[OT-Hardware] Whats my Bottleneck techies ?

[JustIn_Case]

Hi!

Inspired by all the hardware threads i descided to seek some advice as well.

I have an crappy computer but cant afford to buy a new one for a while, so i might make some upgrades on it.

What i have:

P4 1.3 mhz
384mb Rambus ram (400mhzx2)
Geforce 4600 128mb

I get really crappy fps in NC (must play at 640x480 at op wars) with this computer. I upgrade my gfx drivers regurlarly. (using Win XP).
So where is the bottleneck? The CPU i guess, or do i need more ram? The gfx card is nice so i dont think its that.

[djskum]

I'm not a PC tweeker but I am a techie. Your bottle neck is your whole machine (your gfx card looks alright tho, but I ain't teh ubar gamer I used to be so I'm not up to date on the latest greatest).

You need a much faster processor, but make sure the bus speed on it is the fastest you can get and also very important, make sure the mobo runs just as fast or faster!

Get a nice new mobo (mother board). Make sure the spec is right tho...

Get a gig of the fastest memory your machine will take. You'll notice a big difference!

Finaly don't think you can get away with using the same old HD. You'll bottle neck there as you won't be able to read/write quick enough of your ubar new machine.

Get an ATA133 (or faster if you can afford it/mobo takes it) HD with an 8Mb backside cache. You'll read and write nice and fast now. Disk access times will be right down!

I'll hand this thread over to teh ubar gam3rz who no doubt can get cray like performance out of an old 486 with 2 toilet rolls and a vat of liquid nitrogen ;-)

DjSKum

[Pi-Oh-Pah]

I get OK FPS etc from mine

Athlon 1.2 Ghz
Abit KT7A 'RAID' Mobo
768Mb PC133 RAM
Ge-Force 4 MX420 64MB DDR
4.1 Creative card
Virgin Broadband
Old Maxtor 15gb HDD

I let the Grphics card test it self and it turned itself up to approx 400mhz pushing my FPS up by about 10-15 (cept in P1 or Regants) :P

[Stigmata]

I'm not a PC tweeker but I am a techie. Your bottle neck is your whole machine (your gfx card looks alright tho, but I ain't teh ubar gamer I used to be so I'm not up to date on the latest greatest).

You need a much faster processor, but make sure the bus speed on it is the fastest you can get and also very important, make sure the mobo runs just as fast or faster!

Get a nice new mobo (mother board). Make sure the spec is right tho...

Get a gig of the fastest memory your machine will take. You'll notice a big difference!

Finaly don't think you can get away with using the same old HD. You'll bottle neck there as you won't be able to read/write quick enough of your ubar new machine.

Get an ATA133 (or faster if you can afford it/mobo takes it) HD with an 8Mb backside cache. You'll read and write nice and fast now. Disk access times will be right down!

I'll hand this thread over to teh ubar gam3rz who no doubt can get cray like performance out of an old 486 with 2 toilet rolls and a vat of liquid nitrogen ;-)

DjSKum



hmm disagree on all points.

your PC's spec is fine for NC i would suggest checking setting in game such as graphics and draw distance vegatation etc.

also check your Nvidia card is set at performance and not quality and there are various other little tweaks i cant remember right now.

the only thing lacking is probably memory but you should easily be ale to cope with 384mb maybe another pair.

i presume you have a pair of 64mb rambus and a pair of 128 rambus giving the total to 384 ?

Andy

[kurai]

Originally posted by JustIn_Case
So where is the bottleneck? The CPU i guess, or do i need more ram? The gfx card is nice so i dont think its that. Yep. You'd see most "bang per buck" improvement by upgrading the CPU. More RAM would be nice, but it's not a showstopper.

[djskum]

Originally posted by stigmata
hmm disagree on all points.

your PC's spec is fine for NC i would suggest checking setting in game such as graphics and draw distance vegatation etc.

also check your Nvidia card is set at performance and not quality and there are various other little tweaks i cant remember right now.

the only thing lacking is probably memory but you should easily be ale to cope with 384mb maybe another pair.

i presume you have a pair of 64mb rambus and a pair of 128 rambus giving the total to 384 ?

