Hi All,
Apologies for asking the same old question - but can u guys give me an opinion on whether my system is underperforming??

Athlon 4000+ running at 2.6Ghz
2 gb PC3200 RAM
ATI X1950pro PCI-E with 512Mb RAM
XP home SP2
LFS W17
1280x1024 32 bit @ 60Hz
MSi K8N nforce4 motherboard

Now I was hoping to run LFS at full rez, but on busy start grids I am only getting 20-30fps, making it a bit juddery. Looking at other posts on here, people seem to be running at full LOD with lower spec machines..

My graphics card seems to be doing its job ok - turning on 6x AA and anisotropic filtering hardly makes a difference to framerates (and makes LFS look fantastic!). i've also got the hi-res textures for full-on gorgeousness - nice work electric-kar . I downloaded a fresh install to see if it was the textures dropping my framerate - but it hardly made a difference.

Sooo, my guess is a CPU or some other bottleneck? Or am I just being paranoid ?? Whaddaya reckon??

Thanks for any help guys!

rob

PS/ I'm a masssive fan of LFS - and have been for years - but generally a lurker on the forums..

i used to have a similar system, should take 4xAA at the starts and get more than 4- fps in a full grid

Could it be overheating?

cheers for the swift reply.. :-)

i dont think overheating is a problem - i only get 42 degrees C after running at 100% CPU for hours.. oh yeah - i forgot to mention - the CPU is running at 100% while i play.. hence my bottleneck theory..

How does the system perform in other games?

How long has it been since you installed Windows? What's the amount of fragmentation in your system?

You shouldn't get anything under 40fps with that system.

Quote from KOB_CHEESE :

i dont think overheating is a problem - i only get 42 degrees C after running at 100% CPU for hours.. oh yeah - i forgot to mention - the CPU is running at 100% while i play.. hence my bottleneck theory..

ah, fair enough - LFS is CPU intensive, but i had a 2.75 4000 and a 7950GT running 4xAA fine (the AA helped to ease the bottleneck), so it should to well - erm, running any crap in the background? driver problems perhaps?

i dont really play many other games - driving is my thing and it gets no better than LFS! Actually i exaggerate a bit - i play GTA San Andreas at full settings OK.. and 3dmark 2005 score was > 8000..

windows is 2 and a bit years old - and i havent defragged in a looooong time.. thats defo on my todo list (after i get round to backing up!)

ta
rob

One thing that may help (although something screwy IS going on, care to do a 3DMark06 run?) is to overclock some more - i had the dreaded "CABGE" stepping (the worst overclocking stepping CPU ever) and that still hit 2.75 GHz

Jakg - i tend to keep my background processes to the minimum (msconfig is my friend).. just run zonealarm, audio drivers, daemon tools, and my card reader driver..

BTW i'm in norwich - pop over and sort out my compooooter buddy ;-)

Hmmm, GFX card temps? this is wierd!

Could you try lowering the res in LFS and see if that changes your FPS?

BTW i'm lazy :P

Yes, it's normal. You shouldn't be worried unless it's constantly dropping below 25. If that happens, you might try turning down the AA.

Do a fresh install of Windows I'd say. After two years (and no defragging, so I take it no other forms of 'maintenance') your system will be severely crippled.

The temperature of your hardware has little to no effect on performance. If your gfx card was in trouble regarding temperature, you're be seeing plenty of artifacts to go with it. If your CPU was getting too hot, your system would probably shut itself down, or you would smell it.

This machine has to run LFS smoothly, even with full grid of AI.

I have Athlon 64 3000+@ 2.4GHz, 1GB of RAM and a 6800GT. All settings turned on from ingame options, 1280x1024 resolution and 8xAA 16xAF, have no problem running it. Full grid ai 30-40FPS for sure.

Well and ofcourse, a 2 year old windows - that's not good no matter how you try to keep it. That might lower the fps in LFS, but not definately, since 3dmark05 score seems to be okay.

ta for the suggestions - keep em coming!

i just dropped the resolution to 1024x768 - no difference. like i say - i think the gfx card is well up to the job being spankingly new and all!

i really dont fancy re-installing windows - its taken me a couple of years to get everything how i like - but u r right - i'll prob defrag tonite.. (feeling guilty now!). i have kept on top of programs + ran CCleaner to keep registry in check.. also ad-aware etc to keep the spyware at bay!

