice on this 2900 it rarely ever dips lower than the - average - 30fps like my x1900 did. I'm not entirely impressed with that though, I was expecting a half decent increase over my old card, at least 15fps to actually make it feel smooth.

 

[Malo]

Whats the rest of your system specs? Maybe your hitting a CPU wall instead of your 2900XT. Especially if you say it is when there is a pileup and the game is calculating all the damage and physics of all the parts flying everywhere? Mine is a brand new PC with a 6750 @ 3.4Ghz on a P35-DQ6 Mobo.

 

[Sobek]

Lanparty NF4 Ultra-D with an X2 4600+ at 2.90ghz. On mostly medium/high settings (not even ultra!) I have serious doubts my CPU is throttling this card that much

 

[Sobek]

Wow... Had a real dumb moment today

I realised that I reinstalled XP when I got this 2900, and didn't apply the dual core fixes from microsoft (such as the /usepmtimer switch). So needless to say, I went and installed those.

Just, wow. Performance has gone up in just about every game across the board. The CSS stress test has gone up from 173fps to 184fps, which, although it doesn't sound like much is actually far better than it sounds. During the stress test I often saw dips into the red (50fps or less) all over the place, now it's constantly green, and that's fantastic. The biggest thing i've noticed though is in STALKER. Holy cow... I'm at the barkeep now, and performance has just skyrocketed. I haven't measured the difference before/after, as I honestly wasn't expecting anything, but it's gone from near-unplayable maxed out to smooth, as in 45+fps constantly smooth. I started running around after applying these fixes and I was utterly amazed at how ultra-playable it had become.

I'm going to test out every other game I have (such as Tomb Raider Legend, which has been running like an absolute dog). Man, it feels like i've bought a new card all over again, I think my love for this card just went up (and thanks in no small part to my own negligence!)

*edit* Yep, add DiRT to that list of now-extremely-playable games

 

[Malo]

So I was almost right?

Glad it's working much better for you now.

 

[Unwinder]

I use it even with NV hardware. I haven't really adapted to the counter-productive ways of Rivatuner. It's powerful, but accessing the various pages is not very efficiently implemented, IMO.

Small tip, which drastically simplifies navigation in RivaTuner:

There are so called module activation launch items in "Launcher" tab, which allow you to create tray menu items for getting to any desired tab of GUI with a couple of mouse clicks. You can also create a shortcut for such item (which can be used to access desired tab directly from desktop even when the util is closed) or bind it with hotkey.

 

[Rainbow Man]

Hey Unwinder!

Could you maybe tell a little about how to access fan speed control for the 8800 series cards in Rivatuner? I've not managed to get that to work anfd my cards run so damn hot in 3D games. I'd like them to ramp fanspeed much quicker when they start to run hot.

Actualyl I'd really like the ability to just peg the fans to 100% in 3D mode.. I could have them at 100% always by setting manual control, but rhe noise grates on my ears when just surfing the web etc.

Also what does the various fan control sliders actually do? Some nice help tooltips there in the next version of your program would absolutely be appreciated.

Thanks.
Peac.e

 

[Unwinder]

Hey Unwinder!

Could you maybe tell a little about how to access fan speed control for the 8800 series cards in Rivatuner? I've not managed to get that to work anfd my cards run so damn hot in 3D games. I'd like them to ramp fanspeed much quicker when they start to run hot.

You just messed the settings, there are 2 different fan control levels available in RT depending on hardware. You cannot use driver-level 2D/3D fan control on 8800 series by design, because fan is physically not connected to integrated PWM controller used by ForceWare to separate fan speeds in 2D/3D modes.
This fan control approach is only in use or cheap low-end models like 6600, 7800GT etc. Hi-end models (7800GTX, 7900GTX and whole 8800 family) use advanced external temperature based fan controllers, accessible via low-level fan control tab in RT. So you're just looking in wrong place.

Actualyl I'd really like the ability to just peg the fans to 100% in 3D mode.. I could have them at 100% always by setting manual control, but rhe noise grates on my ears when just surfing the web etc.

You cannot do it using the driver's default possibilities, but you can "emulate" it using RT. FAQ explain how to do it for 7800GTX, the same scheme can be used for 8800.

Also what does the various fan control sliders actually do? Some nice help tooltips there in the next version of your program would absolutely be appreciated.

It was a joke, right? Everything I've typed now can be found in the context help for fan speed adjustment sliders. Right-click a slider then select "What's this?".

 

[Sobek]

You know, i've noticed a couple of annoying little things.

Since I installed those Dual Core patches, although games are running much better, a bunch of them do that stupid speed-up slow-down thing... Much like what you see if you try and run a single-core ready game on a dual core system. DiRT does this often, like when I do a jump and the screen is populated mostly by sky, it just speeds right up for a second or so, then slows down very briefly, then returns to normal speed. Splinter Cell Double Agent is just constantly running at 2x speed, which makes it impossible to play (and before anyone starts bashing the dogshit buggy engine it's using, let me say that on this same CPU/Motherboard combo I played the game just fine with both cores enabled), so something isn't right somewhere.

Pretty much all my other games are fine though. I've noticed though that occasionally since installing this patch, Vietcong runs slightly faster than normal, making it appear as if I were speedhacking...If I kill someone, the death animations on their bodies move ultra-fast, and jitter all over the place. The ingame cheat protection also kills me constantly as punishment for 'hacking'... Weapons *appear* to fire slightly faster too.

Something's up