Andy

ROFL you missed the liquid nitrogen ;-) See told you, personally I upgraded my machine like that (it was a bit older tbh) but I noticed a hell of a lot of added speed to my machine! And I don't just play NC on it. I can play ALL the games now, as you well know alot of new games are hugely resourse hungry. If all you want to do is NC then go with Andy. If you have some cash and want to play some other games then your machine won't cut it like you want. Your machine spec is pretty close to minimum spec of alot of new games. But I'll say it again, I don't have the time to tweek anymore, so I bow to superior knowledge ;-)

DjSKum

[ElfinLord]

More RAM and a faster processor, IMO, would be a good idea.

Also, check what services XP is running. XP will take up a lot of your CPU power running services that you don't use or even need.

Anyway, that's my advice.

I used to run an AMD 1800+ at 1.53 GHz with a FX5600 256MB video card and 512MB of RAM and would get around 25 to 30 FPS in the wastes and 40 or so in Plaza running all this on XP Home.

ElfinLord

[5150]

TBH my FPS in NC was fine when I was running my Duron 800 with 512MB of PC133 under WinME (even I think when I was still using my Voodoo3 PCI before upgrading to my GF4 TI4200 128MB)

Whats your net connection setup?

[Jesterthegreat]

CPU is massivly important for NC...

get a 1.5 gig minimum... grab 512MB RAM minimum and a nice graphics card (Nvidia if possible - better support on NC and almost all other games)

i am running:

AMD Athlon XP 2600 (running at 2.2 gig)
512 Mb RAM
GeForce 3 Ti 400
ASDL Broardband connection

i get 60 fps in plaza 1 full of people.

ill replace the gfx card when possible, but its not needed to upgrade ATM, its top-of-the-line GeForce 3. ill also grab another 512 Mb RAM soon

[Dribble Joy]

My comp is thus:

1.4 atlon ie. crap
512ddr (not sure on the speed) a bit shit
radeon 9500 128mb (I think pro it's a x8 thingy) so not that great

7 fps at escudor oasis, similar or less at an OP fight.

what am i doing wrong other than having a shite comp?

[Jesterthegreat]

running XP? got all the stupid extras on?

windows = death of CPU usage

gotta tweak it by the sounds of it


:edit:

i run XP Pro Corperate Edition with ALL extras off.

its basically 2000 with game support lol

[JustIn_Case]

Thanx for all the responses, ill try ty answer your questions:

@stigmata. Yes i have 2x64 + 2x128 rambus mems, one possible upgrade is to through the 2x64 in the recyclebin and go for 2x256 + 2x128 instead (384->768). Rambus isnt verry cheap so i would like to have an clue if it will help as much as it costs. My Nvidia is already set for performance. Ive tried lovering detail and turning sky+vegetatio detail off, vont help verry much.

@5150. Net connection setup? You mean what connection speed i have? I have an cablemodem connection (512 kbps), my ping is fine (60-100) except for lagg spikes (up to 2000) my that doesnt have anything with my connection to do (since everyone gets lagspikes at the same time in NC).

@Jesterthegreat. All the windows extras on? help me out plz :) I choosed Win XP home instead of XP pro just to have the lightest version (no webservice and such) but i havnt turned any of the services off. Its a clean Win XP with sp2, DirectX 9.0b, NC and firewall, all to keep it light and simple. Any tweaking tips?

/Edit. I use internet connection share, so i dont want to disable any services that will affect that.

[JustIn_Case]

How should my anti aliasing be set for best perfomance?

[Ormy]

Originally posted by JustIn_Case
How should my anti aliasing be set for best perfomance?

OFF, or as low as possible.

I get 30-40 fps all the time except plaza 1 and OP fights (running at 1600x1200 btw, resolution does make a big difference)

P4 1.9Ghz
512MB PC2100 DDR RAM
GeForce 3 Ti200 64MB

Im deciding whether to upgrade parts now, or wait 12-18 months and just buy a whole new kickass PC.

