Video card not doing as well as i thought

[maximo12]

I just upgraded from a 6600gt to a x1950gt (256mb agp version). My complete specs are amd64 3200, 1gb ram and the new card. I researched a lot before i bought the new card and figured the new card would be at least twice as fast but possibly much more. I decided to hold off on pci-e for a few more months. Anyway, I primarily play WoW and I can't turn the graphics up much higher than the 6600gt. I run wow in 1680x1050 with most everything turned all the way up besides multisampling which is kept at 24bit @ 1x and a couple things are turned down slightly. I overclocked it to 573/1296 from 500/1200 and this helped some but nothing drastic. I recently reformatted so everything should be running extra smooth.

I'm wondering if i have a driver issue. After i installed the new ati drivers, windows popped up and recognized the video card as if i never installed the new drivers in the first place. Anyway, my pc shows the newest ati drivers are installed. I'm hovering from 22fps to 50fps while playing. It stays slightly above 30 most of the time but I was getting this performace with my old card.

Any ideas on what's going on?

 

[Quiksilver]

Yeah, I do. It's because your bottlenecked by your cpu.

 

[maximo12]

I thought that could be it and figured that'd be the first response as well. However, I guess I was thinking that the processor was plenty fast for wow. I was thinking about upgrading to a x2 3800 which should be tons faster than my old amd64 3200. What do you think?

 

[Marty502]

Is that CPU overclocked? You should try that first.

 

[maximo12]

No, my current one isn't. That would be a good idea.

 

[newb111]

Definitely bottlenecked by the CPU. I had an amd 3400+ and just by upgrading to an X2 my framerate doubled in WoW

 

[maximo12]

Originally posted by: newb111
Definitely bottlenecked by the CPU. I had an amd 3400+ and just by upgrading to an X2 my framerate doubled in WoW

I highly appreciate the input. That's just what i wanted to hear. It's good to have input based on reality rather than theory. I can get a x2 3800 for around $60. It appears that it's the only 939 still in production that's worth anything.

 

[Budarow]

What's the CPU clocked at now? I've got a couple OC'ed (2.3GHz and 2.45 GHz) AMD 3xxx+ (single cores) running games in PCs with a X1950Pro and a 7800GT and have smooth frame rates in somewhat "recent" titles (COH, BF2, FlatOut2, etc.) at ~1000x800 res and all settings on high, but no AA. I'm about to install World in Conflict this weekend and if you want, I can update this post with results?

I'd try OC'ing the proc first.

Still not a bad idea to pick up a X2 while they are still pretty cheap IF you don't plan on doing a complete rebuild anytime soon.

I'm tempted to do the same myself but then I'd be left with a proc or 2 sitting on a shelf (or selling them for peanuts).

 

[InFeXiOn]

World of Warcraft has some serious issues with low framerates even with high-end machines, so don't feel so bad. While upgrading to the X2 may significantly increase your performance you may want to instead looking into simply grabbing another 1GB of RAM and seeing if that makes a performance at all. Usually the order of importance when it comes to computer components + WoW is:

GPU --> RAM --> CPU

Of course I would be completely off but this is what I have gathered from both the WoW forums and here. There's some threads on the tech forums (WoW.com) that detail people with C2D's and 8800's that with settings cranked at your resolution or 19x12 that don't even see 60 FPS in some populated areas like major cities. Whether it's sloppy programming or what I really have no idea. Might want to try the RAM first though. You might be able to score a 1GB module and even a dual core here in the BST for cheap as dirt and if you don't plan on upgrading for ~6+ months that would be your best bet.

 

[ROEHUNTER]

At that resolution the 256MB of video ram is probably coming into play also .