Well anyway, if you're going to defrag, don't bother with the default Microsoft program. It will do a crap job, and then tell you to do it again.

There are plenty of programs out there which do a much better job, some are probably freeware. I myself use O&O, does the job very well.

Do you have a sound card or do you use onboard sound? I found that getting a sound card actually sped up my games, as opposed to using onboard sound

Quote from Jertje :

If your gfx card was in trouble regarding temperature, you're be seeing plenty of artifacts to go with it. If your CPU was getting too hot, your system would probably shut itself down, or you would smell it.

If his GFX card got too hot it could thermal throttle, and so could his CPU, although thermal throttling is much more common in Intel CPU's

Quote from BlackSheep720 :

Yes, it's normal. You shouldn't be worried unless it's constantly dropping below 25. If that happens, you might try turning down the AA.

Look, that PC can cope with a full grid with 8xAA and hit about 25 fps, because i had a very similar system, it IS a problem

It's been roughly 1,5 years since I installed my copy of Windows XP x64.

All graphical settings set to "MAX" + Electrik Kar's hi-res textures and some other misc. addons.

1280x1024@32, 75hz
8xAA 16xAF

AMD Athlon 64 3200+
Corsair Value DDR3200, 512 MB (x2)
ASUS Radeon X800XT

(No overclocking)

About 20 FPS in T1 with 20 AIs on BL1.

Quote from Jakg :

If his GFX card got too hot it could thermal throttle, and so could his CPU, although thermal throttling is much more common in Intel CPU's

Fair enough, but it would probably be easier to just ask him whether or not he has Thermal Throttle enabled in the BIOS then. I doubt it's temperature though, as the performance loss seems to be constant in this case.

thermal throttling isn't in the BIOS, its on the actual chip (and non-disableable), all the BIOS will do is cut the power and turn it off at temp x

TBH i'm stumped on this one, although i'm not up enough on 3DMark05 - is his score.... typical or not?

Quote from Jakg :

thermal throttling isn't in the BIOS, its on the actual chip (and non-disableable), all the BIOS will do is cut the power and turn it off at temp x

Are you sure that's all thermal throttling does? I remember seeing a video (at Tom's hardware iirc) where they removed the heatsink from a stressed CPU. The system was not turned off. Instead, the CPU slowed down causing a major FPS drop in the game which was running. The FPS instantly increased again as they re-applied the hs.

(The AMD cpu beside the Intel CPU which underwent the same test did however BURN ).

Thermal throttling underclocks the CPU (not sure how, mind) to keep it cool, it only does this when the temps are way above "safe" though (ie my GFX card will thermal throttle around 130°, but if it ever gets that hot its not lasting long!)

a quick update -
i defragged last night, and overclocked to 2.7GHz..
this gave a marginal improvement in framerate (40fps on a grid of 20 cars while stationary),but still dips below 30fps when the ai has a pile-on at T1 !

possibly i'm being greedy, but i'm a tad disappointed coz i treated myself to a new(ish) processor to hoping to see LFS at its finest!

i'm not sure about thermal throttling- i've got Cool n quiet enabled - but even with my new overclock i max out at CPU 45 degrees, and system temp never goes above 40..

tell u wot tho - windows is loading quicker

oh and i do use the onboard sound

Are you getting that below 30fps on a 20 car AI grid? If so, that is normal as 20 AI is alot for one CPU to process.

Quote :

i'm not sure about thermal throttling- i've got Cool n quiet enabled - but even with my new overclock i max out at CPU 45 degrees, and system temp never goes above 40..

I used to have a board that when this was enabled it would throttle down the cpu to about 60% - 70% of its full speed, although i know not all boards do this when enabled, it could be worth a try disabling this and see if it has any effect.

Quote from KOB_CHEESE :

i'm not sure about thermal throttling- i've got Cool n quiet enabled - but even with my new overclock i max out at CPU 45 degrees, and system temp never goes above 40..

Coon 'n Quiet drops the Multi and vCore, always better NOT to use it on an overclocked PC - try again without it and see what happens?