[Xian]

I have an Athlon XP 2100+
512MB SDRAM
Geforce 3Ti 200

I get about 2 fps in OP wars and 15 in Plaza one. O_o

[msdong]

Originally posted by JustIn_Case
How should my anti aliasing be set for best perfomance?

depends on CPU

i can run 2x without any notice of loosing FPS on my machine. (see below)
but there is not much difference in display quality

to the original problem.
faster CPU=More Frames
i can see no difference between my friends ATI on 500mb and my GF on one GIG.
the only thing that bossted my FPS was upgrading from AMD1,8 to AMD2,5

[Punisher-X]

Personally I would say most of the system is borked.
Get a good mobo which will allow you to tweak setting such as FSB (very handy for getting some extra oumph out of your PC)
Get some good gaming RAM, PC3200/3500 or better.
Hard drive plays an important part due to windows persistance in using virtual memory (get ATA133 or SCSI) with good cache ~ 8MB
Processor, as good as you can afford.
Graphics card - personally Id buy an ATI one here as u can "mod" it to work much better than the retail model. So buying a radeon 9500, u can "upgrade" this to a 9700/9800.

In order Id go
Processor + Mobo
Memory
Gcard
Hard Drive

This has worked for me for years, Ive built Pcs since the SX33's a fair while back.

[msdong]

Originally posted by Punisher-X
... (get ATA133 or SCSI) ...

omfg .. SCSI ????
well, ATA133 is not bad but instead if SCSI i would say SATA that is included on many newer Mainboards.

but a fast hd reduce fatals and syncerrors in NC

[Scikar]

Originally posted by Xian
I have an Athlon XP 2100+
512MB SDRAM
Geforce 3Ti 200

I get about 2 fps in OP wars and 15 in Plaza one. O_o

Your problem there is probably the speed of your RAM, you'll want some nice DDR RAM in there. Also what else is using your CPU? If you have a software based sound card as opposed to a hardware accelerated one, and an internal modem instead of external, you'll probably find their eating up your CPU power. Also disable anti-aliasing and maybe turn down texture quality a little, IIRC GeF3s only have 64MB of VRAM, and they certainly don't like anti-aliasing very much.


msdong, anti-aliasing depends on your gfx card more than your CPU. It's the gfx card which performs the anti-aliasing AFAIK, the CPU doesn't help much there.

[Spy XX]

Originally posted by Xian
I have an Athlon XP 2100+
512MB SDRAM
Geforce 3Ti 200

I get about 2 fps in OP wars and 15 in Plaza one. O_o

hm maybe you should post your settings, i have nearly same stuff (except that i have a XP 2500+) and i run neocron at 1280x1024 with about 40 - 60 fps in plaza 1....

btw for all the nvidia users:

Geforce Tweak Utility (http://download.guru3d.com/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=386)

i know its outdated but its still the best and easiest to use tool i found yet. You can change a lot of settings easily with this tool, if you are no techie and just want to get some better fps, install and start it, hit fastest setting and try neocron again.

btw, if you got problems that your fps don't get about a special amount (in most cases 20 or 40 or 60 fps) try this (http://download.guru3d.com/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=427) tool.

[msdong]

Originally posted by Scikar
..msdong, anti-aliasing depends on your gfx card more than your CPU. It's the gfx card which performs the anti-aliasing AFAIK, the CPU doesn't help much there.

shure, but with higher "source frames"(from CPU) he can turn on AA.he got a GF4 and i think everything up from GF3 can handle neocron real easy.

[Punisher-X]

msdong, wtf u talking about with "wtf SCSI"?
i use SCSI on a few PCs on my home network, and its faster than any other hard drive i use by far, and its a 3 or 4 year old SCSI drive. Low 3.x access times, 15K rpm....good cache....whats your prob with SCSI (except the price)?

[Dostan'Ilindith]

my cats breath smells like catfood

[lullysing]

My professional take on this is pretty simple : Not enough memory and windows XP installed.

If you upgrade your memory to 768 megs of ( hopefully good quality/clockage) RAM and put win98 on that machine, you are going to notice a serious performance boost over your current mobo.

Take it from me mate, win98 is still your best friend when it comes to gaming, simply for the fact that it doesn't suck ressources like the amoung of sugar in a cap'n Crunch bowl and that it's waaay more stable .

People that say winXP is better for gaming need to do serious benchmarks between the two and to lay off the crack pipe. And i'm being nice about it. Even with the extras off, sometimes the memory it starts taking for something seriously simple, like running a WEB BROWSER can tick well into the 20 megs (!!!). JUST for a web browser. You know, that thing that parses text html files and displays them on your screen. something i was able to do on a computer running windows 3.1 with 8 MEGS of memory.

Set fog vision, set max sight range, set vegetation to almost nil, put more memory in the box and downgrade to win98. My take on this.