GTX 295 Warhammer Online performance

[darXoul]

I'm planning a partial upgrade of my gaming/allround use PC: E8600 to Q9650 (for GTA IV mainly, but also multithreaded games in general) and GTX 280 FTW to GTX 295 (for Crysis, cranking up AA in 1920*1200 and general peformance boost).

However...

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=100459764

http://www.warhammeralliance.c...howthread.php?t=237142

The two links above (same guy reporting problems, several others confirming) worry me quite a bit, since WAR is pretty much the only MMO I still play (got rid of WoW addiction last year, no time left for LotRO atm).

Does anyone here own the 295 and play WAR? If yes, please share your experience. I simply don't want to find out the hard way that one of my most frequently played games runs like utter crap on this card (on my 280, I get heavy, probably single-digit-FPS slowdown in RvR keep sieges but otherwise, it's really smooth sailing).

So, in a nutshell, do WAR and GTX 295 really hate each other?

 

[boatillo]

Nice to see a fellow WAR player!

I can understand your desire to upgrade for other games, but WAR is a 2 core, single GPU game. You will see zero in-game benefits from this upgrade, and the 295, even if running perfectly normal, will likely end up slower than your 280 FTW. I would buy a second GTX280 if I were you, less money than the 295 and no issues with turning one core off.

 

[darXoul]

Hi, that's the suggestion I usually get However, I don't think it's viable due to several reasons:

- 280s are pretty hard to get here, and overpriced as well,
- I would need a new mobo which means additional cost plus Windows revalidation and KIS probably too (1 PC subscription),
- I would also need a new PSU, my 620HX won't handle 280 SLI.

I realize WAR doesn't really scale with SLI but if it runs fine, I can live with no performance boost, since I don't need it in this game, and RvR slideshows seem to be inevitable, regardless of rig.

EDIT: vanilla 280s are actually available but still overpriced

 

[chizow]

Just upgrade to the Q9650 and then go from there. The two titles you mentioned, GTA4 and WAR, are both extremely CPU bottlenecked so the CPU upgrade is all you'll really need.

WAR may still bog down in RvR and keep-takes, but its still completely CPU/system/network bottlenecked at this point. You can test this yourself, just crank up AA and you'll see that your FPS will be nearly identical, even in raids and scenarios. Before I cancelled, Mythic was putting an emphasis on improving performance in RvR and it was noticeable, I went from teens with 100 or so people to 30+ most of the time in ORvR.

The biggest performance-killer here is the polling and bandwidth requirements for all the status buffs/debuffs dependencies for all those players. There was a mod early on that decreased the number of polls per second downward from 20/sec, which helped some, but not nearly as much in Raids once you increased those buffs exponentially.

GTA4 is another CPU bottlenecked game. You won't see higher FPS from a GTX 280 to 295, but you'll see a huge gain from a dual to quad, especially if you run them at similar clockspeeds. If you're getting 30-35FPS with that dual, you should nearly double them with a Quad. Great looking game that runs awesome on a quad, the only thing it really needs is AA.

 

[darXoul]

Thanks for your opinion.

Yeah, I saw the mod you're talking about on Warhammer Alliance boards, I'll probably give it a try. Regarding going from dual to quad, I'm not expecting wonders in WAR, however, since @ 1920*1200/4*AA/16*AF/TrMSAA my frame rate dips to around 5-10 in keep sieges (nothing of really amazing scale, just regular T2 keep battles on my new char), I'm inclined to believe the 2 additional cores could help a bit. Most WAR benchmarks (not that there are many...) are based on non-RvR situations so they don't reflect the poor FPS in ORvR. We'll see...

As for GTA IV, I know it's extremely CPU-bound, and even though I have it on my 360, I'm still willing to try it on PC. I simply prefer keyboard/mouse controls, and a higher resolution (pity about the lack of AA). Here I should expect a significant boost with additional CPU cores, albeit not as spectacular as if I switched to an i7 rig (which, I admit, is tempting, but maybe not a rational decision for me atm).

The point is that I still don't know if it's true about the 295 in WAR. If it runs fine, even without noticeable multi-GPU scaling, I'm OK with it. The upgrade would serve me well in other games. But if it literally runs like crap, I'll surely keep my 280 for a while. 285 FTW is also tempting but the net price I'd have to pay wouldn't justify the meager FPS difference here and there.