Any improvement for moving from 8800 GTX to GTX285 ?

[Skypat]

Hello all

 

here is my config

C2D @ 3.2 Ghz

4 go ram

8800 GTX @ 612 mhz

 

i'am playing at BS full settings (a part water= normal)

FSAA 4X and aniso 16X and high quality mode

 

for the same settings, do you think i will gain FPS by moving to a GTX285 ?

maybe are there some GTX285 owners here which had a 8800 GTX before ?

 

thx in advance for your feedbacks

 

Best regards

Skypat

[jctrnacty]

Don´t expect huge improvement, this game is mainly CPU dependant.

[connos]

No you want get any fps improvement. BS is not stressing the gpu at all. Its very CPU depended. If you are not using the affinity tool try it out as you fps may double.

[Axion]

Went from an OC 8800 GTX to a OC GTX 280 and saw no FPS improvement.

[McVittees]

We all gotta wait for some serious improvements in CPU technology!

[Raz_Specter]

get a quad core cpu and use the tweak to run on all cores within the forum.

 

Video card does will not show that much improvment. currently running 2 x 8800GTX 768MB in SLI and get the same frame rate as a mate with a 280

 

Mithandra

[EtherealN]

If you have a good motherboard and don't mind voiding warranties, I suspect your best (and cheapest) route to improved FPS would be to overclock that CPU. (Unless it already is.) My machine as per my sig saw a gigantic framerate boost when I moved it from it's standard 3.16GHz to 4GHz and upped the RAM from 800MHz to 1092MHz.

 

Mileage will of course vary since CPU's of the same model will have differing OC capabilities.

 

If that one already was OC'd you could consider swapping the CPU to an E8400 (3GHz native) or E8500 (3.16GHz native) and upclock one of those a bit. The E8600 isn't really worth the price markup compared to the other two and might very well peak at the same place as them. I have seen many reports of that series overclocking massively (half a gigahertz or more) even with a stock fan, though a good aftermarket fan is always preferable.

 

You will definitely want to ensure that your motherboard is made with OCing in mind though, since it can be very difficult on more standard mobos, especially if they do not allow you to unlink the RAM from the Front Side Bus. (You would then run into RAM instability before you have peaked your CPU.)

[AlphaInfinity]

Overclocking will give you the most performance improvement right now. This sim is all about processor speed.

[glottis]

I'll add a vote for overclocking, especially as you have a Core 2 Duo - many models overclock up to 40% with stock cooling.

[Skypat]

thx very much all :)

 

i think a will buy a C4D :)

[Distiler]

A quad core today won't do much compared to a 2 core. Windows "affinity" trick is very good when you go from 1 to 2 core, but not when you go to 4 cores. In the future, DCS will be programmed with multiple cores in mind (different threads), then you'll see a 40% increase in perfomance from 2 to 4 cores.

 

I would say, if you have 300-400€ to spend in a 3Ghz quad core cpu go for it, if you have around 150-180€ definitely go for a 3Ghz 2 core cpu (anyway, don't expect a huge improvement today considering you have a 2 core 3.2Ghz unless you overclock u'r new cpu or wait for multy-threaded support in simulators, that will happen next year with Rise of Flight, Storm of War and, maybe DCS)

 

Check this benchmark (best quad core q9650 vs old q6850 vs old e6850). Mind the 2 core e6850 is and old but very fast cpu, the best 2 core nowadays is e8600 (and it cost less than half the best quad core).

 

http://www.simhq.com/_technology2/technology_115b.html

 

Edited March 12, 2009 by Distiler

[Raz_Specter]

Personally I prefer never to overclock a CPU, reduces the life of the CPU. Just a personal preference. If i want a faster CPU i will buy the one i want :)

 

Thanks Mithandra

[r-unit]

thx very much all :)

 

i think a will buy a C4D :)

 

 

Hold on there tex !!!

 

I got some info for ya.

 

 

First of all, if you want a big gain in FPS, use the 64bit version of vista.

 

Secondly, once you start your game, Alt-Tab out, bring up task manager, go to process and right click on DCS.exe.... hit, set affinaty, and put a check mark in the cpu 1 box.. so your enabling both cores. "This does not make a difference in 32bit systems (myne for sure), but does in 64bit as i went from 32Fps to 48FPS" No bull.

 

And last. yes, a new vid card will help, i went from an ATI X1950 pro 256mb ddr3 to a ATI HD4830 512mb DDR3.... just last week... that coupled with the affinaty settings leaves me with a smooth and flawlesss sim, no matter if there are 4 sharks kickin up dust, or a B1 B carpet bombing in that same area. Hope that helps.

 

5200+ 2.6GHZ

AM2 64x2 Dual Core

6GB DDR2 800Mhz ram

HD4830 512 DDR3 vid card "set to optimal Quality"

Sata H Drive

[Distiler]

Hold on there tex !!!

 

I got some info for ya.

 

 

First of all, if you want a big gain in FPS, use the 64bit version of vista.

 

Secondly, once you start your game, Alt-Tab out, bring up task manager, go to process and right click on DCS.exe.... hit, set affinaty, and put a check mark in the cpu 1 box.. so your enabling both cores. "This does not make a difference in 32bit systems (myne for sure), but does in 64bit as i went from 32Fps to 48FPS" No bull.

