Best way to increase speed...

[hennessy1]

I want to increase the power that I have with my computer when playing games. I have a q9300 stock, 8gb of ram and 2 asus 8800gt 1gb video cards in sli and I still seem to get crappy fps. Would a video card upgrade be the best way to increase this like say up to a g280? Games I am speaking of are F.e.a.r. , cod4, and gow. The most I want to sli is 2 cards. I have a 780i mobo. Cooling is fine theres an AC right next to the tower. Any suggestions?

 

[modoheo]

Forget SLI and wait until next month and buy the ATI HD4870X2 when it's available. It outperforms two GTX280's in SLI in many cases and is much less expensive.

 

[DSF]

Let's step back for a second. I played F.E.A.R. with pretty good settings on my P4 2.6GHz and 7600GS.

If you're having trouble with F.E.A.R. and CoD4 on that setup something is wrong besides your hardware. Somehow your SLi is messed up, or you have bad RAM, or your cooling is not as good as you think, or something.

My first suggestion would be to run Prime95 and ATITool to stress your CPU and GPU and use a reliable temperature monitoring program to make sure nothing's abnormal. After that I would run Memtest overnight to check out your RAM's stability. Then I'd run 3DMark and see how your computer stacks up against similar setups.

I would take my time and look for potential errors in my current setup before I spent money on new parts. What if you buy that shiny new graphics card and you end up with the same problem because your motherboard or PSU turned out to be messed up?

 

[hennessy1]

I let fear do its auto config with settings and it came up with less then 20fps on average.

 

[svodka]

thats horrendous. my X2 3800+ and 8800gts g80 get twice that. something's wrong with your computer, dont waste your money on a hardware upgrade, diagnose the problem, something is definately wrong hennessy

 

[hennessy1]

im downloading and running 3dmark now.

Do you think it could be the fact I am playing on a 52in screen?

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: hennessy1
im downloading and running 3dmark now.

Do you think it could be the fact I am playing on a 52in screen?

What res? Size doesn't matter, it's the number of pixels.

 

[DSF]

Originally posted by: hennessy1
im downloading and running 3dmark now.

Do you think it could be the fact I am playing on a 52in screen?

I doubt it. Sounds like an HDTV, and two 8800GTs should handle that with no problem.

 

[hennessy1]

I didnt even get 5000 on the 3dmark score. For some reason my 2nd card every once and while disconnects and doesnt show up in device manager. So I turned the comp and off an pushed it back in and everythings ok. I restart f.e.a.r. and well I get horrible line flickering with green lines and looks all distorted. I had gotten much better scores before with even 2 7950gx2 in sli and now its crap. Even on lowest settings I got less then 20fps.

 

[Somniferum]

Originally posted by: hennessy1
I didnt even get 5000 on the 3dmark score. For some reason my 2nd card every once and while disconnects and doesnt show up in device manager. So I turned the comp and off an pushed it back in and everythings ok. I restart f.e.a.r. and well I get horrible line flickering with green lines and looks all distorted. I had gotten much better scores before with even 2 7950gx2 in sli and now its crap. Even on lowest settings I got less then 20fps.

At this point you might want to try removing the second card altogether, and see what your scores look like. Could be a faulty card was causing your performance problems, not to mention the other weird issues.

 

[hennessy1]

How much of a hassle is it to install a 2nd video card in a fresh system? Like if I install the first one only and the drivers to go with will it be a pain to install the 2nd. I ask because I have a fresh vista install hdd ready to go specificly for my system.

 

[modoheo]

Flash the BIOS, download the latest drivers for your GPU's, in addition to what DSF recommended.

 

[hennessy1]

yup i got the latest bios thank god it got rid of the video corruption and I just downloaded the newest drivers now. I am going to do a fresh install. I will reinstall with one card and run it for a little bit and see how it goes.

 

[Snakexor]

power supply failure?

 

[badnewcastle]

Originally posted by: Snakexor
power supply failure?

Would be my guess... CPU/MEM/MOBO problems seem to cause more stalls hangs etc... while PSU can be more of a silent killer. You should be able to double the scores you have posted here with only 1 of those 8800GT's depending on your resolution which I did not see you post yet.

Also, if 1 video card is throttling down because of heat, then they both will because the other will match it. <- I might have this problem right now.

I would start over by running Memtest for 24- 48 hours. You can take one video card out for this and plug in in your other system, this way you can still play.

Also, check your bios see what it is reading as far as FSB/CPU stock speeds, voltages all that good stuff.

 

[error8]

Have you checked if you're running your cards in Pci-Express 16X? They could be running in 1X or something. Use GPU-Z for that.

 

[hennessy1]

They are both running in x16 and my res that I play at is 1080. Power supply has been good to me I've checked the voltages. I dontknow why it wouldbe heat though there is plenty of room in that case and good airflow

 

[TheKub]

Any one know if there is issues with those games on 64 bit versions?

 

[badnewcastle]

Originally posted by: TheKub
Any one know if there is issues with those games on 64 bit versions?

Both run very well on my system with Vista HP 64

 

[hennessy1]

Well I did a fresh install of the os and installed f.e.a.r. and I never went below 50fps. Would any of you guys know what could of caused it to be that way if it wasnt hardware related?

 

[lxskllr]

I'm guessing it was some kind of driver issue.

 

[videogames101]

I'm guessing that it was because windows fails epicly?


But, of course, it the only viable gaming OS because thats what programmers program for so, we're all in a very bad predicament with no solution in sight..

 

[Andres3605]

One of my friends computer was just like this, nice hardware horrible performance, it got fixed when I installed the updated chipset drivers.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

The most likely reason as to why you were getting horrible performance is driver and software conflicts. If you've ever updated drivers, you may not have properly (or at all) uninstalled the old drivers. Or you installed some software that conflicted with the drivers. Or if you changed video cards, since you mentioned having a 7950gx2 previously, you may not have properly installed drivers.

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: hennessy1
im downloading and running 3dmark now.

Do you think it could be the fact I am playing on a 52in screen?

er no, most hdtv's are 1080p(2mil pixels) or 720p(1mil pixels). 30" lcd monitors are twice the highest resolution of hdtv and modern video cards can play games on those. 2560x1600(4mil pixels) such 30" are the only things that strain high end systems these days.

beyond that only this
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=13613
would cripple modern high end pc's. 56" 3840x2160(8mil pixel) display
$59,000