Upgraded video card = downgraded performance?

[christopherprevails]

Hey everyone. I was running a Nvidia Geforce 5200FX and then a Radeon 9200 (both 128MB, AGP cards). In the game Day of Defeat you can type a command that displays your FPS, real time, during the game. I had the maximum set at 100 and would basically get 100 throughout the entire game.

My friend offered to sell me his MSI Nvidia 6600GT for $40. I couldn't pass up the deal, seeing as they were selling for up to $150 elsewhere. I installed it and ran the game to a disappointing 40-50ish FPS. My friend who sold it to me and I concluded that my power supply wasn't enough (350 watts) so I just installed a 500 watt PSU. Now when I ran the game it maxed out at 60 FPS. What gives?! I don't know what else could be wrong -- I have a gig of RAM which is way more than you need for Day of Defeat (it's an old game).

Any help would be appreciated.

*** I originally posted this in the General Hardware forums where someone suggested something about how before I was dealing with DX7 but now am experiencing DX9... how does this play into it?

 

[bloinkXP]

Hi christopherprevails,

I see that you went from nvidia to ATI to Nvidia. Before you went from ATI to nvidia did you:
Remove the drivers
Shutdown
Remove the ATI
Add the 6600
Start and add the "latest and greatest" drivers from NVIDIA?

-d

 

[Kromis]

DX7, DX8.1, and DX9 are (I think) different because they have different settings.

I forgot but there's this one command where you can force your machine to run in DX7, DX8.1, or DX9 mode.

Sorry if I wasn't any help!

Okay, I remember now.

Right click DODS and click on properties. Then click on Set Launch Options and type in:

-dxlevel 90 (DirectX v9.0)
-dxlevel 81 (DirectX v8.1)
-dxlevel 80 (DirectX v8.0)
-dxlevel 70 (DirectX v7.0)

I think the FX5200 is DX8.1 and the 6600GT is DX9. Go figure.

 

[JonMooring]

cmon guys, see the real problem here. it's an HL1 game, and all HL1 games enable vsync by default unless turned off in the Forceware CP. turn off vsync and you'll be hitting 100FPS again in no time.

 

[akshayt]

Have you played any other game with that old setup. Something more advanced and powerful, like UT04, Doom3, FarCry, Splinter Cell, Need For Speed etc. If you have, then try to play those games with a 6600GT at 10X7 or even 12X10 maxed out and tell whether you get a better gaming experience or not.

Also, is the game fully smooth with 60fps, as it used to be previously?
Are other games slow as well?

 

[Kromis]

OOOOO. I thought it was Day of Defeat Source! My bad, ignore what I posted then.

 

[Pugnate]

You are wasting money... Minor VC upgrade, and then the PSU for that card? Just save money and upgrade big. You will enjoy it a lot more. And by it, I mean the actual feeling you get after starting your new rig.

 

[Extelleron]

Originally posted by: Pugnate
You are wasting money... Minor VC upgrade, and then the PSU for that card? Just save money and upgrade big. You will enjoy it a lot more. And by it, I mean the actual feeling you get after starting your new rig.

Umm...... FX5200 to 6600GT is MAJOR, not minor upgrade.

 

[ShadowOfMyself]

Originally posted by: Extelleron

Originally posted by: Pugnate
You are wasting money... Minor VC upgrade, and then the PSU for that card? Just save money and upgrade big. You will enjoy it a lot more. And by it, I mean the actual feeling you get after starting your new rig.

Umm...... FX5200 to 6600GT is MAJOR, not minor upgrade.

QFT, even the crappiest of the crappiest card currently available today for 5 bucks is faster then that POS

 

[imported_Crusader]

Originally posted by: Extelleron

Originally posted by: Pugnate
You are wasting money... Minor VC upgrade, and then the PSU for that card? Just save money and upgrade big. You will enjoy it a lot more. And by it, I mean the actual feeling you get after starting your new rig.

Umm...... FX5200 to 6600GT is MAJOR, not minor upgrade.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: Kromis
OOOOO. I thought it was Day of Defeat Source! My bad, ignore what I posted then.

Hell no, you're spot on.

OP - forget the max FPS for a second. How does the minimum speed compare? What's the rest of your rig?

Also, download 3DMark (anything post-2001) and run it on default settings - then post the score here. That'll give us a good idea if you're in the ballpark you should be.

- M4H

 

[MrWizzard]

quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by: Pugnate
You are wasting money... Minor VC upgrade, and then the PSU for that card? Just save money and upgrade big. You will enjoy it a lot more. And by it, I mean the actual feeling you get after starting your new rig.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Extelleron
Umm...... FX5200 to 6600GT is MAJOR, not minor upgrade.

AND HERE IS THE PROOFS

GPU DX SM Clock Trans Proc PP Vertex Bandwidth
GeForce FX 5200 9 2.0 250MHz 45M 0.15u 2x2 63M 3.2GB
GeForce 6600 GT 9 3.0 500MHz 146M 0.11u 8x1 375M 16GB
Radeon 9200 8 1.4 250MHz 36M 0.15u 4x1 39M 6.4GB

Your welcome

EDIT: sorry for sloppy format but I can figure out how to make it keep my spaces

 

[jiffylube1024]

6600GT should cream both of those cards, which are crap.

Uninstall your video card drivers, run the program called DriverCleaner for both ATI and Nvidia video drivers, then reinstall video drivers. You should be good to go .

 

[BassBomb]

i went from 5200 to 6600gt, its like night and years later a day

 

[Fraggable]

I'm quite sure it has more to do with DirectX than anything else. You went from 7.x to 9.0 and I bet you'd notice a huge difference in IQ if you put screenshots side by side.

Cleaning up drivers is a great idea though, it probably needs to be done.

 

[Pugnate]

Yea it is a significant upgrade, my bad. Still would have saved to get something better.

 

[Bradtechonline]

If you are caping at 60 FPS you need to disable Vertical Sync. Most of my games are set to cap out at 60 fps by default. I just type a command in the same like cl_maxfps 125, and disable vertical sync and max it out.

There is NO way that an FX 5200 would outperform a 6600 GT.

 

[bobsmith1492]

The 6600 is probably putting out a lot nicer graphics, which in turn leads to fewer FPS. Someone mentioned it without really explaining: the 5200 was probably running in DX7 or DX8 mode, which would not use all the special effects of DX9, which the 6600 would be using.

Oh, I saw your edit; DX9 allows more lighting/shading effects, which take more processing power and make the game look nicer.