 

And last. yes, a new vid card will help, i went from an ATI X1950 pro 256mb ddr3 to a ATI HD4830 512mb DDR3.... just last week... that coupled with the affinaty settings leaves me with a smooth and flawlesss sim, no matter if there are 4 sharks kickin up dust, or a B1 B carpet bombing in that same area. Hope that helps.

 

5200+ 2.6GHZ

AM2 64x2 Dual Core

6GB DDR2 800Mhz ram

HD4830 512 DDR3 vid card "set to optimal Quality"

Sata H Drive

 

Perfect timing! No need for alt-tab

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=39261

 

(it does work perfectly in 32bit system! though not in XP compared to Vista)

[EtherealN]

r-unit, it is entirely possible that the reason you were helped by your graphics card upgrade was that you had only 256MB VRAM on your old card. I am uncertain of where exactly things would bottleneck for DCS, but with my 9800GTX+ (which is basically an 8800 on a smaller die and higher clock if I recall correctly) with 512MB I get absolutely nothing from overclocking the GPU. I will detect one or two FPS here or there in DCS but that's well within error margin - and if it was the GPU that was bottlenecking the system the performance changes should at least be close to proportional to the overclock. (You never get quite proportional due to the law of diminishing returns and of course that you might be getting components in a slightly imperfect sync for their load.)

 

Basically, a new video card will help if it is the bottlenecking component.

 

An 8800 should not be a bottleneck and people who have used it and changed to 280's and such have had zero benefit.

 

Also, Skypat, if you go the route for a new CPU, I definitely recommend that you opt for a dual-core, not a quad-core. DCS will not get much additional benefit from the third and fourth cores and the quad line of processors are running at a much lower clock rating. I strongly suspect that an dualcore at 3GHz will outperform a quadcore at 2.3GHz. The quadcores ARE available at 3GHz but things are then getting quite expensive, whereas an overclocked dual-core is very very cheap. Even with one of the more expensive (air) cooling solutions I could find my CPU + cooling ran in at less than 300 euros when I bought it, and that was before the i7 came and made Intel review it's pricing policies.

 

And finally, verify that your motherboard has the utilities for overclocking before you do it. Also make sure to read some articles on the subject, this one is a good starting point: http://techreport.com/articles.x/13815

 

Find some more, absolute best would be some overclocking site reviewing your motherboard, those articles might be able to clue you in on specific areas of wonkiness in your motherboard.

 

Lastly, do realize that overclocking is likely to void warranties and you can break stuff. It's not entirely likely that you'll break stuff since the computer will usually just shut down when things aren't in proper order, but if you are not really careful it can happen.

[EtherealN]

Personally I prefer never to overclock a CPU, reduces the life of the CPU. Just a personal preference. If i want a faster CPU i will buy the one i want :)

 

Thanks Mithandra

 

While true that it does lower it's life, you'll still get a good couple of years from it until such a time as you want a new machine anyway. One just has to make sure to keep the temperature nominal. My E8500 running at 4GHz sits happily around 50 degrees C and I have allowed it to stay there even though it probably has more to give if I tweak the voltage. (I achieved those 4GHz without changing any voltage in the machine, not vcore nor anything on the memory controllers or buses.)

[Slayer]

I upgraded for SLI 8800 GTX 768 MB's to a GTX 295 and only get a few FPS better if any. I wish they would do more to push this game towards GPU processing instead of being so heavily CPU dependant :/

 

If you play other games though then don't base your purchasing decisions on just this game at it's current state. You will definately get better FPS in other games an they are working on updrading this games engine so who knows what the next few years may bring..

[TheMoose]

I went from an Nvidia 8800GTS to a 280GTX. Although DCS/LO is more CPU limited. I seen a major improvement overall, especially if you run at high resolution with AA and AF enable. But the advantages are not limited to DCS. Dramatic improvement in games like Crysis and GTA4. If you can spare the money, I would say go for it. I did and I’m very satisfied with my 550$CA video card upgrade. :D

 

But the difference in my case might be more related on the RAM; my 8800GTS only had 320Meg of ram, lol

Edited March 12, 2009 by TheMoose

[AlphaInfinity]

There is no need for a 500 dollar video card if you are just playing Black Shark. If you play other games like Crysis or Supreme commander(multithreaded apps) then I guess spend what you can spend. I have the 192 260 on my system and I posted some screenshots showing that my box achieves 40-60 FPS at a very high resolution with all details on high except water with the SIMMOD textures. As we have all know, water on high seems to drop the FPS by 50% for some reason. The OS shows about 13% CPU aggregate utilization across all 8 "logical" CPU's detected by the operating system. If I had a lower end system, my choice would be a processor upgrade before a video card for this game. I posted some screenshots in another thread but I will post them here too:

 

 

 

 

Edited March 13, 2009 by AlphaInfinity

[TheMoose]

Well I do play Crysis... But looking at your screenshots, although nice they are. Humm jagged edges. I hate that... Can't your rig afford / handle AA? ;)

Edited March 13, 2009 by TheMoose

[EtherealN]

Well, depending on size of screen and distance to chair, those pixels might be crammed together so tight that the jaggedness is impossible to see. :P

 

Other than, totally agreed, I don't mind sacrificing a couple FPS to get rid of the jags.