[manu08]

I had been using a 128MB NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 Ultra graphics card for about two years & finally I decided to upgrade but kinda was a lil tight in the budget so I bought a graphics card that looked, well, to be honest it looked rather good to me, I bought a 256MB ATI Radeon X800XL. My previous NVIDIA had only 4 pixel pipelines & was 128-bit, the ATI has 16 & is 256-bit. BUT to be honest I haven't seen that much of an improvement in the graphics or the gameplay. My games still do not work perfectly smooth or have much nicer graphics. What games ? Battlefield 2, F.E.A.R., Swat 4, Half-Life 2, NFS Most Wanted etc.
My comp specs are,
Pentium 4 3.00GHz with HT
1.5GB Ram
80GB 7200rpm Sata HDD
Dvd-rom, Cd-writer, Dvd-writer
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2

I updated to the latest drivers from the ATI website, I do not want/need Omega drivers ! Is there any software maybe that could tell me for each game what the detail settings should be set to, to get about 60FPS, over 50 at least. I do not have the patience to check the settings for each game. Or is it not possible with my computer specs to run games at a good frame rate with quality graphics ? Please, help is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

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They wont look nicer until u adjust the settings......trust me the x800xl is a huge leap from the 5700

[anoobrew]

They wont look nicer until u adjust the settings......trust me the x800xl is a huge leap from the 5700

[manu08]

Ok, lets take one of my games. Lets say, Battlefield 2, what settings do you I should be able to play the game with about 60FPS. Based on my computers specs & the new graphics card pls tell me, then ill change it to those settings & see whether it works smooth.

Thanks

[Max-T]

i would take a game like CS:S or FEAR if you want to mesure FPS because they have a video stress test feature in the game.

for FEAR start on anywhere from low-med and work up until the stress test reports that you are getting mostly imbetween 40-60 range FPS

i have the GEFORCE 7800 GT and it runs fear on top graphics at 60 + FPS.

also before running the game close all/ most backround programs and recover/defragment your Ram, that should make running the game a bit smoother

[manu08]

How do i recover or defragment my RAM ?

[A+reyu]

To recover my ram I use Memturbo

Click here for the Demo

Thats the new version, I use the older one. Also on FEAR, Adjust your Gamma, that did alot for me when i used my 6600GT.

[Max-T]

system mechanic 6 also defragments and recovers RAM, but afterwards besure to go to task manager and end the process SManalise.exe or Systemecanic6.exe or something along the lines of those because otherewise it might lagg up your system a little (it has an anoying bacround scan process)

[manu08]

I used to use system mechanic, just couldn't recall the software name. Anyway for now im using Memturbo. I closed most of the background applications & recovered the RAM & also enabled 'CPURocket for active programs'. The game, well, ran smooth no doubt about it BUT, firstly I couldn't find any video stress test, I did in options find 'test settings' but that did not show me any FPS or any details, just gameplay & secondly it ran smooth all right but occasionally when I was walking around in the game at certain locations not exact locations, just random places while walking around the game would kind of like stutter for a sec or two & then resume back to smooth playback almost as if it had to load something but it couldn't be that because it happened at different locations which could be just next to where it previously happened. I clicked auto-detect for the system performance & it set CPU performance & graphics performance to High at 1024x768. Where are the video stress reports & how do I run the video stress test ?

Thanks

[Max-T]

i know for a fact on CS:S there is a button in the menu saying video stress test gimmie 1 min and il find it in FEAR

[Max-T]

OK

Load F.E.A.R from disk 5 (game disk) click PLAY
go to OPTIONS then click on PERFORMANCE, then click on TEST SETTINGS. this will play you a short cinematic at the end of which it will have a small grey box come up with your FPS distrubution

[warriorscot]

Memory defraggers can more often than not decrease performance as all they do is put things in memory back onto the hard drive, if you happen to be needing it then you have problems.

Well anything above 30 will be fine as long as its stable(which it usually is with most ATI cards) what i do is raise it till its not smooth to play anymore.

[manu08]

In the 'test settings' cinematic thingy it used to lag at about 6 places. Always a lil bit of lagging on those 6 places no matter what settings I had. Well when I had, Computer:High, Graphics:High I got

FPS:
Minimum:21
Average:37
Maximum:62

FPS Distribution:
5% below 25 FPS
57% between 25 & 40 FPS
38% above 40 FPS

That's not too bad if you ask me. I got average FPS of 45 when Computer:High, Graphics:High but resolution reduced to 800x600. I think I'd probably get 40FPS on the 'auto-detect' settings if not of those few places where it lagged. Just wanted to know if that was happening to other people as well ? If not, then what could be a possible reason for it, any clue ?
Still when I play the game on 800x600 or the 'auto-detect' settings the game seems to stumble at areas here & there. It's not like once in 10 or 15 mins. It's like every 10 or 15 metres I move in the game.

[manu08]

Here are my Catalyst settings in case they help in any solution.

SMOOTHVISION HD:Anti-Aliasing : Let the application decide

SMOOTHVISION HD:Anistropic Filtering : Let the application decide

CATALYST A.I.: Advanced

Mipmap Detail Level : High Quality

Wait for vertical refresh : 'was' on Always on, now I changed to, Off, unless application specifies

Direct3D Settings :

Enable geometry instancing - Ticked

Support DXT Texture formats - Ticked

Alternate pixel centre - Unticked

OpenGL Settings:

Triple Buffering - Ticked

Force 24-bit Z-buffer depth - Unticked

[manu08]

Ok after that one setting change I made my FPS has just flown up. On computer:High, graphics:High, I got

FPS:
Minimum:21
Average:49
Maximum:115

FPS Distribution:
3% below 25 FPS
39% between 25 & 40 FPS
58% above 40 FPS

Honestly all I can say is WOWWW. Now that's just a massive difference. However in the cinematic preview the game still stumbled at those few points which kind of leaves me a bit lost. Anyway I think this might be the solution to all the problems I've been having. I'll play games over the next few days & post back with the results, whether the games are smooth or not. Meanwhile if anyone comes up with anything please do post it here.

Thank you very very much for the help :-)

[memberix]

I guess you are using an AGP card. In the ATI Catalyst drivers there is a software that determines the most stable settings for your configuration. If your BIOS and chipset driver aren't up to date Smartgart can turn the AGP off. so make you you have the latest chipset drivers and BIOS.